Trina Robbins tells how she fought misogyny in comics, which is still a problem in many ways
Trina Robbins, the comics artist who co-created Vampirella with Forest Ackerman in 1969 and the first lady to illustrate Wonder Woman, spoke to Moneyish about her own battle with misogyny in underground comics, if anywhere. The point she makes is worth consideration:
Once, obscene violence offensive to sex abuse victims might've been relegated to the underground scene, but as the mid-2000s proved, it found its way into the mainstream, by ways of men who've yet to apologize for it.
Underground comic icon Trina Robbins, credited as both the first woman to draw Wonder Woman in her own series and the first creator to feature an out lesbian protagonist, once had to explain to her male contemporaries that rape and murder weren’t funny.The apologists for Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis would do well to listen to her point. Because even today, there's a certain segment of audience that doesn't seem to see it either, in mainstream, where it turned up in that very miniseries in the form of anal rape, and I vaguely remember there were cybertrolls online who made jokes about the topic, completely refusing to recognize it's not funny.
“The first thing I did was complain about the misogyny in underground comics … It seemed as though no one else saw it,” the 79-year-old comic historian told Moneyish. “The (phrase) ‘rape culture’ didn’t exist in our dictionaries in those days.”
Once, obscene violence offensive to sex abuse victims might've been relegated to the underground scene, but as the mid-2000s proved, it found its way into the mainstream, by ways of men who've yet to apologize for it.
Labels: good artists, misogyny and racism, violence
