Category: Webcomics

Trisha’s Take: How to depict female characters in webcomics

Who says feminism and genre works can't be fun and forward-thinking? © Danielle Henderson
Who says feminism and genre works can’t be fun and forward-thinking? © Danielle Henderson

At this most recent CONvergence Con (a sci-fi/fantasy-based convention in Minneapolis, Minn.), I was one of the panelists on two different panels that sought to speak about where and how women can exist in formerly male-dominated genres and spaces.

In The Smurfette Principle in Marketing panel, we tackled the idea that there isn’t often a lot of merchandise available for girls and women because there is often only one woman or girl in a group of men or boys in any given genre show, book, or movie. In the Genre Feminism panel, we spoke about why it was important to increase the visibility of women or girls in a genre show, book, or movie (along with other visible minorities as well) and how people as creators and consumers can promote these ideas.

Specifically to creators, I talked about Geena Davis (whose name I couldn’t remember at the time; apologies, Ms. Davis!) and how back in December 2013, she wrote a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter about how easy it can be for screenwriters to increase the number of roles in film and on TV for women and girls:

Step 1: Go through the projects you’re already working on and change a bunch of the characters’ first names to women’s names. With one stroke you’ve created some colorful unstereotypical female characters that might turn out to be even more interesting now that they’ve had a gender switch. What if the plumber or pilot or construction foreman is a woman? What if the taxi driver or the scheming politician is a woman? What if both police officers that arrive on the scene are women — and it’s not a big deal?

Step 2: When describing a crowd scene, write in the script, “A crowd gathers, which is half female.” That may seem weird, but I promise you, somehow or other on the set that day the crowd will turn out to be 17 percent female otherwise. Maybe first ADs think women don’t gather, I don’t know.

It’s not often that I get to see the fruits of efforts like these so soon after I talk about them, and from a formerly problematic source as well.

Anyone who’s read this blog for any period of time knows I have a love/hate relationship with Penny Arcade creator Mike Krahulik. On one hand, he’s an intensely creative individual who helped pioneer innovations in cartooning, comics, and the marketing thereof. On the other hand, he’s a self-proclaimed asshole who has a lot to learn.

I’m quite pleased to be able to say that after the most recent iteration of the Dickwolves Debacle, the same Mike Krahulik who felt compelled to make a $20,000 donation to the Trevor Project after he made some uneducated remarks about transpeople seems to be also leveling up when it comes to how he depicts characters who aren’t like him in his art.

Recently, Penny Arcade debuted another one of their “one-page worlds.” This one is called Nightlight, and it’s about a first-time father who is told by an Ancient Keeper-type that now that he’s become a parent, he must definitely kill any monsters he finds under his child’s bed.

In his news post for the strip, Krahulik talked about the genesis for the world, but was quick to add: “We’re focusing on Dad’s specifically but honestly the role of a home’s monster hunter can fall to anyone really. I kinda want to meet that big sister.”

Child’s Play community manager Jamie Dillon followed up in the comments to the comic by saying: “We just had a long neat chat about it at lunch, and the world is so cool. Single moms, grandparents, siblings — whomever is the protector of the house is the one who can see the monsters and fight them. I’ll let the guys share other details as they want, but it’s not exclusive to dads.”

But perhaps even better is the news post from Monday, showing that not only are they going to do a longer-form story in this universe, but that Krahulik is taking the time to accurately depict the young girl who will be in this story:

A big sister protects her little brother from the monsters under his bed. © Penny Arcade / Click to embiggen!
Grace protects her little brother from the monsters under his bed. © Penny Arcade / Click to embiggen!

I wanted Grace to feel authentic. I wanted her to be a real little girl and I have zero experience with little girls. I have two boys of my own and more often than not my house is packed with 10 year old boys. Tycho gave me a hard time when I told him about all my Google searching. “They just wear shoes” like everyone else he told me. I know that girls wear shoes…what I don’t know is what kind of shoes Grace wears. Does she wear flip flops? Boots with tights? I don’t know what kinds of outfits she wears. Is she a hoodie and jeans girl or does she like skirts and dresses? I don’t know how she likes to comb her hair or if she wears any jewelry.

The fact that he’s doing this research and thinking this deeply about this character is awesome. In addition to his own spouse as a resource for what young girls are like, he’s also got the experiences of Dillon and Child’s Play project manager Kristin Lindsay, as well as any of the other PA staffers who have female children or nieces or cousins or siblings. He’d be foolish not to tap their resources and experiences.

It’s a little thing, but it’s a start. At the end of this month, I can’t wait to see what kind of Home Protector Grace is for her little brother.

