14 years before the WiR list, and 21 years before When Fangirls Attack and Girl-Wonder.org hit the scene, DC actually published a critical call for Feminist analysis of their superhero books.

Marionette discovered a guest column in the pages of a comic book dated March 1985:

Women in comics are treated terribly by both DC and Marvel, mostly by Marvel, but Jim Shooter doesn’t do guest columns. They are downplayed, put-upon, wasted, ignored, and stereotyped into six categories. I like to call these categories the Six Do’s.

The columnist details Dependence, Deemphasis, Demoralization, Deglamourization, Depowerment and Death as the six categories, and then goes on to put out a call to readers to write in.

If a favorite heroine of yours has been suffering from one of the six symptoms, write to the comic of your choice (don’t bother Mr. Giordano . .. that’s my job) and complain, politely but firmly. If any submitters are reading this, consider revamping an old heroine or creating a new one as your project. It might be fun. I know I had fun when I did it (I didn’t have fun when DC rejected it, but that’s not important). And if any professional comics writers are reading this … for gosh sakes, lay off the heroines, willya?

So, twenty-one years have passed. Did this call work? Can we still see these six symptoms of sexism today? Or are these particular concerns outdated, pushed aside by more pertinent problems?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 7:45 am and is filed under Comic Books, Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.