Hi everyone!
I'm back today to talk about comic books and more specifically, about women who write comic books. In fact, I discovered few weeks ago an author called Emma who denounces gender inequality throught her comic books. So I studied the issue and I wanted to share with you my research.
With a turnover of 500 million euro in 2017, the market of comic books is doing very well in France. But did you know that women represent only 12% of comic books authors? However, more and more women are claiming their place in the comic books area and their place of women in the society in general.
Collective and controversy
"For 35 years, we were only 8. Now, we are more than 250 cartoonists". Jeanne Puchol, a comic books author, announces it frankly: women want no longer to play supporting roles in this sector dominated by men. In 2013, the author Lisa Mandel lauched the "Collective of comic books creators against sexism". Her charter, signed by more than 200 cartoonists, asked booksellers to not separate comic books written by women from those written by men.
Even the very prestigious comic books festival in Angoulême faced a controversy in 2016 with an exclusively male selection. Since then, we are slowly striving for an improvement: since 2017, the festival has changed its voting method by implementing parity in its selection committees. However, according to the Association of Comic Book Critics and Journalists, women cartoonists represent only 12%, while they are undoubtedly trying something new in the genre and while 53% of comic books are bought by women...
"The cheekies"
These comic books which are a hit have at heart to break the female clichés and change mentalities. Thus, the two volumes of Penelope Bagieu's comic books called The cheekies (Les Culottées in French) sold more than 250,000 copies. They have been translated into nine languages. First published on a blog hosted by the newspaper Le Monde, the author's drawings presenting portraits of extraordinary women won over a large audience. Penelope's drawings have inspired many women.
The author Emma has left her job as a computer scientist to deal with her blog and her drawings full time, thanks to the success of her publications on the Internet. The three volumes of her comic book are successfully selling. With her pencil stroke, she tackles subjects dear to women: the distribution of work within the couple, maternity, contraception… It's thanks to her illustrations on the mental load that she became known. Her Facebook post on the subject has been read, liked and shared hundreds of thousands of times.
An enabling environment
If feminist comic books are so popular today, it's also because they come at a time when readers are ready to receive them. Indeed in a context of the liberation of women's voice, feminist comic books have meaning for everyone.
A new readership calling for this kind of reading has emerged and continues to grow as scandals about sexual violence or gender inequality erupt. The fact that many plates are massively disseminated on social networks, even before their publication, contributes to amplify this movement of emancipation.
Do you know these cartoonists? Are you used to read comic books from women? Tell me everything in the comments!
Sources:
![About [span]me[/span]](https://zupimages.net/up/19/36/1g70.jpg)