Comics in 2014
Lets have some fun and look
back at 2014’s comic books. Comics have been changing faster than ever and 2014
showed some big advances. What is fun about looking back at the biggest trends
and topics of the year is that they inform the comics coming out now. More than
ever the comic book fans who buy these weekly issues have a great deal of
control over what gets published and what gets put into different mediums.
Talking about what we as fans want to keep seeing can help us informed with
what the big companies are doing that makes us happy. There were a lot of great
comics in 2014 and a lot of things worth talking about. I am trying to look at
the most powerful trends moving forward and how they will affect comics.
Early 2014 work of mine…Watch me get better!
For 2014, I noticed three
distinct points that affect the industry moving forward:
Equality in Comics
For years there a large
amount of the fan-base in comics wants to see a more diverse and gender-equal
comic book community. These fans are working to combat the stigmas of more
traditional superhero comics. Having all female superhero characters depicted
through the male gaze with inhuman proportions was the accepted norm for over
30 years in comics, not to mention when women were given roles only to serve
the male characters needs (for extreme examples, look up women in
refrigerators). So a more and more vocal part of the fan-base has been working
to create an outcry to make comics more honest and accepting about how to
depict people of all walks of life, and not as objects. This has been an
ongoing discussion in comics and the conversation is still happening today. The
biggest story in 2014 for me is that this group pushing for equal depiction
has, in more ways than one, won out over the older mentality in comics.
Looking at the success
stories in comics this year, the books to actually grow and exceed their
expectations have been stories with strong and realistic female protagonists,
as more traditional stories with less flattering portrayals have declined.
Simply focusing on the big two publishers (DC and Marvel Comics), the books that
have gotten them praise and a growing audience have all have books with female
leads and female creators. For DC, their biggest growing series this year was
Harley Quinn, which features Amanda Conner as a co-writer. The book treats the
character of Harley a diverse range of adventures, but allows her to be her
own woman and the sales numbers show that DC fans embrace this approach above
almost all others. DC also looked to diversify their Batman line this year,
with series that instead of focusing on male established characters, focus on
strong female protagonists (like Gotham Academy and the new creative team on
Batgirl). Fans and publishers have been trying to make these books successful
for years, and 2014 is the year that the sales finally show that a large part
of the comics market is ready to follow gender-equal stories and characters,
instead of the male-gaze, cheesecake depictions of the past.
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| One of many, many spoofs of the cover…this one is less crass. |
There is still a discussion
to be had moving forward. There is a place for more traditional superhero
artwork, and not every comic can be tailored to everyone. The one thing people
cannot ignore though is that the conversation will be had when people get
offended. When a Spiderwoman cover, done by erotic artist Milo
Manara there was a large and visible
outcry from these newer fans. What built the discussion though, was that to
stay viable in the market, Marvel and DC Comics needed to really listen to
these fans, because the new comic book market cannot survive without them. It
is cool to see how much the sand shifted this year and it will be a big player
going forward.
Dov Smiley
Dov Smiley is an independent comic book publisher and founder of the Smiley Spot. His current works can be found at jonahcomic.com, as well as amazon under the same name. His full portfolio can be found at dovsmiley.blogspot.com
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| Harley Quinn inking Practice |
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| Wonder Woman, pinup: Pencils |
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