Comic Anthropology 101 (3) Gender Studies
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Taiwanimation
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Kisai
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But if they do not have descriptions, they are not likely to have keywords either.
I've manually put in keywords for a few comics when I've read them and can accurately say that the comic is about whatever. However I will not rate a comic unless they have rated themselves, and I will not fill in the description unless I've found a description elsewhere (like the top 99/100 and other lists.)
I've manually put in keywords for a few comics when I've read them and can accurately say that the comic is about whatever. However I will not rate a comic unless they have rated themselves, and I will not fill in the description unless I've found a description elsewhere (like the top 99/100 and other lists.)
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ZOMBIE USER 11784
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Hey, Kisai. One question
HOW THE HECK DO YOU RATE YOURSELF IN THE FREAKIN' LIST?!?!?!
Also, my main character, Nike, has both a masculine side (represented by Sol) and a feminine side (represented by Luna). Both vie for control over Nike (Luna usually wins). Luna has this dream of trying to make Nike the perfect Woman's Man.
On the M-F scale, he'd be 5 on both. Dead center.
(Actually, I haven't used this system yet. It becomes really important in Gameshow's chapters 1 thru 3, but chapter 0 really doesn't have a place for them.)
HOW THE HECK DO YOU RATE YOURSELF IN THE FREAKIN' LIST?!?!?!
Also, my main character, Nike, has both a masculine side (represented by Sol) and a feminine side (represented by Luna). Both vie for control over Nike (Luna usually wins). Luna has this dream of trying to make Nike the perfect Woman's Man.
On the M-F scale, he'd be 5 on both. Dead center.
(Actually, I haven't used this system yet. It becomes really important in Gameshow's chapters 1 thru 3, but chapter 0 really doesn't have a place for them.)
Last edited by ZOMBIE USER 11784 on Mon Sep 30, 2002 7:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kisai
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In the existing system, you have to use the http://cerror.keenspace.com/cgi-bin/mem ... xchange.pl script
The rating stuff is near the bottom.
And Nudity and Sexuality is the same thing if you are looking at the beta guide, it will be independantly controlled with the new utilities, but right now it's just importing the value and assigning it to both (no I'm not lazy.... everytime I change the old version, I have to change six things. The new version only has to be changed once, so it's much easier.)
The rating stuff is near the bottom.
And Nudity and Sexuality is the same thing if you are looking at the beta guide, it will be independantly controlled with the new utilities, but right now it's just importing the value and assigning it to both (no I'm not lazy.... everytime I change the old version, I have to change six things. The new version only has to be changed once, so it's much easier.)
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Taiwanimation
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A few conclusions:
People draw what they know. Since the majority of the population is of one gender and one sex only, each artists' experience is limited. Do not use this as an excuse to the extreme, though, as people are capable of learning.
Some people make use of physical attractiveness. Others make a mockery of it. Others ignore it. This often has to do with the type and tone of the comic strip. The first case is most common in "serious" comics, such as a fantasy adventure. The second type is most common in a satirical comic, often of those in the first type. The third is used often in general humor comics.
People draw what they draw more often better. Neither male or female characters are necessarily harder to draw than the other.
People tend not to draw what they can't draw well. As a result, they remain unable to draw those things.
Gender is a part of a character's personality.
A word about ratings: This thing is a reasonably good (though not completely reliable) rating of how much physical attractiveness gets emphasized in the comic strip.
I'd say that comic strip gender attitudes reflect those in real life quite well, at least among the 10-30 age group that most web comics artists and readers are in. This will be an interesting topic to revisit in a few years.
People draw what they know. Since the majority of the population is of one gender and one sex only, each artists' experience is limited. Do not use this as an excuse to the extreme, though, as people are capable of learning.
Some people make use of physical attractiveness. Others make a mockery of it. Others ignore it. This often has to do with the type and tone of the comic strip. The first case is most common in "serious" comics, such as a fantasy adventure. The second type is most common in a satirical comic, often of those in the first type. The third is used often in general humor comics.
People draw what they draw more often better. Neither male or female characters are necessarily harder to draw than the other.
People tend not to draw what they can't draw well. As a result, they remain unable to draw those things.
Gender is a part of a character's personality.
A word about ratings: This thing is a reasonably good (though not completely reliable) rating of how much physical attractiveness gets emphasized in the comic strip.
I'd say that comic strip gender attitudes reflect those in real life quite well, at least among the 10-30 age group that most web comics artists and readers are in. This will be an interesting topic to revisit in a few years.
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Kisai
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Okay, I think something's been lost in the translation here...
Drawing physical bodies...
