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Post by gothos on May 28, 2014 19:01:20 GMT -5
I think that in modern times there's been some degree of change; that many male readers will embrace books, be they prose or sequential narration, starring female characters.
But there definitely was a time in my life when I wouldn't read a book with a female character. It didn't last all that long. I probably started collecting the superheroes when I was ten or eleven, and at the time I didn't like either WONDER WOMAN or LOIS LANE.
However, not much later I'm pretty sure I bought things like JET DREAM and TIGER GIRL off the stands-- both about '68, I think-- and I'm pretty sure I also got THE CAT and SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL, though not NIGHT NURSE.
I wouldn't touch NANCY DREW though. HARDY BOYS or nuthin'.
Any guy-reading-girl experiences anyone want to contribute?
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on May 28, 2014 19:08:29 GMT -5
A large part of my collection is devoted to comics about or for women. If I had more money, I would probably make it a focus of my collecting; I would love to track down Golden Age stuff like Sun Girl, Venus, Moon Girl, Black Cat, Miss Fury, etc.
I currently have large runs of Supergirl, Lois Lane and Wonder Woman, as well as a fair sized romance collection - probably about 200 DC romance books and another 50+ Marvel titles. I'm big into Archie, which for a lot of people is synonymous with girls, and I've recently started reading the manga version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
I never cared for either Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, but I was a huge Trixie Belden fan as a kid (not exclusively, though - I also was really into The Three Investigators).
For classic comics aimed at women, it's hard to beat Night Nurse. The gothic romances in Dark Tales of Forbidden Mansion and Sinister House of Secret Love are also top notch.
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Post by Fan of Bronze on May 28, 2014 20:16:33 GMT -5
When I had been collecting for about 30 years, I took an interest in some genres that I had ignored or scorned previously. Partly it was novelty; partly it was a decision to collect everything in comics by a particular writer—and that writer, in his earliest productive years, had done a handful of pages (scripts, yes, but also art) in both Marvel's and DC's romance comics. From that beginning, I decided to collect every issue of each of Marvel's two '70s romance books. They didn't come easy, but at last they did come, and I still have the full sets of both titles.
Those comics may never be as dear to me as the better issues of Batman, Detective Comics, X-Men, or Heart of Empire, but they were fun to collect, and fun to read, just to see what could be done in a story of six to eight pages in which characters were introduced, experienced conflict and resolution, and then disappeared, never to be seen again (except when those stories were inevitably reprinted, in the latter issues of the series). They were also a poignant reminder of the days when comics were a mass medium, able to appeal to youngsters of both sexes.
Comics for girls? Yeah! Bring 'em on!
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Post by Prince Hal on May 28, 2014 20:24:08 GMT -5
Read quite a few Lois Lanes when I first was reading comics, especially the "imaginary" stories when she was married to Luthor and had a delinquent son.
Looking back on why I liked them, I think it may have been the more complicated plots, the melodrama and the often tragic endings reminded me of many of the old Warner Brothers movies I loved even then.
Never cared for Wonder Woman. Can't recall that I followed too many others outside of Amethyst and Red Sonja.
Loved Rita Farr and Big Barda and Hawkgirl and the original Batwoman and Batgirl, too.
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Post by crazyoldhermit on May 28, 2014 21:31:56 GMT -5
Can't say I care too much for "girls books." My favorite movie is Silence of the Lambs, yet I can't bring myself to really care about a female protagonist. Azzarello's Wonder Woman is appealing so that might be my entry point, but for the most part I'll probably stick in the niche. The same also applies to minority books.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 28, 2014 21:36:56 GMT -5
I had no problem reading Lois lane in the 60s. They were fun and Supes was always on the cover which made it easier. It was the only comic I caught my mom reading. Wonder Woman was utter crap until the Diana Rigg phase. No problem reading Betty and Veronica as well as a kid.Just another Archie book to me. I wouldn't buy Millie the Model but remember reading a few if they were lying around. But I kept my distance from the love comics from DC and Charlton.In the early 70s I bought Shana,Night Nurse and The CAT but didn't buy marvel's love comics even with the Steranko covers.
So I guess it boiled down to super heroines being acceptable to me but I wouldn't be caught possessing a love comic
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on May 28, 2014 21:57:59 GMT -5
I like wimens! : -)
I like cheesecake, pulp, fashion (though not comics I enjoy my collected books of Exotique magazine), heroine, romance. If it's got a pretty gal in it I'll read it. Then again, I started in the 90s at 17 years old too. And I was very sheltered in my folks home.
When I bought that first collection of Harris era Vamperilla, OMG! That art rocked my socks. I love sexy and strong dominate gals. Fiction and non-fiction. Night Nurse is another one I'd love to get my hands on if it were reprinted. Miss Fury's collection is on my list of needed buys.
I'm fairly certain Emma Peel influenced my thoughts on women long before I was thinking about them when is watch Avengers as a preteen. What a woman!
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 28, 2014 22:27:25 GMT -5
I'm not a big fan of romance stories, but I'm happy to read anything else. If there's some other plot and romance is a side light I'm usually OK.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2014 23:28:41 GMT -5
I don't consider anything I read to be "girl books"
But I do read comics with female leads, and they aren't DD chested women in thong leotards. So it may be a girl book as far as others are concerned.
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Post by Hoosier X on May 29, 2014 0:13:58 GMT -5
One of my favorite short runs is Shanna the She-Devil #1 to #5.
And I loved that Stephanie Brown Batgirl run! (And the Power Girl run at the same time.)
I have read, at one time or another, Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), Supergirl (love those Silver Age stories where she's in the orphanage), Wonder Woman, Batwoman, She-Hulk, Red She-Hulk, Carol Danvers and Lois Lane.
And Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 29, 2014 1:28:49 GMT -5
I did like DC's brief foray into Gothic Romance-The Sinister House of Secret Love and the Dark Mansion of Forbidden Something or other.Great cover art
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Post by Jesse on May 29, 2014 2:24:58 GMT -5
I read quite a few books with female leads regularly; Rat Queens, Velvet, Rocket Girl, Black Widow, Elektra, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Pretty Deadly, Ms. Marvel, Batgirl, Batwoman, She-Hulk and before they were canceled Sword of Sorcery and Journey Into Mystery. I've never considered them to be "Girl Books" though. That was a decent book. I think Machine Man was really the break out star. |
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Post by DubipR on May 29, 2014 8:35:10 GMT -5
I love reading 'girl comics', if you want to call 'em that. I have a nearly full run of Lois Lane, a good smattering of Little Lotta and Little Dot and lots of Archies stuff. I didn't think about gender specific as a kid, I just viewed them all as comics. As long as the character was interesting to me, that's all that mattered.
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Post by Rob Allen on May 29, 2014 14:04:41 GMT -5
In the 60s & 70s, I made a conscious choice not to buy or read romance, war or western comics. Female superheroes were fine, and I bought all of the Cat/Shanna/Night Nurse trio. In more recent years I've opened my horizons and am now the proud owner of the hardcover Simon & Kirby Romance collection along with a few back issue romance comics. Also, Love and Capes is a hybrid superhero/romance comic and it's one of the best things being published today.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2014 16:48:51 GMT -5
And I loved that Stephanie Brown Batgirl run! (And the Power Girl run at the same time.) Ditto for both of those (&, a few years earlier, Dan Slott's She-Hulk). And as a kid, echoing DubipR above, I read plenty of Harvey & Archie girl-centric titles -- Little Dot, Little Audrey, Little Lotta, Betty & Veronica, et al. Not sure how many individual issues of Lois Lane I bought, but of course I loved the LL 80-Page Giants. |
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