Earlier this week, College Humor posted a fake trailer for a live-action Daria movie, starring Aubrey Plaza as the title character. As someone who has been watching Daria episodes lately (as well as a lot of Parks & Recreation — hey, Netflix, where’s last season? I’m waiting …), I found it completely charming. And there was a big part of me that wanted it to be real.

So I’m sure being a teenage girl is strange at any time. It’s not something that ever gets easier, after all. But I’d say being a teenage girl in the ‘90s was a fairly unique experience. Unlike a lot of times, we were offered a pretty broad range of role models. While Daria came later than I thought, it was a still a decade that started with Riot Grrrls and My So-Called Life and ended with Spice Girls and Britney Spears.

The ‘90s were also an interesting (both in the “good” and “bad” senses of the word) time for comics, and definitely saw growth from more “adult” lines like DC Comics’ Vertigo, which published both Kill Your Boyfriend and Death: The High Cost of Living.

I imagine some of you may think that 1995’s Kill Your Boyfriend wasn’t aimed at teenage girls. And maybe it wasn’t on purpose, but Grant Morrison’s and Philip Bond’s drug-, sex-, and violence-filled romp speaks more about being a teenage girl than you realize.

Our unnamed schoolgirl protagonist is basically your typical frustrated everygirl — she’s dissatisfied with the role she’s handed in life. She’s smart but undervalued. She has a dumb boyfriend that she has just because that’s what’s expected. Her parents belittled her and accuse her of having sex when she’s not. No one listens to her, no one respects her.

Is it any wonder she’d want to act out? Is it really any wonder why she’d want to break out?

I think it’s really left up to the reader to decide if everything that happens after she encounters a charismatic drifter in a fast food restaurant is real or fantasy. I don’t think it matters. As they indulge in a prolonged spree of murder, substance abuse and anarchy, our heroine gets to see the side of life she’s always been missing — one that allows who to be whoever she chooses to be, to try on new roles. She can be unabashedly sexual, dangerous and bold.

Morrison’s writing and Bond’s art are surprisingly playful and counteract the many dark elements of this tale. It’s a romp from beginning to end and it’s meant to be.  The final page is a little bleak, but I think mostly, Morrison and Bond are telling young women to choose a different fate — that there’s more than one path open to them.

While there’s definitely a lot of this that declares itself to be a mid-90s book from Vertigo, it doesn’t  feel dated. Some of the references and aesthetic firmly place it in its time, but there’s a freshness to the voice that I think could feel relevant to a lot of young women now.

While many women did and do love The Sandman, the Death books always seemed to be marketed toward a slightly different (and younger) audience. Tori Amos wrote the introduction to 1994’s Death: The High Cost of Living (let us not dismiss the huge impact Amos had on many of us as teenagers in the ‘90s); and the introduction to the later Death: The Time of Your Life was written by Claire Danes. Even the newer The Absolute Death collection had its introduction written by Gaiman’s wife, Amanda Palmer. For good or bad, Death’s stories are aimed toward women.

Despite her name being in the title, Death: The High Cost of Living isn’t actually that much about Death herself. It’s about a depressed/superficially suicidal teenage boy named Sexton. Written by (of course) Neil Gaiman with perky, manga-inflected art by Chris Bachalo, Sexton is presented as approachable and cute in a Kurt Cobain kind of way (it was the ‘90s!) and after his meeting with the sweet, gothy Didi (in a landfill of all places!) — Death during her one mortal day a century — changes his mind about life.

If you’ve read The Sandman, you know Death is quite a bit more complicated than just a cute and quirky girl who likes top hats and Disney movies and tends to charm people into giving her things. Her happy-go-lucky optimism serves as a counterbalance to her dark responsibilities. But out of the context of that mythology, she’s just another girl that serves her purpose for a male protagonist before dying. Separated from Death, Didi just feels like a means to an end.