Neither physical body type is easier, however it would logically be easier to draw pretty girls and pretty boys if all you ever drew before were pretty girls or pretty boys.
There are a few elements specific to the ability to draw, and what kind of detail the paper can hold, and how it can be printed...
Like for example, hair
Hair in a comic is frequently drawn as chunks (anime style) or a shape (with texture) when we are talking about hair on the top of the head. Now facial hair... none is drawn as none, 5-o-clock shadow is usually cheated and drawn as a shadow instead of "random dots on the face" , unless a screen tone is available. Body hair? Males and Females are usually like they've had an entire body wax with the exception of some comics witch optionally draw a few hairs. I won't talk about hair anywhere else.
If a comic is going to be printed, you are going to get into so much trouble if you make hair too detailed, as it will become just one big blurred mess if the comic has to be shrunken down.
Another example is breast/chest size. On females, unless they are completely naked, the breast size has to be exaggerated a bit to make them not look like a pretty boy. On males, when drawn partially (or completely) unclothed, usually you'd detail the muscles to make them look more masculine.
Depending on ones art style, you could spend a very large amount of time doing details to make a character look more like a boy or a girl, however if you miss certain cues, your audience will just not get it. Like any female age 12 or older usually has breasts in a comic. Males do not. Very obvious cue. Less obvious, but usually picked up just as easily is the "eyelash" effect. In virtually every kind of comic, anime, cartoon, female characters usually have longer eyelashes, or are the only ones who have them. Male characters (with the exception of bishonen in anime) tend to have less emphasised eyelashes.
I'm totally lost ... what was this subject about again?
Gender topics and the guide.
You know what would be interesting to do, but is a fair way off (Other stuff on the list is higher.) Character cross-reference sheets. You know, enter all your characters into the database, and then do "find similar characters in other comics" kind of thing. So one could find all the comics with female lead characters, find all the ones that have martial arts skills, etc...
Newsbox, Bar, Storyline search all come first however.
Drawing physical bodies...
Neither physical body type is easier, however it would logically be easier to draw pretty girls and pretty boys if all you ever drew before were pretty girls or pretty boys.
There are a few elements specific to the ability to draw, and what kind of detail the paper can hold, and how it can be printed...
Like for example, hair
Hair in a comic is frequently drawn as chunks (anime style) or a shape (with texture) when we are talking about hair on the top of the head. Now facial hair... none is drawn as none, 5-o-clock shadow is usually cheated and drawn as a shadow instead of "random dots on the face" , unless a screen tone is available. Body hair? Males and Females are usually like they've had an entire body wax with the exception of some comics witch optionally draw a few hairs. I won't talk about hair anywhere else.
If a comic is going to be printed, you are going to get into so much trouble if you make hair too detailed, as it will become just one big blurred mess if the comic has to be shrunken down.
Another example is breast/chest size. On females, unless they are completely naked, the breast size has to be exaggerated a bit to make them not look like a pretty boy. On males, when drawn partially (or completely) unclothed, usually you'd detail the muscles to make them look more masculine.
Depending on ones art style, you could spend a very large amount of time doing details to make a character look more like a boy or a girl, however if you miss certain cues, your audience will just not get it. Like any female age 12 or older usually has breasts in a comic. Males do not. Very obvious cue. Less obvious, but usually picked up just as easily is the "eyelash" effect. In virtually every kind of comic, anime, cartoon, female characters usually have longer eyelashes, or are the only ones who have them. Male characters (with the exception of bishonen in anime) tend to have less emphasised eyelashes.
I'm totally lost ... what was this subject about again?
Gender topics and the guide.
You know what would be interesting to do, but is a fair way off (Other stuff on the list is higher.) Character cross-reference sheets. You know, enter all your characters into the database, and then do "find similar characters in other comics" kind of thing. So one could find all the comics with female lead characters, find all the ones that have martial arts skills, etc...
Newsbox, Bar, Storyline search all come first however.
I try to keep a balance of male/female numerically in my comic. I won't claim to be able to draw either of them easily, much less one more easily than the other, and I surely can't say that I can write for men well, because I'm not a man.
My main character is the pixie/human/elf hybrid, Karystyn, a female. She's got a lot of spunk and a lot of power, but she's not what you'd probably consider "sexy." She's short, she's got big ears *snicker*, and she's not supermodel thin (probably mostly because of the fact that I don't feel the need to promote such an appearance, and because she's tough and rather athletic despite her size). Karystyn's the sort who doesn't need anybody to take care of her, but she can cause (and likewise get into) a heap of trouble. That doesn't stop her from drooling girlishly over the (to her) attractive blond elf Mendor. Everybody's got their weird sides, you know.
