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The summer I was eleven years old I went away to summer camp with
a stack of Archie comics. I would like on my bunk bed, snuggled up in my sleeping
bag, and read about Betty and Veronica bathing at the beach, prancing
about in polka-dot bikinis, and fending off boys. Within the year
I discovered Sassy magazine and the erotic books beneath my sister's
bed, and left Betty and Veronica behind for good. Instead I read
Sassy's fashion spreads on dresses-over-jeans, combat boots, and
punk rock hair dye. In the evenings, I read my sister's smut and
learned about oral sex, masturbation, hymens, and fetishes. Archie
and Betty and Veronica were devoid of the prurient details that
I craved as a teenage girl. It took almost a decade until I discovered
that comic books can be feminist and sexy.
For most women, the Archie series may have been the first and
only introduction to the world of comics. Comic book shops are
generally bastions of acne-infused boys and their festering hormones.
Persuading stores to carry women's comic books can be a battle.
"Women don't buy comics," is the frequently used excuse for not
stocking them. Of course, if women's comics are not stocked or
promoted, then women are obviously not going to purchase them.
Navigating the typical comic book store, complete with trolls,
trivia fiends, teenage boys, and two-dimensional gigantic tits,
is intimidating for those lacking an X chromosome. It's rare to
find a store that carries many, or any, comics by women or independent
publishers. The marvel of generic superheroes carries limited
excitement for females who don't identify with damsels in distress
or submissive secretaries. Yet, the underground comics are full
of talented feminist cartoonists.
On a dreary, damp day traveling through the city of Baltimore
and drinking high-voltage coffee, I was in search of quality reading
material. I found Atomic Books, a colorful store in a classic
brick building, packed with hundreds of underground comics, zines,
graphic novels, and books. It's a literary candy store for intellectual
hipsters and mod nerds. Stocked with feminist and independent
publications, Atomic Books is a zine girl's paradise. Basking
in the literary frenzy, I started piling up the comics and zines.
Wandering over to the erotica and porn section I noticed the distinctively
welcoming display. The adult magazines, comics, books, and zines
were exhibited on colorful shelves by a large bright window. I
rejoiced that it wasn't the back corner, filled with dusty cardboard
boxes and a frightening "Adults Only" sign scribbled with permanent
marker. I happily browsed through books by Annie Sprinkle and
Susie Bright, and flipped through a black and white photocopied
zine regarding strap-on's. Then a flash of bubble gum pink and
sunshine yellow caught my eye.
The brightly colored comic book cover had three pretty girls in
heart shaped windows. Reminiscent of romance comics, but with
the artistic style of Action Girl, I wondered if it was in the wrong section. Then I read the subtitle,
"Girly Porno Comic Book." I had found Small Favors by Colleen Coover. I eagerly snatched it up, and claimed the
previous four issues from the back stock as well.
"Pretty girls make people happy," writes Colleen Coover on the
front page of her girly porno comic book. Its girl-power comics
sprinkled liberally with dildos, whips, and cunnilingus. Small Favors is filled with the adventures of Annie, who's used up her lifetime
allotment of masturbation, and Nibbil, the sexy size-changing
guardian assigned by the Queen of Annie's Conscious. The result
is feminist and funny; it's ultra-cute comic book porn for girly
girls. Colleen writes that the response to Small Favors has been "overwhelmingly positive" because it appeals not only
to "lesbian and bisexual women, but to straight men, gay men,
bi men, straight women, and couples, as well".
The underground comics industry has been a fraternity since it's
early existence. Even in the 1940's when girls read millions of
comics--far more than read by boys, female cartoonists were scarce
in the industry. Most people would be hard pressed to name a woman
cartoonist from between 1900 to 1950, yet they did exist. After
the 50's, the comic book industry slumped, romance comics declined
in popularity and publication, and Marvel and DC Comics heavily
pushed male-oriented superhero action comics.
The few romance comics that were printed between 1960 and 1977,
targeted toward girls, did not adequately reflect the influence
of the freethinking 60's and 70's, nor were they empowering in
any significant way. With second wave feminism, women cartoonists
began self-publishing and doing for themselves what the comic
industry was lacking in providing: a real (and strong) female
perspective.
It Ain't Me, Babe premiered in 1970, championing women's liberation, as the first
all women comic book. The realm of feminist underground comics
continued to grow and by 1973 women's underground comics were
pervasive and proud. Tits and Clits, Pandora's Box, Wimmen's Comix, Abortion Eve, and
Come Out Comix were among the first and strongest of the feminist publications.
Similar to their male cronies, women cartoonists were sexually
outspoken, though, instead of tits and ass, women's comics discussed
menstruation, vibrators, abortions, lesbianism, and sexual politics.
Trina Robbins, in From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Women's Comics from Teens to
Zines, discussed her 1976 attempt to create an anthology of women's
comics about sex. The result Wet Satin, subtitled "Women's Erotic Fantasies" was too real and pornographic
for publishers--though male-oriented erotic comics were plentiful
and selling fast. The battle to print the comic was too difficult
and it only survived two issues.