In that way, it’s a story that feels different to me now. I was never a huge fan of the character of Death anyway, it was easy to identify with her in this book as a teen. There was a sense of “Well, I wear weird clothes and like strange things. Maybe some boy may recognize how cool I am too.” But as an adult, I recognize how many Sexton Furnivals there are in the world and I wonder why their stories get told more than women’s. Why did we get the story from his perspective and not Didi’s? Death: The High Cost of Living is a cute little fable, but it’s story overall is one I’m tired of.

I wish I had also read Kill Your Boyfriend as a teen alongside Death: The High Cost of Living. I think they play off each other nicely. Teenage girls deserve more than the one story they’re usually given.

Near Miss is a semi-regular feature that will be appearing on Comicsgirl throughout 2013. This project is sponsored by Big Planet Comics.

Comicsgirl: What brought you to comics? 

Barbara Slate: In the 70s, I created the first feminist greeting card line featuring a character called Ms. Liz. We sold over two million greeting cards. I appeared with Ms. Liz on the Today Show, and drew a Ms. Liz comic strip which appeared monthly in Cosmopolitan magazine. Ms. Liz was my obsession for nine years but competing with Hallmark was no easy task and for various other reasons, I was definitely looking for something else. So, when a friend suggested I contact Jenette Kahn, president at DC Comics, I did. Luckily, the timing was fortuitous. Jenette was looking to create a girl’s line of comics.  

CG: What makes you prefer that over other forms of storytelling? 

Slate: Comic books have it all! I can create my own characters, draw them, and write their stories. I think comic books are beautiful in their simplicity. Every month my work appears in a 24 page story produced on cheap paper and held together by staples! How lucky can a girl be?! 

CG: What keeps you wanting to create comics?

Slate: I love telling stories. My latest graphic novel is Getting Married and Other Mistakes. I also love teaching teens and adults how to do a graphic novel. I find this work rewarding and it takes me all over the country as a teacher and speaker on the subject.

CG: How did Angel Love come about? It did seem like it was part of an era where DC Comics was trying new things.

Slate: In the early 80s, the comic book reader was 95% boys, 5% girls. Jenette and her staff liked Ms. Liz, so she asked me to create a character for DC Comics. Writing and drawing greeting cards is very different than comic books. Although Ms. Liz has a personality and point of view, she did not have the depth of a character like Angel Love where a Character Bible and Plotline were part of her backstory. I am forever grateful to Jenette. She handed me the Wonder Woman Bible to study and had her two vice presidents, Dick Giordano and Paul Levitz, teach me how to plot using color code. Then she introduced me to my editor, the amazing Karen Berger. In a month’s time, my education through DC Comics was like attending a four year college in how to do a comic book.  

CG: I know you teach graphic novel workshops. I constantly hear from other teachers of sequential art classes that their classes are at least half female, if not more than half.  Has that been your experience?

Slate: When I first started teaching, I was afraid there would be 15 super hero inspired boys but instead it was half boys and half girls. That is a wonderful thing to see. The super hero genre is usually about 15% of the class. My book You Can Do a Graphic Novel breaks down the steps  so anybody can learn to do a comic book. It may not be a graphic novel that gets published by Marvel Comics, but it is a fun and rewarding process.  

CG: Is it important to you to encourage girls specifically to make their own comics?

Slate: It’s a funny thing about being a woman in comics. There is an unwritten code that you are supposed to “empower girls.” When I first started, it was just me and Trina Robbins writing and drawing comics for Marvel Comics and DC. That was the time to encourage girls specifically to make their own comics. Today, I teach girls who are already empowered.  I really don’t see the purpose of encouraging girls specifically over boys. Writing and drawing comics is an equal opportunity passion. 

CG: What changes in comics overall have you seen in comics during your career?

