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

Posted on 8 July 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

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 Quote for the Day: How Penny Arcade’s Robert Khoo is more evil than mastermind

Posted on 26 November 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

[You] know what’s … rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls. All while being motivated to do “tedious” work and manage his own projects while not caring about his work/life balance and being solely focused on the job.

That’s not a unicorn, it’s something more like a deity, and it doesn’t actually exist. There is no one out there who can realistically meet that job description. What they will get instead is a jack of all trades who has mastered very few or none of them, and who will have to scramble like crazy just to meet the base requirements of the job, let alone excel at them. You know why? Because as they readily admit, it’s a job that should require four people. You get what you pay for, guys.

and

You don’t want that job. There is no upside to taking it. You’ll be worked like a dog and paid like shit while you’re doing it, while Khoo, Krahulik, and Holkins continue cashing their trade show checks.

Robert Khoo is a brilliant businessman, and such businessmen excel by finding the sucker and exploiting him or her.

Don’t be that sucker.

—Web designer and writer Christopher Buecheler lays it out to the potential applicants for a job working at Penny Arcade.

When my husband first expressed his outrage over the job posting, I didn’t think too much of it; however, reading this, I understand his anger a little better. At the same time, however, I doubt that any of the people who currently have full-time jobs (like their first employee Mike Fehlauer or most recent new hire Jamie Dillon) there are being terribly exploited.

So, my advice to any and all of the applicants out there when if they’re called in to a final interview where they start talking salary is to ask what the top person is taking home, and then maybe increase that by 50% or so. Because for a web-based company, if your electronic infrastructure breaks down, you definitely don’t want to be underpaying the guy or gal you’ve hired to maintain it.

As a side note, wouldn’t it be ironic if stories from their current web and Internet infrastructure team started appearing in The Trenches?

How to win the “hearts and minds” of dickwolf-loving folks

Posted on 6 September 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

That was absolutely beautiful, and actually changed my mind about the Dickwolf shirts.

Internet confession: I was the one who yelled “bring them back”. I didn’t do it because I hate feminists. I didn’t do it because I hate women. I did it because I felt like those shirts were a justified “fuck you” to a section of humans that were rallying, unnecessarily, against a good joke. I didn’t know how wrong I was until right now.

Thanks for helping me straighten that out in my head.

—Penny Arcade fan Justin Winzey gains a level in Sensitivity, thanks to MC Frontalot. Read MC’s essay first, then scroll to read this comment.

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

Posted on 5 September 2013 by admin 2 Comments

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 Take: When feminism and male webcomics artists collide

Posted on 7 May 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

When it comes to reading webcomics, I have a set list of nine “dailies” I read and a few that I read which update less frequently. And while I’ve definitely settled on these few, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t read other webcomics or aren’t familiar with their work. Also, my love of comics and comics strips isn’t exactly a casual one; hell, my high school Extended Essay was about the role of women in comic books from the 1940s to the 1990s.

So when I saw a friend’s Facebook update decrying how Sinfest has become a den of “ludicrous feminist mediocrity,” I had to check out today’s strip:

I flipped through the previous two or three weeks of strips to see if there was any context for the strip, any lead-up, and I noticed that there were a few new characters I’d not seen before as well as a few large colored wordless strips which seemed to be part of a larger story. No “feminist mediocrity,” but perhaps some exaggerated examples of extreme feminist thought and behavior. And then I learned that Ishida has been drawing strips like those for over a year and a half, with very little explanation as to why, leading my friend to make that comment.

