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Take fantasy comics: What male artist who draws a fantasy comic wouldn't want to actually live in his comic? Its almost like living vicariously through one of your characters.

Hm, I agree, to a point. Living vicariously through your characters is a pretty good reason to make yourself the main character

But the way I'm planning on torturing my characters and giving them tons of grief... I don't know. I'm more of a "write the story to the story" kind of person. As soon as I put myself in as a character, or even imagine myself as one of the characters, the story starts to go downhill and eventually settles into a moldy uninteresting day-dream format....hmm...

So far there are no female artists who draw a male main character. Is this due to a lack of understanding of the topic or some other reason?

wizardandwarrior wrote: I think that another reason a lot of males have male main characters is because that character (in some cases) can be living the way that the artist himself wishes he could live. Take fantasy comics: What male artist who draws a fantasy comic wouldn't want to actually live in his comic? Its almost like living vicariously through one of your characters.
I know that was a mouthful, but it makes sense to me!

That may be true... I don't think it applies to me though. Jyro has taken on his own personality. I can't stop him now... He just goes nuts!

Well, mine's a furry comic but all the characters (well, there's 2, and I think I drew a weasel, a rabbit, and a dog for other comics) are male. I know it's a good way to get visits if you got some hot furry foxes or something in it...but not only can I not draw that very well, I also couldn't really write for it. Let's face it pals, New Traditionalists just isn't based off art. I never really got a compliment on the artwork (a lot of people say it's fine, but nobody who emails me or what-not says it's really good or something), which is fine, because I have to sit down and draw but I have all day to think of a joke to use.

So anyway, if I had a lot of female characters...I couldn't really write for it too well. I pretty much write for two cynical guys because that's just what I do. If I had a female character, I don't think I could think of many good jokes for it, especially since mine's a furry comic and furry female characters just aren't that funny.

"I disagree. What could be more empowering to a woman than to portray her as being "sexy?"*

Uhmn. I hate to single you out, but that's pretty much what creates the stereotype right there. I mean, what could be more manly than portraying you as having a large penis? Do you see what I'm getting at? How do you want your worth measured?

My comic's main charecters are male becuase, honestly, I didn't have a clue how females think.
And I still dont.
But at lest my writeing skillz have gotten better I can at least pretend to know how a a certen charecter would react in a certen situation.
Oh, and guys were easter for me to draw when I started out.

It looks like another commonly raised point is which gender is easier to draw.

What exactly is meant by"easier to draw"? Easier to draw so they are recognizeable as being of a certain gender? Easier to draw so they look attractive? Easier to draw so that different characters can be distiguished from each other?

What parts are easier to draw and harder?

"Breasteses are the easiest things to draw!!!!" *hehehe*

I'm comfortable drawing males and females of any shape or size, but I've spent a lot of time practicing that--which is why I never draw intricate landscapes. In my upcoming comic, I'm making a conscious effort to make the female leads attractive in less conventional ways. Take my word on it, so far Sophie the bartender is the only female who's shown up.

In EOI, I try to make a big joke out of how UNATTRACTIVE Lady Sunset Blah Blah Blah is even though she's the one with the big-chested lingere picture. That's part of the whole chatroom scene, braindead girls who can't spell and use overly attractive hentai-ish pics are pretty much avoided except by males who have a smiliarly crippled IQ. Meanwhile, intelligent women who play characters that are based off of more than a picture with major cleavage tend to be the center of attention.

Interestingly enough, the majority of people who roleplay in chatrooms are female as opposed to male, but that's another topic. Gamer guys--that's where all the girls are hiding.

When I was in junior high me and a friend worked on a comic book. All the female characters in the book ended up as airy bubbleheads, manipulative and unfaithful shrews, or just plain super-PMS-bitches. We didn't date a lot. I like to think I've grown up a bit since then.

The first time I read MegaTokyo, I thought, "Gee, it's nice to see a comic starring nerdy-looking girls instead of babes."

I'm working on a new project called MegaParis, about a couple of kids who pretend they're French and speak bad high-school French all the time. Then they go to France, and get beaten up.

Oooh! That sounds like fun! That's like, the best idea I've heard in a long time. It would be even cooler if it got really popular, too...

Sortelli wrote:I'm working on a new project called MegaParis, about a couple of kids who pretend they're French and speak bad high-school French all the time. Then they go to France, and get beaten up.

Ooh lala! Tres tres cool dude.

Sortelli wrote:When I was in junior high me and a friend worked on a comic book. All the female characters in the book ended up as airy bubbleheads, manipulative and unfaithful shrews, or just plain super-PMS-bitches. We didn't date a lot. I like to think I've grown up a bit since then.