Slate: Certainly, computers have changed the way comics are created, especially in coloring and lettering. Another big change is that the comic book reader is now 50% girls due mostly to the Japanese manga influence. When Angel Love hit the market in the 80s, there was no place for her in comic book stands. She was literally squeezed in between superheroes. It is disappointing to see that Marvel and DC Comics still have not embraced a line of comics for girls; however, mainstream publishers saw that kids love comics and have created their own divisions. The change is that they call them graphic novels. 

My theory is that the name “comic books” was so demonized in the 50s, that main stream publishers thought if they changed the name to “graphic novels”, the mothers wouldn’t notice that their kids were really reading the dreaded comic book. (Will Eisner was the one who originally coined the name “graphic novel” with his publication of his book, A Contract with God.) 

And it worked! Teachers today use comic books as a teaching tool. Librarians have special sections for the graphic novel. It is a proven way to get teens into the library. The movie industry uses the comic book series to create block buster movies and art critics take the genre seriously. Even mothers are encouraging their children to read comics. 

Today, more and more women are writing their stories in graphic novel form. My dream is that one day there will be enough female graphic novelists that we will have our own section in a bookstore instead of being scattered everywhere amongst superheroes and novels. Yes, we’ve come a long way baby, but boy, we still have a long way to go. 

Near Miss is a semi-regular feature that will be appearing on Comicsgirl throughout 2013. This project is sponsored by Big Planet Comics.

The story follows the titular character as she tries to make it in the big city of New York as an artist. Instead, she ends up working as a rollerskating waitress. She lives with her ditzy, wannabe actress roommate Wendy and hangs out with dreadlocked musician Everett. Other friends and coworkers come and go from the story as Angel navigates love and life.

There is high soap opera drama (drug use! pregnancy and abortions! cancer! long-lost siblings!) as well as fantastical touches (talking cockroaches! drawings of angels that come to life!) that cause the title to be all over the place in terms of tone. Slate’s boldly colorful and cartoony art sometimes feels out of place against the darker themes of the story.

But once you get into the rhythm of Angel Love, there’s something completely charming and unaffected about it. Angel’s humor and supportive attitude when faced with conflict gives her a sweetness and depth that makes her appealing and likeable. She’s someone to root for.

While the fantasy elements don’t always work quite as well and sometimes feel distracting, they do keep the book light. Sometimes it feels like Slate’s trying too hard to be quirky, but she has a unique voice and personality she brings to this title. It’s driven by her own vision and perspective.

Angel Love is not perfect, but it was a fun attempt to age-up traditional girls’ and women’s comics and introduce them to a new audience. While I know people who read it at the time tend to remember it pretty fondly, it’s a shame that Angel Love may be lost to time. It deserves better than that.

Near Miss is a semi-regular feature that will be appearing on Comicsgirl throughout 2013. This project is sponsored by Big Planet Comics.

It’s not like anyone has forgotten about it — it had a pretty big following, even before last year’s reboot and the adorable DC Nation shorts by Brianne Drouhard.

But as someone who grew up on She-Ra and enjoyed playing with various fantasy-oriented toys, I do feel a little sad this comic wasn’t in my life when I was a little girl. I was absolutely the target audience for it (I may have been a couple of years too young for it initially, though).

Created by Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn with art through the initial 12-issue run mostly by Ernie Colón, the comic is both a wish-fulfillment fantasy (all girls wish they were secretly princesses who get to ride a winged unicorn. These are true facts) and an awesome metaphor for growing up.

The story starts with 13-year-old Amy, a typical suburban girl with typical parents an all of that. But she’s also Amethyst, the long-lost princess who will save Gemworld. But in Gemworld, she’s not 13. She’s more like 20.

And talk to any teenage girl, and that’s what it feels like. You want to be older, but it’s also terrifying. Your body is changing in ways you don’t quite understand. You’re feeling adult emotions you don’t know how to process.

But Amethyst never pushes that aspect too much. It’s just there. Amethyst/Amy never quite forgets she’s still a teenage girl inside, and neither did I. Even in its darker, more adult moments, I loved her struggle. Amy is smart, yes, and a great fighter, but she never felt perfect.