Another recent strip which got me thinking about feminism and webcomics was this April 24, 2013 strip for Penny Arcade:

Click to embiggen, though would you really want to? (c) Penny Arcade — Click to embiggen, though do you really need to do that? (c) 2013 Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins

Without context, it seemed to me that the comic was pointing out that emphasizing sexual characteristics is ludicrous for characters in video games and that there’s a double-standard when it comes to what is an acceptable amount of sexualization. Through the dialogue, it’s emphasizing that the female sorceress is more attractive to the Gabriel character to play because her secondary sexual characteristics are emphasized in proportion to her body whereas the male barbarian’s secondary sexual characteristics—and quite possibly his primary as well; I have no idea if that sling is containing nothing but an enormous scrotum or if it’s an enormous scrotum and penis—are not. Finally on the first read-through, the comic pointed out to me that there’s an inequality in what video game character designers find attractive versus who their audience will be, because I know that both women and men read Penny Arcade.

I gave my approval to the strip when I saw it first-thing that morning, and noted that I would have to return to the site later on in the day to get the context and a bit of commentary. As I wrote on Twitter, what I had hoped to read from writer Jerry Holkins was that they were starting to understand why some female gamers have a tough time being a part of the fandom and that they “gained some levels” in Feminist Theory.

Oh boy, I cannot wait to see the blog entry that will go along with this comic penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/04/… // Feminism, level up!

— Trisha Lynn (@trishalynn) April 24, 2013

Clearly, that was too much to hope for from the crew who mishandled the “dickwolves” saga, as seen by the news post that went out later that day. After first stating that the art being used to illustrate even the title image for Dragon’s Crown is so ornate as to render it incomprehensible, and that it just seems to be part of what developer Vanillaware does on a regular basis, Holkins goes on to write:

The only characters here who aren’t fucking mutants are the Elf and the Wizard, who are there to calibrate the player; everybody else is some fun-house exponent of strength or beauty stretched into some haunted sigil. Iconic isn’t even the word—they don’t evoke icons, they are icons. They’re humans as primal symbols.

It’s very weird to pull up a story about a game with frankly visionary art and hear why it shouldn’t exist, or to hear what I supposedly fantasize about, or what kind of power I supposedly revere, and any attempt to defend oneself from these psychotic projections or to assert that creators may create is evidence of a dark seed sprouting in the heart. It’s an incredible state of affairs. They’re not censors, though—oh, no no. You’ll understand it eventually; what you need to do is censor yourself. [emphasis mine]

I understand that the more extreme reactions (“Oh, you must be a sexist chauvinistic pig in order to like this sort of thing!”) and the initial assertion by Kotaku writer Jason Schreier were more than a little bit knee-jerk; thus, Holkins’ implying that those kinds of people are “psychotic” is perfectly valid.

However, Schreier’s follow-up posted just the day before—and probably before Holkins started writing his post—was dead-on and I was disappointed that a chunk of Mike Krahulik’s responses on Twitter were centered around whether or not it was right to “censor” artist George Kamitani’s work instead. That in itself is a fascinating discussion, but not the main crux of this issue.

Passing off half of the six available player character designs as “fun-house” or “primal” symbols and calling it “frankly visionary” doesn’t address the fact that it’s done in a way which could turn off some of its potential audience. In fact, I’d argue that even while Kamitani is trying to change how the modern person envisions fantasy characters, he falls into the trap of contorting his “non-mutant” Elf character into the same spine-breaking action shot for which so many others have been lambasted.

Instead of being a part of promoting equality to their audiences, Ishida has chosen to confuse his and Krahulik and Holkins have chosen to ignore or to troll the vocal members of theirs. And while I don’t claim to even know what Ishida’s thinking, I know from previous news posts and an interview in their own reality series that Krahulik and Holkins have been grateful for the chance to educate and illuminate their audience about things that are important to them.

Back in 2004, Holkins and I had the following exchange regarding the expectations placed upon them as “pioneers” of the webcomics medium:

Jerry Holkins: Do you think that we should actively be courting the [female audience]?

Me, writing for Sequential Tart: Not at all.

JH: ‘Cause I’m curious about that.

ST: I like you just the way you are.

JH: Awww. That’s sweet.

I think I’m starting to change my mind.