T&A is definitely what comes to mind when thinking of the popular
underground and erotic comics of the 60's and 70's. R. Crumb was
famous for his thick-legged ladies with big butts and hard hamstrings.
However, his misogynistic and racist comics were definitively
created for one audience: straight white men. Crumb did take the
erotic comic book genre into new avenues; he showed that porno
comics didn't have to be simply satirical pop culture pap but
could be a venue for social and political deconstruction. R. Crumb
and S. Clay Wilson inspired an entire genre of male-oriented pornographic
comics. By the 1980's erotic comics were a popular and growing
market. Eros Comix was created as a spin-off of Fantagraphics,
to sell exclusively porn and erotic comics. Other companies quickly
followed suit.
The "smut glut" of the underground comic industry erupted in 1990.
Male-oriented pornographic comics flooded the market. In Naughty Bits #2, Roberta Gregory published a scathing piece called "Penetrating
the Smut Glut". A female presenter dissects the erotic comic book
industry and encourages the women listeners to turn to lesbianism
instead of frolic with men who read such misogynistic comics.
The presenter divides the "smut glut" into various categories
and genres: "Gorgeous Babes Who Can't Wait to Fuck Guys Even Uglier
Than You," "Twisted Notions of What Hetero Males Have of What
Women Do With Each Other," "Gorgeous Dicks, Ugly Chicks," "Boobsalot,"
and "What’s the Abuse." Gratuitous cum-shots, submissive and humiliated
women, and breasts, apparently diseased with inflammatory elephantiasis,
fill the pages of the male porn comics.
In 1991, Artistic Licentiousness was Gregory's attempt to offset the male-oriented "smut glut"
of misogynistic comic pornos. She was the first woman cartoonist
to create a full-length erotic comic book. With issue #2, Roberta
was self-publishing the series herself and the focus transitioned
from gratuitous sex to real life human relationships. Roberta
Gregory writes that the overwhelming response from readers, men
and women, is how refreshing it is to hear the female perspective
on sex.
Mary Fleener, creator of Slutburger and Nipplez 'n' Tum Tum, Julie Doucet, creator of Dirty Plotte, and Aline Kominsky-Crumb all joined Roberta Gregory in the forefront
of women cartoonists writing and drawing frankly about life and
sex from a female perspective. The Adventures of A Lesbian College Schoolgirl by Petra Waldron and Jennifer Finch was published; one of the
comics to inspire Small Favor's artist Colleen Coover. Feminist erotic comics slowly penetrated
the erotic comic book industry.
Molly Kiely's comics and graphic novels, Diary of a Dominatrix, Saucy Little Tart, Tecopa Jane, That Kind
of Girl, and On Your Knees Boy, are beautifully rendered and filled with captivating stories.
Her female protagonists are confident, intelligent, luscious,
and independent. In That Kind of Girl, her female lead conquers the desert and the road while falling
in love with a wild cowgirl, having a tryst with a hipster boy
and a desert traveler, and revisiting her ex-boyfriend. While
the story is sexy and explicit, the female lead is strong and
smart, making her own choices with style. Through their comics,
Kiely, Gregory, Doucet, and Fleener were reclaiming derogatory
words about women's sexuality, such as bitch, slut, tart, and
plotte (French Canadian slang for women's genitalia).
Sandra Chang combines her love of heavy metal, S&M, and fantasy
in her series Sheedeva and Akemi. For girls who liked She-Ra, the Princess of Power, Chang's work is a grown-up version of these hard-bodied fantasies.
While working in a typically male-oriented comic style, her work
is refreshing in it's decidedly feminist perspective. In the Chang's
S&M fantasy world women are always dominant, unless submissive
to another woman, or an eternal such as the hermaphrodite goddess
of erotica.
Women cartoonists see the creation of feminist porn comics as
a service to sexual relationships. Roberta Gregory writes that,
"Sex comics [are] designed for men and male sensibilities, but
often women are involved in relationships with them, so changing
their attitudes can have positive ramifications for women everywhere."
Colleen Coover similarly comments, "One of the saddest fates of
porn is that it so often is kept a secret form the user's partner.
There's nothing wrong with using it to get off on your own, of
course, but isn't it nice to be able to share it with your lover?"
Creating lesbian erotica for lesbians, instead of for homophobic
men who fetishize lesbianism, is a further contribution of feminist
comics.
Women cartoonists have found an outlet for their sexual and erotic
voices in the last decade. Comics are a remarkable art form in
which the laws of physics, hygiene, biology, and society can all
be broken and twisted, and the story can be conveyed through the
dynamic combination of words and illustrations. No longer are
feminist comics about sex considered scary and too pornographic
for erotic publishers. Instead numerous women cartoonists are
adding their illustrations and anecdotes to the array. Finally,
reading comics is sassy and sexy again, and sex-positive women
don't need to stop buying comics after Betty and Veronica become
too chaste.
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