While I think it’s great that DC did reprint Amethyst in any form, it’s poorly served by the Showcase format. Colón’s art deserves better than cheap newsprint — a lot of his detail is lost — and some of his inventive page layouts tend to be disrupted by the gutter of the book. Still, while there is something undeniably ’80s about the hair and fashion, there’s a delightful sword-and-sorcery feel. He, along with the writers, build a complex world. The comic is action-packed and exciting and remains innocent enough while still pushing the boundaries of more adult subject matter.

And I like that and I would’ve loved that as a girl. (But please note that one of my favorite movies as a kid was The Last Unicorn precisely because it was darker and more adult than a lot of things I saw.) Even at 30 years old, Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld remains rare title aimed at girls that feels like it respects them and their perspective. It gets that a  girl can be a beautiful princess while still being smart and strong.

That sadly feels more progressive than almost all of the mainstream comics coming out today.

Near Miss is a semi-regular feature that will be appearing on Comicsgirl throughout 2013. This project is sponsored by Big Planet Comics.

The Sisterhood of Steel

Writer and co-creator Christy Marx has contributed a lot to pop culture, whether people know it or not. She was head writer on Jem and the Holograms and has written numerous other TV and movie scripts as well as contributed to numerous video games and comics. She’s someone who’s almost always working. If you’re of a certain generation, you probably know her work.

So when DC Comics announced Sword of Sorcery with a reboot of Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld penned by Marx, I felt hopeful. After all, DC Comics’ New 52 had been criticized for its lack of female creators (as well as the typical gross sexism in comics). Maybe — just maybe — DC was trying to expand its audience.

It seemed like a step forward until, well, we saw the first issue.

I don’t want to place the blame all on Marx for that attempted gang-rape scene. I have no idea what was in her script so I don’t know what she originally intended. And to me, the way it was drawn and paced on the page made it worse than the fact it was happening. (Also, it’s dismaying that no editor said at any time during the process “Uh, yeah, maybe this isn’t the best way to go about this …”)

I already knew about The Sisterhood of Steel before reading Sword of Sorcery #0 and was already forming this project, but that issue kind of cemented the idea for me.

The Sisterhood of Steel was an eight-issue miniseries published by Marvel Comics’ Epic Comics line created by Marx and artist Mike Vosburg. They said they were “striving to create a book that will appeal equally to male and female readers.” I don’t know how much they succeeded.

This was obviously some kind of labor of love. Marx and Vosburg obviously spent a lot of time creating this world. The back pages offer up appendices with brief character histories, explanations of the political and social structure of The Sisterhood and its rituals and more. In terms of world-building, you really can’t ask for more.

In terms of story and characters you actually care about, however, you will.

Our lead is Boronwë, a young woman who is blandly good at nearly everything. There is nothing wrong with Boronwë but there’s little that’s interesting about her either. I wouldn’t quite call her a Mary Sue, but she’s a skilled fighter whose major flaw is that she loves her best friend too much. She’s persecuted by Vandalis, The Princess of Swords … because I guess the title needed to have an enemy?

Character motivations are mostly thin and left me with the impression this was possibly conceived initially as a Dungeons & Dragons scenario. Political intrigue (slave traders!), star-crossed romances and fierce wars with barbarian tribes are dropped completely in the last two issues (out of 8!) for Boronwë’s trial for treason against The Sisterhood. For a title that wants to promise battles and fight scenes, there is certainly a lot of talking.

Still, there are things to like. While it’s sometimes a little graceless and looks a little dated now, it’s amazing to see what diversity of women Vosburg offered in his art. Some are young and some are old. Some are feminine and masculine. There is a diversity of races, heights and body types (to some extent — most everyone is drawn to be strong and athletic). Sexuality is treated matter-of-factly. Many of the sisters are clearly in same-sex relationships and Boronwë has sex without shame. Kelki, Boronwë’s friend, makes the decision to run away to choose love and family over fighting, but her choices are treated with respect. Marx and Vosburg offer many different paths for women, and that feels progressive even now.