Trisha’s Link of the Day: “Zufruh” by Ryan Sohmer and Anna-Marie Jung

Sometimes a great idea doesn't make for a great webcomic. © Ryan Sohmer and Anna-Maria Jung
Sometimes a great idea doesn’t make for a great webcomic. © Ryan Sohmer and Anna-Maria Jung/Blind Ferret Entertainment

I don’t know how many people here read Ryan Sohmer’s edgy/adult-ish webcomic “Least I Could Do,” but it’s been one of my daily reads since I was introduced to it by my friend Harris O’Malley (aka Dr. Nerdlove). Also, after discovering the Vlogbrothers and posting about their very first webseries “Brotherhood 2.0,” I became a huge fan of theirs as well.

Back in 2007, the Vlogbrothers and their audience came up with the concept of the “evil baby orphanage,” which was their solution to the “If you could go back in time to kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it?” question. They thought that the more ideal situation would be to time-travel to when the most evil humans in history were children, take them away from the circumstances in which they became evil, and raise them in an orphanage to be good and responsible citizens. This idea caught on so well with the Nerdfighter community that with the Vlogbrothers’ blessing, an indie game company called Wyrd Miniatures was able to successfully Kick and start a card game.

In a weird synergistic sort of way, Sohmer also had an idea regarding evil babies and decided to create a webcomic and raise funds for it using the extremely new Patreon platform:

“Zufruh” answers the question: What happens when you take the most evil men and women in history and place them in a daycare as toddlers?

It’s a strip I’m doing with Anna-Maria Jung, and I decided to do something a little fun with it, and put it up on Patreon. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Patreon is a subscription based system that lets you pay as little as a buck a month, giving you access to the comics as we produce them.

How much we update, if we create this at all, is up to you. If not, it goes back into the vault.

I liked the concept of the “Evil Baby Orphanage/Daycare” as a thought experiment from the Vlogbrothers, and I liked it enough as a card game to back the Kickstarter. However, judging from the sample comic above (which was the thumbnail image you get if you paste Sohmer’s Patreon link into Facebook), I’m not sure if I like it as a webcomic. (Or at least a webcomic written by Ryan Sohmer.) I’d have to see more before I decide if I’d add it into my blogroll, but I don’t think I’d become a Patreon of his in order to do so.

The video on his Patreon site—though slickly produced—has even less information:

Other questions I have are “Why is it called ‘Zuhfruh’?” and “Why did you decide to include the gay pride logo into yours if one of the main characters was known in his adult incarnation for sending thousands of gays and lesbians to concentration camps?”

Thoughts?

Trisha’s Take: The next step in fixing the “Mike Krahulik Problem” at Penny Arcade

My reaction when I feel backed into corner is to be an asshole. It’s essentially how I defend myself. It’s been that way since was in elementary school. I’m 36 now. Maybe it’s finally time to try and let some of that shit go.
—Mike Krahulik, explaining how he reacts to criticism on Twitter.


When I first heard that Penny Arcade creator and artist Mike Krahulik had stated at the recent PAX Prime during a Q & A panel led by president Robert Khoo that it was a “mistake” for them to pull the “Team Dickwolves” T-shirts from their store, I was shocked, but not surprised.

If you haven’t seen the remarks in context yet, press play on the video below, fast-forwarding to about 22:09 minutes in:

Khoo has just asked founders/creators Krahulik and co-founder/writer Jerry Holkins if there were any mistakes that they think that Khoo has made as their business manager. Here’s a transcript of Krahulik’s prompt, out-of-the gate reply:

Mike Krahulik: You know that I don’t hold grudges. I can be incredibly mad, and then fine the next minute as long as I get it out. And I feel like we got this out, so I’m not mad about it anymore. But I think that pulling the Dickwolves merchandise was a mistake.
[Loud applause, with some hoots and hollers]
Robert Khoo: Clearly had I known the following steps that would follow after that move, I would have never brought it up to you. Of course I wouldn’t have because I did not know— I don’t want to say, “Alright, well… because of this, this happened, and people said this, I said this, you said that….” Clearly it would have been better to just be like to not say anything, and that’s sort of our policy on all these types of things now.
Krahulik: Now, yeah.
Khoo: Whereas it’s just better not to engage, and in fact pulling it was a way of engaging.
[Mike expresses agreement]
Random Audience Member: Bring it back!
Khoo: No, that’s a terrible idea.

In all the interviews I’ve seen of Robert Khoo, all the “Khoo & A” footage I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this incoherent when it comes to an explanation for a business decision; Khoo clarified later to Kotaku what he meant:

It wasn’t meant to be a comment supporting rape or sexual assault, but rather one about censorship and the shirt-pulling pouring gasoline on a sensitive discussion. I know we did a poor job of elaborating on that on stage, and as the guy moving the discussion along at the Q&A, I’m really sorry for that.