That is a valid point. People's understanding of the opposite sex (and many other things, for that matter) tends to increase with age. As the webcomics creation and reading crowd tends to be younger by a lot than the average population, perhaps that has something to do with it? It would be interesting to see if any of the married artists here would like to provide some commentary.

Taiwanimation wrote:It looks like another commonly raised point is which gender is easier to draw.

What exactly is meant by"easier to draw"? Easier to draw so they are recognizeable as being of a certain gender? Easier to draw so they look attractive? Easier to draw so that different characters can be distiguished from each other?

What parts are easier to draw and harder?

Actually, there are no particular parts that are easier or harder to draw. While male and female characters are basically the same in principle, in practice there are several important but subtle differences in their appearance. From related discussions I've had on other boards, the impression I get is that when people are learning to draw they focus on one gender at a time and as a result have difficulty with the opposite.
For example, in a lot of my earliest artwork my female characters are slightly better drawn than my male characters. Then I went through a stage where I was primarilly focusing on male characters and my ability to draw female characters diminished significantly. After picking up some anime/manga techniques I started to improve on female characters again, but my skill with male characters has dropped. It is possible to balance your skills so that you can draw both genders equally well, but it takes an awful lot of work and most people can't manage it while they're still learning the basics of figure drawing.

Woo, I'm very happy that I chose to shrink my main character's breasts before getting into this conversation.

Technically, my main character (who is a fox/cat) is a pissed off bitch who constantly has a mad face on her, and the sex appeal of a skeletonized cow. There are three supporting (or continuing) characters beside her, two women and one man (who is really insignificant at this time).

So, I guess I killed the stereotype of "male cartoonist, male dominance, male attractiveness to empowering female character"

But what I found was, the more I drew females, the more I had trouble drawing male characters. Is this some sort of adaption that I'm not aware of? They aren't really that different in drawing. I just change the hip width, eyelashes and chest to turn male to female.

Time for another book-sized essay ^^

Okay, first of all, the "Guide"

There are no male/female categories because any tag that is applicable to 50% or more comics is automatically (by the new DB) unreferenable. Something more specific is required. The problem is that many comics do not focus on just one character, nor do they focus on just one character that is male or female.

Now more specificly, is when you talk about "gender" or "sex", with the former being what they think they are, and the latter being what they physically look like.

You can have a very masculine male hero character, or you can have a sissy-boy lead character, or you can have a super-sexy female lead, or a blonde-bimbo female, or a brainiac-nerdy looking character that is rather androgenous. It's very hard to just make a binary 'male' or 'female' catch-all when nobody in real life actually a supermale or superfemale embodiment of their physical sex.

Now... Differences between males and females. (Not all apply)

Physically:
Face -

Masculinity is defined with a square jaw, brow-ridge, thick eyebrows, bigger teeth, and the hairline (which is hard to describe) but their forehead looks bigger because their eyebrows and hairline are father apart than feminine ones.

Femininity is defiend with a smaller rounder jaw, no brow ridge, thin eyebrows, smaller teeth and a smaller forehead. The hairline and eyebrows are actually closer together than masculine ones.

Physical body - Other than the obvious "Girls have breasts, Guys have a Penis" quote which isn't even entirely correct, Males usually have broader shoulders and are "straight" instead of curvy. Females are curvy.

Now to throw a few monkey wrenches in...

Straight Females are attracted to males who are about 8% feminine when they are at their "peak" of their cycle (when their body wants to produce a baby), but are attracted to males that are 20% feminine when they are off that part of the cycle. Also, a male can make up for 'unattractiveness' with status or wealth. The same can not be said for females, as males are not attracted to 'unattractive' females, no matter what their status or wealth is.

(This is all from stuff I read in the last 7 days or so.)

Also, the road runs both ways, A male (even straight ones) might find a very feminine male 'cute'. (That was also from the same article.) It's a rare occurance however.

Now from a psychological point of view...

Let's say we have two scales, one that is "masculinity" and "femininity" and they go between 0 and 10, with 10 being "strong" and 0 being "practically non-existant"

Someone who is a 10 on the femininity scale, being physically female might come off as the "feminist" type, if they are between 6 and 9 they would be "typical".

Someone who is a 10 on the masculinity scale, being physically male might come off as the "machoman" which would probably have a male-superiority complex or is very sexist. A 6 to 9 would be "typical".

Now what happens if someone is physically female and has high numbers in both categories? They might turn out to be the butch-dyke type of character, but if they are male, they might turn out to be closeted gay male.