I also like that while the battles were intense, they weren’t overly graphic. There is definitely violence and some blood, but it’s not gory. Some of the sex scenes were fairly explicit, though, although not gratuitous. I don’t know if that was an intentional plan, but that did feel more appealing to me.

It’s hard to say how much of a plan Marx and Vosburg had in telling this story. It does meander a bit as plot points are picked up and dropped. I have to assume it was canceled with only a bit of notice. The eight issues do wrap up a few major threads by the end, but more questions remain than were answers.

The story does continue, though, in a graphic novel by Marx with art by Peter Ledger, published by Eclipse Books. I have it but once I finished the eight issues of The Sisterhood of Steel,I felt bored and uninterested in reading it. I may go back to it some day, but I just didn’t care about these characters enough.

The Sisterhood of Steel was decent attempt at telling a different kind of story. It clearly didn’t make much of a connection — and it didn’t with me, even now — but I admire what it tried to do.

I only wish I felt the same about Sword of Sorcery.

Near Miss is a semi-regular feature that will be appearing on Comicsgirl throughout 2013. This project is sponsored by Big Planet Comics.

Siegel grew up around Omaha, Neb., graduated from high school in Malvern, Iowa, and attended Southern New Hampshire University. She’s about to start on her Master’s of Science in Publishing at Pace University. She lives in New York.

Siegel gives some great answers via email about she got started in comics and what her job entails.

(Full disclosure: I know Siegel online, but I was delighted to have her answers my questions.)

Comicsgirl: When did you first start reading comics?

Janelle Siegel: I first bought a comic when I was 10, and it was Spider-Man Annual #9, featuring the Cadre! I don’t know why I chose that one, but it was on a rack in a gas station while my family and I were on our way to the Black Hills in South Dakota. I had watched the Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons and really enjoyed both and my older brother had a few comics here and there that I had picked up, but comics were just not something that were easily obtained for a 10 year old kid in a town with no comic shop.

On that very vacation, I ended up buying a whole bunch of comics including some other Spidey books, some X-Men stuff, and the Rogue mini-series, because I have always loved Rogue.

So I read for about a year, but the fact was that I had a hard time really figuring out comics. No one in the shops would talk to me, because I was a 10-year-old girl and I didn’t really get how the numbering and stories went. I stopped reading for a long time, until I was about 19 and I started dating someone who was nerdy like me. One day I mentioned that comics weren’t abhorrent to me, and next thing I knew, we were sharing a $200 a month comic book habit. That was really when I got fully into the world of comic books. I started with the X-Men books I had already been interested in, and then moved through pretty much every Marvel series at the time. Eventually I made the jump to reading DC stuff, starting with Birds of Prey by Gail Simone and then stuff like Green Arrow and Young Justice. And even later I started trying out indie stuff and branching beyond superhero books. But superheroes are always going to be my main comic book love.

CG: How did you end up working for DC Comics?

JS: Well, about 5 years ago I realized that editing was what I wanted to do and that perhaps I could combine that desire and my love of comics and be a comic book editor! I started going to conventions and really immersing myself in the comic book world. I basically just talked to as many people in the industry as I could. I have a rather ridiculous collection of friends from all walks of life who all share one thing, a love of and desire to create comics. Through this collection of friends I met people like Troy Brownfield, who asked me to join the Best Shots @ Newsarama team and later the Fangoria Comics editorial staff as a part time assistant editor. However, after endlessly sending out my resume and trying to get my foot more firmly in the door, I realized that unless I lived in the same city as a comic book company, it was going to be really hard to get a job. So I decided to move to New York! Once the plans were in place, I started really working to find out what job openings there were at the big two. There were some openings at DC, so I submitted my resume, and now here I am! It’s all made even better by the fact that the group editor I now assist, Mike Marts, was the first editor I met, years ago at a convention, and who gave me advice about being an editor!