Leo doesn't seem to have much of a role in the comic, but he does act as a problem-solver, and, in the future, he may prove to have more importance to the comic than you might think he does.
Mykelos is definitely more levelheaded than Karystyn, although he does have that 'I wanna be evil' streak. This is not to say that men are more levelheaded, and that is not to say that women are, either. But I like to think that his detachment helps to balance out Karystyn. Of course he's tough, and he's got secrets, but why flaunt these facts?
Stryke... erm. She's Stryke. Cute most of the time, and humorous, even. But sometimes she's downright scary. Poor crazy griffin.
As for nonhumans and animals being mostly male, well, looks like I managed to fall into that trap. Pironak (foxwolf), Bane (horse), Kandor (dragon), Valhen (griffin)--all males. Exceptions: Stryke (griffin), Shadow (crow), and Dart (minigriff) are female.
I suppose in summation I might say this: I could have chosen either male or female in my comic to be the main character. It also wouldn't really matter if I decided suddenly that Kandor should be a female, or that Bane should be, or even Valhen (whose gender hasn't even been stated, I think, apart from this forum... hmmmm). The truth is, the comic was almost about Leo the Werelion (and thus, it was almost given that name). In the end, although Karystyn is *the* main character, all of the four main characters tend to be of a fair amount of importance to the comic, whether male or female.
~*~somesuch~*~
My main character is the pixie/human/elf hybrid, Karystyn, a female. She's got a lot of spunk and a lot of power, but she's not what you'd probably consider "sexy." She's short, she's got big ears *snicker*, and she's not supermodel thin (probably mostly because of the fact that I don't feel the need to promote such an appearance, and because she's tough and rather athletic despite her size). Karystyn's the sort who doesn't need anybody to take care of her, but she can cause (and likewise get into) a heap of trouble. That doesn't stop her from drooling girlishly over the (to her) attractive blond elf Mendor. Everybody's got their weird sides, you know.
Leo doesn't seem to have much of a role in the comic, but he does act as a problem-solver, and, in the future, he may prove to have more importance to the comic than you might think he does.
Mykelos is definitely more levelheaded than Karystyn, although he does have that 'I wanna be evil' streak. This is not to say that men are more levelheaded, and that is not to say that women are, either. But I like to think that his detachment helps to balance out Karystyn. Of course he's tough, and he's got secrets, but why flaunt these facts?
Stryke... erm. She's Stryke. Cute most of the time, and humorous, even. But sometimes she's downright scary. Poor crazy griffin.
As for nonhumans and animals being mostly male, well, looks like I managed to fall into that trap. Pironak (foxwolf), Bane (horse), Kandor (dragon), Valhen (griffin)--all males. Exceptions: Stryke (griffin), Shadow (crow), and Dart (minigriff) are female.
I suppose in summation I might say this: I could have chosen either male or female in my comic to be the main character. It also wouldn't really matter if I decided suddenly that Kandor should be a female, or that Bane should be, or even Valhen (whose gender hasn't even been stated, I think, apart from this forum... hmmmm). The truth is, the comic was almost about Leo the Werelion (and thus, it was almost given that name). In the end, although Karystyn is *the* main character, all of the four main characters tend to be of a fair amount of importance to the comic, whether male or female.
~*~somesuch~*~
Is that so?
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ZOMBIE USER 7782
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Ah, to live in the simple world of stickmen.
The titular characters of Kari & Doug are female and male, and I personally see them as representations of two different sides of my personality. They're both based on characters from different times in my RPG-laden past, and their genders are simply based on what I felt would have fit the original characters.
Either way, Kari's the spontaneous, happy side of me that tries to make sure that everyone else is happy, even at my own expense. She's the joie de vivre that manifests itself occasionally in what I do.
Doug(las) is my serious side, my sometimes world-weary demeanor, and obsession with privacy. The Yin side of me, if you would (though I may be mistaken. I can never remember which is which).
So there we have it, a wonderful digression from the topic at hand, courtesy of me.
The titular characters of Kari & Doug are female and male, and I personally see them as representations of two different sides of my personality. They're both based on characters from different times in my RPG-laden past, and their genders are simply based on what I felt would have fit the original characters.
Either way, Kari's the spontaneous, happy side of me that tries to make sure that everyone else is happy, even at my own expense. She's the joie de vivre that manifests itself occasionally in what I do.
Doug(las) is my serious side, my sometimes world-weary demeanor, and obsession with privacy. The Yin side of me, if you would (though I may be mistaken. I can never remember which is which).
So there we have it, a wonderful digression from the topic at hand, courtesy of me.