Now if someone who is physically one sex but their masculinity and feminity scales are skewed in favor of the other gender. Ex A female with maybe an 8 on the masculinity scale, but a 3 on the femininity scale would probably want to be a male, and try to act like one (Tomboys.) A male with maybe an 8 on the feminity scale and a 3 on the masculinity scale might be emotional and depressed because they really believe they should be female, but because they are physically male they have to put on an 'act' for their families and schoolmates as to not draw attention to that aspect. Both of these would classify as "Gender Dsyphoric" and I'll let you look that up if you want to know more.

So what have I missed? Sexuality.

Everyone can be put in to one of four categories, except when they are "transgendered"

Heterosexuality - The character is attracted to the Opposite physical sex (male/female pairing)
Homosexuality - The character is attracted to the same physical sex (male/male and female/female)
Bisexuality - The character is attracted to both physical sexes.
Asexual - The character is not attracted to either sex, or has no sex drive.

If the character has a gender identity disorder they might not consider themselves heterosexual or homosexual since they identify as the opposite gender to begin with.

If you are doing a G-rated comic, by all means avoid the topic of sexuality, or fear the wrath of uptight religious crazies everywhere ^^

Now there is something I've missed completely... intersex conditions.

To simplify it down, people can be born 'kinda inbetween'.

So we all do know that people are born either XX or XY right? Wrong.

An XX Female will grow up to be physically female.
An XY Male will grow up to be physically male.

A XY Female (CAIS/PAIS, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or defective Androgen/Testosterone production) will look like a female, and depending on the sensitivity to androgen will develop as a female, except will not be fertile due to lack of overies.
A XY human that is somewhere inbetween will usually be assigned a sex as birth by the doctors, however many times this is a mistake and the child will identify as the opposite gender. Most of the time they are assigned female unless their penis is of a certain size that they 'might' develop as a male. (Yes there is a defined length, but I don't know it off hand.)

(The incidence of intersex conditions is 1 in 2000 live births)

Then there are the XXX, XXXX, XXY(Klinefelter syndrome), XXXY, XXXXY type of mosaicism.

A good summary of this stuff is at http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv ... 3BF91?Open


Understanding the opposite sex...

Now this is where the authors tend to get into trouble, and where it might be very well a good idea to partner up with someone of the opposite gender who has insight into things you might not know about.

How many females know something about 'peeing standing up' , how male males know anything about females periods? Some might 'know' about it, but they lack any ability to experience it. These situations are extreme, but it represents something that they will not have first hand experience with, and therefor might not take into account.

Males know practically nothing about breasts, which is very obvious when it comes to ones ability to draw them. They are not water balloons or watermelons glued to a torso. Males also do not understand female social circles. Males definintely do not know anything about female/female relationships.

Females do not know anythign about male facial hair. Females know nothing about male social gatherings. Females do not know very much about male/male relationships.

So here we have an interesting situation... how do you get a non-stereotypical representation of the opposite sex without that special insight?

For most authors, I think they just ignore it completely and go with what they know, which tends to be insufficient, and falling back on stereotypes.

There is also the aspect of sexuality that authors really have no experience with. What does a straight female know about gay male relationships? What does a straight male know about lesbian female relationships? Apparently not very much.

If we want to extend this discussion to Television for a moment, television always uses the stereotypes, because that's usually all the writers are familiar with, or they have censorship rules to abide by that prevents them from breaking the stereotype.

Going back to the original point in this topic, why the guide doesn't have a specific 'male' or 'female' lead character category... is because differentiating based on physical sex alone is a bad thing.

I did cover the sexuality part in the guide, or most of it, and I did cover the TG part, but simply going 'male/female' won't work, because (even from the poll above implies) not every comic can be polarized in that fashion, and many comics mix male and female lead characters, thus making it not very usable to select 'male lead' and 'female lead' when they will have to select both anyways.

Would I draw nice-looking, proportionately correct, appealing characters if I could? Hell yes. Unfortunately, my skills leave something to be desired so I had to go with a more cartoony and androgynous style. There is no single protagonist in my comic either, like so many others it's an ensemble cast of men and women. If I COULD draw, then there wouldn't be anything stopping my comic from being filled with buxom women and strapping young men. Aaaaaah.

Drawing normal-sized breasts on a cartoon character is surprisingly hard. Unless they extend past the sides of the torso when viewed from the front, they're basically invisible.

Sorry to reply to such a long-winded rant with something so short

Actually, a male/female choice might be useful if the Guide was searchable. Then you could say, search for a comic with male characters, a fantasy genre, and set in California.

uuuum, the guide is searchable, just that has not recieved very much attention in the last three months and is still only searches descriptions, titles and locations. ( http://guide.keenspace.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi )

Much like the editing tools, which are ugly as heck, but they actually work now, just they need to be finished. The tools still don't have the banner editor setup, nor does it have the author information editing.