CG: I’ve always been curious about what editors (and assistant editors) for comic books do. What’s your typical work day like? (If you have a typical work day.)

JS: Oy, a typical work day, huh? Well, not much of it is typical, but let’s see. First, I grab a Diet Coke and chug half of it as fast as possible to wake up. :) There are really only two things that happen on a mostly regular schedule every day – one is that I meet with Mike around 10:30 and the other is that I eat lunch around 1. Everything else is really based on urgency. For instance, in the morning I might get in and see an email that some inked pages are in that desperately need to get to the colorist. The first thing I’ll do is ask our production department for printouts of them so I can turn them in. Once they get turned in they eventually make their way back down to production, who sees them as “approved” and sends them to the colorist. Other mornings, I read a script that I never find time to read in the afternoon and get my notes together. Or I proofread lettering on a book and mark up my copy to add to the other copies floating about our office. Or I get together vouchers for an artist or writer that just started working with us. But honestly, a lot of my day revolves around my email. What comes in there can completely change what I’m working on from moment to moment.

Some other stuff that editors (or at least this assistant editor at DC!) deal with are getting artists and writers paid, putting together paperwork to get a new series approved or get a new artist or writer set up with a rate, talking to writers or artists on the phone about what they’re up to or what they might need, signing off on the different steps of the publishing process from lettering to the final version that goes to the printer, and ummm … even more paperwork for routing lettering, artwork, etc. And of course then there are meetings to talk about the future of our group of books or the entire DCU, which involve either just the Bat-group or, of course, all of DCU editorial. I feel like I’m not making it sound very exciting, but I have to say, it’s very fast paced and I find it endlessly thrilling. I am a geek, after all. We have weekly deadlines but beyond getting those books out the door, we’re also planning far into the future. It’s a lot of juggling, but ultimately it’s worth it to not only be working to put the best books out in the now but also planning for the best books in the future.

CG: What DC Comics titles are your favorites right now?

JS: Here’s a guilty admission – the one book that I have to read as soon as it comes in my stack every month is Tiny Titans. MAN that book is good. :) And of course, honestly, I really do love all of the books I work on. For the curious, the monthlies I work on would be: Batman and Robin, Batman, Red Robin, Batman: Streets of Gotham (featuring the Manhunter co-feature edited by yours truly!), Gotham City Sirens, Azrael, Batman: The Widening Gyre, and Batman Confidential. I’m also currently working on the Arkham Reborn mini and have a couple of upcoming projects that I can admit are my favorites when I can talk about them. :) Outside of the Bat-group, like everyone else, I’m enjoying the Blackest Night stuff, although it is giving me nightmares a little bit. JSA vs. Kobra and Secret Six are other books I really enjoy.

CG: Any advice for young women who’d like to work in the comics industry?

JS: Learn your craft and the industry and find your place, but most importantly, don’t give up and don’t believe the naysayers! This industry may be “male dominated” but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way, and in order for it to not stay that way, women have to be willing to take a chance to work in comics. Even since I first read comics, things have changed and changed for the better. I have had an amazing experience working in comics and I have never been made to feel weird because I’m a woman. I know not everyone has that experience, but that has been my experience, and I don’t see any reason why it can’t be repeated for others.

I think if you are a woman and you’re trying to break into comics, focus on the work you want to do and the industry, not your gender. If you’re an artist, become the best damn artist you can be; ditto if you’re a writer or an editor. Learn your craft and also learn the industry. It’s important to find your place, because not everyone is suited to doing the same thing. Certain art styles work better at different publishers and certain people are less comfortable in big corporations. That’s true in whatever industry you work in. But ultimately, the important thing is to not be distracted by the gender of the people in the industry but instead focus on the work.

Instead of linking to a Web site, I’m just going to recommend you pick up any (or all!) or the books Siegel works on.