Blockade Running
Most of the main characters in this comic are female. Why? Why not. If they were all male, no-one would bat an eye at it. That would seem downright mundane. Make most of them female, though, and it seems like something has to be going on. Is the author making a point about female empowerment? Is he counting on female characters being more popular than male ones? Does he get his kicks from drawing cartoon boobies?
The truth is, I just decided that for the duration of this story any character whose gender isn’t predetermined would be female. I guess you could say that I’m deconstructing the idea that “male” is the default state of characters and “female” is some kind of special attribute. Did you ever notice in comics how the male cartoon animals will be drawn plainly, but the female animals will have markers of their femininity such as ribbons or bushy eyelashes? Furry comics are, of course, excepted.
I really don’t like the way female characters are often handled in comic books. I really don’t. So, I certainly hope that the characters I create here are ones that both women and men can appreciate. If I run afoul of this, I give my sister full permission to kick my ass. Not that she needed permission…
Tomorrow I’ll be talking about men. Specifically, sexy men. No, this is not part of a drive to market my comic to women.
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