Trisha’s Link of the Day: Well played, Rob Liefeld

Posted on 4 October 2010 by admin 1 Comment

When I was a nascent comics fan in the mid-1990s, one of the most important things I learned about the art was that Rob Liefeld can’t draw feet.

Since then, I’ve learned that the former Marvel Comics wunderkind who created X-Force and one of the founding members of Image Comics also can’t draw women, men, guns, pouches, and quite a few other things. In addition, by not fixing these kinds of errors, I always got the impression that he didn’t seem to care that he was a bad artist; one family friend of his told me back then that he was “laughing all the way to the bank.”

Even now, after all these years, my impression of Liefeld and his work has never been a positive one… until now.

Last week, the lads at Penny Arcade revealed that they’d been asked (or even possibly hired) to produce two pieces of art to promote a new Xbox game called Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley from indie game studio Twisted Pixel. The premise of the game is that you play a comic book character who has to battle villains through different genres and comic book styles.

The part that caught PA artist Mike Krahulik’s eye is that as the character jumps into another genre, the art style of the game changes as well. He agreed to do the artwork provided that he could choose the style he would illustrate and he chose the Modern era.

Krahulik has said before at PAX panels and elsewhere that he loved comic books when he was younger and wanted to create his own work. In the news post announcing the debut of the artwork and a subsequent contest to win the Xbox pictured at left, he wrote:

The result [of my work for Twisted Pixel] was a project heavily inspired by one Mr. Rob Liefeld. Obviously you can look back on that stuff now and it’s pretty silly but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being heavily inspired by it at the time. Rob may not have had the best grasp of anatomy, storytelling, perspective, or composition but his shit was fucking dynamic and as a young man I ate it up.

This isn’t the first time the guys have picked on Liefeld, either, as you can see from this comic from 2004, posted right after they’d returned from that year’s San Diego Comic Con.

When I returned to the PA website the day after the contest ended, in addition to the winning entry, we were greeted with Liefeld’s own entry into the contest:

Again… well played, Mr. Liefeld.

Desert Bus for Hope 2 drives onto the Internet…for the children!

Posted on 1 December 2008 by admin Leave a Comment

One of the best things about having a blog is that you can talk about things that may sometimes only be tangentially-related to the blog’s topic.

Today, I’d like to talk about Desert Bus for Hope, a video gaming marathon for the Child’s Play charity, which was started by the guys at Penny Arcade, who are a webcomic just like Multiplex, which was started by Gordon who is my boss.

Desert Bus is the most boring video game ever (here are the Wikipedia details):

The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused.

The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other cars on the road. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it is impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly. If the bus veers off the road it will stall and be towed back to Tucson, also in real time. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they will score exactly one point. The player then gets the option to make the return trip to Tucson—for another point (a decision they must make in a few seconds or the game ends). Players may continue to make trips and score points as long as their endurance holds out. Some players who have completed the trip have also noted that, although the scenery never changes, a bug splats on the windscreen about five hours through the first trip, and on the return trip the light does fade, with differences at dusk, and later a pitch black road where the player is guided only with headlights.

Last year, the gang at Loading Ready Run who create short comedic skits on a weekly basis decided that they would play this never-released video game non-stop in exchange donations to be sent to Child’s Play, on an exponential basis. In other words, the more people donated, the longer they would have to keep playing. The gang only expected to get $5,000 or so at the most; the final tally last year was $22,805 after 3 days of 24-hour busing that was also streamed live.

This year, they’ve beaten their old record and as of this typing have earned $24,053 over 2 days and 11 hours, have had actor Wil Wheaton call in, will have Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh from The Guild call in later today, and one of the core cast members from LRR will shave off his trademark beard. All for the children!

So check out their site, watch the cams, donate some money, and enjoy the schadenfreude. They’ve already got me for $25 so far, and I may just end up donating my entire blogging paycheck this month if they keep going.

For the children!

Tag: Penny Arcade