With that bit of clarification, if one was being generous, they could argue that Krahulik meant that continuing to keep the Dickwolf Debacle current in the public eye by removing the merchandise so publicly was an ignominious capper to a poorly handled reaction. However, what is and has been infuriating to so many people is that what they wanted to hear Krahulik—or anyone at Penny Arcade, really—say was that making the merchandise to begin with was the mistake, as was their somewhat condescending response to the critics of the original comic.

The Mike Krahulik who wrote, “I also plan to keep interacting with people on a personal level and I understand that will be an ongoing process”? They want to hear more from that guy, because he seems to be learning a lot about how the world outside his personal view works. After all, that same guy had never played D&D before, and then when he had a chance to learn about it, he created wacky, fun, and imaginative sessions for his own sessions as a Dungeon Master. Think about how much more awesome things could come out of his continued education about things he’s never experienced or known about before.

Having seen the entire interview, too, I found something else that’s rather fascinating. Starting from the Dickwolves Debacle and proceeding from there, it appears as if there may have been an evolution in the thought processes going on within Mike Krahulik.

Witness this exchange near the very beginning of the interview:

Khoo: I want to know about money. Money and success. We’ve done pretty well for ourselves, and know that for instance that Jerry loves to save a lot of money…
[Mike laughs]
Khoo: And I know that Michael loves to spend it.
[More laughter, from audience and Mike]
Krahulik: [nervous laughter] Okay…
Khoo: Like I said, these are questions that only I could really ask you guys.
Krahulik: Yeah, if someone else asked me that, I would tell them to fuck off.

In this context, it’s clear that Krahulik knows that some of his habits could be seen as socially inappropriate. Towards the end of the interview, he even addresses his habit of trolling people and the trouble that has come out as a result:

Krahulik: The only thing I guess I can see going forward that could cause conflict between us [as business partners] is probably the stuff that has done it before, which is me not being able to keep my mouth shut. I’m trying very hard to be better about that. And the most recent incident has most definitely taught me some lessons…
Holkins: [Interrupting] About my mouth…
Krahulik: [Overlapping] About my mouth…
Holkins: How big it is—
Krahulik: How it should be opened or closed, when and where it’s okay to say the things that I think. When I do things or say things that hurt not just me but 14 other people who rely on Penny Arcade for their livelihood because I say something dumb to make somebody mad, that I can see possibly happening again. I hope it doesn’t, but I know who I am.

At the same time, it doesn’t seem like Krahulik wants to take any further responsibility towards making any changes in himself for the positive, as seen in this response to a question about his status as a role model for young cartoonists:

Krahulik: Penny Arcade has gotten so big that we could never be what everybody wants us to be.

While I agree with the sentiment that we as an audience could never expect Penny Arcade or its creators to be perfectly representative or reflective of our own voices and views, at the same time, it’s disingenuous for them to refuse to acknowledge that the same behavior that helped them become a success is beginning to be a detriment.

When it comes to “fixing” this problem of theirs, it seems to me that in addition choosing not to engage hyperbolic critics via Twitter or any other social media when people have reactions to things he says or does, in addition to continuing to try and learn more about why people are enraged by things he says or does, in addition to the medications he’s taking for his anxiety and compulsions, Krahulik might be able to adjust or attune his instincts towards instant rage and/or inappropriate remarks through talk therapy. He might be able to better understand why he becomes instantly defensive, and how to better communicate his hurt emotions so that rather than fostering resentment, he is able to create a space of mutual understanding.

This is something that’s helped me out a lot; I hope it would be able to help him, too. If not for himself, then I think that he really needs to address this before his sons grow up to be the same kind of young men that he used to be by modeling his own behavior.

Alternately, they could do what was hinted at (in jest) near the beginning of the panel, helpfully re-created by myself:

Oh, if only.

Update: Mike Krahulik clarified his position in this post:

So let me start by saying I like the Dickwolves strip. I think it’s a strong comic and I still think the joke is funny. Would we make that strip today? Knowing what we know now and seeing how it hurt people, no. We wouldn’t. But at the time, it seemed pretty benign. With that said I absolutely regret everything we did after that comic. I regret the follow up strip, I regret making the merchandise, I regret pulling the merchandise and I regret being such an asshole on twitter to people who were upset. [emphasis mine]

and

Everything we did after that initial comic strip was a mistake and I regret all of it.

Attaboy, Mike.

Trisha’s Link of the Day: “The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage”

If you were to ask me where you could find a webcomic which tells the tale of Charles Babbage’s self-proclaimed war against street musicians, I wouldn’t have had any recommendations for you… until now.

The Organist part 1 (c) Sydney Padua // Click to enlarge
The Organist part 1 (c) Sydney Padua // Click to enlarge

With its tongue lodged firmly within its cheek, I present to you this short story arc out of “2D Goggles or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage,” lovingly entitled “The Organist” by Canadian illustrator Sydney Padua.

Much thanks to Jane Irwin and her comic Clockwork Game for the hat tip.