Week 12- Women in Comics

This week, I read Pink by Kyoko Okazaki, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi, and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris.

So many comics are either made by or focus on men, so it's refreshing to read more works by women. These three works, in particular, have an honesty that feels somewhat lacking in comics made by men (of course this isn't universal). These comics, especially Lesbian, are very emotionally open and personal, in a way that even a masterpiece like Asterios Polyp isn't exactly. They feel like cartoonists pouring their hearts out to the reader with all their blemishes. Even though Pink and Monsters aren't strictly autobiographical, it still feels like they are rooted in Okazaki and Ferris's feelings and/or experiences. Of course, Lesbian is an extremely honest and egoless look into Nagata Kabi's life and psychology. It almost feels like a comic diary in that its art mainly acts as a supplement to the text; it visualizes the events and feelings that Kabi tells the reader about.
Something I found interesting about Pink and Lesbian was how open they were about sex. A lot of the time in comics, sex is this taboo thing and when it’s depicted, especially in Western comics, it’s treated like some big deal in an almost juvenile way. However, Kabi and Okazaki talk about sex in a more mature way. These two cartoonists are making works for adults, so they don’t feel the need to talk down to the reader about the subject matter. Sex is a part of our world, so why should they shy away from it? Kabi explores a lot of the psychology behind her feelings on sex and talks about some of the fear that comes with it without making sex seem like this forbidden knowledge. As a matter of fact, Lesbian touches on how society doesn’t talk about sex in a healthy way and just makes things harder for people.
Women provide a much-needed perspective in comics. These three works are extremely open and shameless (in a good way) looks into their respective artists that you don’t tend to find as often in comics written by men. They are doing their part in pushing the medium of comics forward and prove that women can make comics as good, if not better, than men can.