10 Women Shaking Up Comics
If you hadn’t noticed, comics are having a bit of a moment. Deadpool broke box office records in spite of its R rating, and Marvel and DC continue to expand their vast movie franchises with no signs of stopping. Meanwhile, sales of print and digital comics have risen over the last few years and have started to draw more serious attention and recognition — the Ms. Marvel series just won the Angoulême International Comics Festival award this year.
Women have always been doing comics. But they haven’t always gotten the same opportunities or recognition as men have. So, while it's still Women’s History Month, here are a few of the lady folks doing exciting stuff in the comics world!
1. Kelly Sue DeConnick
Start With: Bitch Planet
Kelly Sue DeConnick is almost too obvious a choice for a list like this. The powerhouse behind the reboot of Captain Marvel (featuring Carol Danvers, former Ms. Marvel), she has also written the Avengers (Avengers Assemble), a western starring the daughter of Death (Pretty Deadly), and Bitch Planet, a satire of the genre of exploitation movies. DeConnick is a powerful personality, too, naming the “Sexy Lamp Test” (“So, there’s the Bechdel test. I’ve got another test that works just as well. The Sexy Lamp test. If you can take out a female character and replace her with a sexy lamp, you’re a f***king hack.”). Her work on Bitch Planet is some of her best, skewering the patriarchy in her depiction of a dystopic future ruled by men, where “noncompliant” women are sent to a prison planet.
2. G. Willow Wilson
Start With: Ms. Marvel
G. Willow Wilson has been around for a while — she wrote the graphic novel Cairo in 2007 and Air in 2010. When she really started to get noticed, though, was with the new Ms. Marvel series, starring Kamala, a Pakistani-American girl who gains superpowers and takes on the Ms. Marvel name in imitation of her idol, Carol Danvers. The lively comic frequently dwells on the challenge of Kamala’s negotiating her superhero adventures with school, her social life, and her family’s expectations, never veering into stereotypes but making clear how important family and tradition are to Kamala.
3. Fiona Staples
Start With: Saga
Because artists deserve credit too, and Fiona Staples’ art is one of the many incredible things about the Saga series, which follows the adventures of a mismatched family just attempting to be together in a galaxy wracked by war. Themes of love and family abound, and Staples’ rich colors and vivid illustrations are equally suited to expressive faces and panoramic illustration. Her art is utterly unique, and she has garnered many accolades for her work, including six Eisner awards.
4. Marguerite Bennett
Start With: DC Bombshells
Perhaps one of the busiest writers right now, Marguerite Bennett is working on multiple titles including A-Force (Marvel), Red Sonja (Dynamite), and Butterfly (Boom! Studios), as well as the above DC Bombshells. The series is based in an alternate universe and involves versions of DC’s biggest heroines joining the war effort during World War II — but not just against familiar enemies, as the villainous Joker’s Daughter schemes to raise the dead and bring the cosmic horror Tenebrae into the world.
5. Noelle Stevenson
Start With: Nimona
Noelle Stevenson is a young star on the rise. Beginning with writing comics online (including the hilarious Broship of the Rings series, reimagining Tolkien’s characters as modern day hipsters), she recently published her comic Nimona with HarperCollins. A short and delightful series about the “villain” Lord Blackheart, who finds himself unexpectedly joined by an extremely enthusiastic sidekick who may not be what she seems. Stevenson also worked on Runaways for Marvel, and was a contributor for the Lumberjanes series, an equally fun comic for all ages that recalls the best days of summer camp — but with more shapeshifting bears and unexpected dinosaurs.
6. Emily Carroll
Start With: Through the Woods
Another writer/artist who got her start with webcomics, Emily Carroll’s collection of five creepy stories is gorgeously illustrated with dark and eerie art. Her work evokes the best of dark fairytale traditions and will give you the delightful shivers of campfire storytelling. Thus far, this is her only work released in book form, but we’re hoping to see more.
7. Marjorie Liu
Start With: Black Widow: Name of the Rose
While Black Widow’s profile has risen in recent years, she has an upsetting shortage of truly good comics to her name. Marjorie Liu’s remains one of the best. She writes the character sensitively and full of humanity, ruthless but compassionate, determined and loyal. She breathes life into a character frequently flattened to a trope. A bonus mention of the currently ongoing series Monstress, a dark and intense series following a young woman seeking her mother in a war torn country.
8. Kate Beaton
Start With: Hark! A Vagrant
Kate Beaton, another webcomic artist who’s transitioned to print, continuously writes and draws hilarious comics about subjects ranging from literature to little-known historical figures. She works in a cartoon strip-like style, with humor that is both witty and absurd. If you haven’t been following Kate Beaton, now’s a good time to start.
9. Becky Cloonan
Start With: Southern Cross
Becky Cloonan enjoyed the distinction recently of being the first woman to draw a main Batman title, but she’s been doing great work for years. Her best known work is the twelve-issue series Demo, but the more recent Southern Cross is also fantastic. A blend of mystery and weird fiction, it is about a woman trying to solve the mystery of her sister’s death on a distant moon.
10. Phoebe Gloeckner
Start With: Diary of a Teenage Girl
Diary of a Teenage Girl, Gloeckner’s semi-autobiographical hybrid of prose and graphic novel styles was recently adapted into a movie. It is a uniquely raw and intense look into the life of a teenage girl, obsessively writing in her diary after she loses her virginity to her mother’s boyfriend. Minnie, the teenage girl of the title, grapples with sexuality and love as she comes of age. Published in 2002, Gloeckner’s work takes the interior life of its protagonist seriously, delving deep into the angst and drama of growing up female in the United States.
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