Mister Fanboy Comics Blogger Spotlight: When Fangirls Attack

Mister Fanboy Comics highlights a comics blog of special interest to women.

For those that aren't familiar with it, When Fangirls Attack should be on your list of daily blog reading. Why you ask? Let me count the ways.

1) It Is From A Women's Perspective: Comics are such a male dominated medium that whenever female creators or fans have something interesting to say, fans should listen. The perspectives of women, so often lost in the din of fanboy carping, are worth noting whether you agree with them or not. Witness the recent brouhaha over the back and forth between comics creators Gail Simone and Brian Michael Bendis about women at Marvel. Having said all of that ...

2) It's Not Your Typical Comics Blog: Gone are the rantings of the pissed off fanboy about their pet continuity peeve. Editors Ragnell and Kalinara troll the web looking for blogs or articles that are of interest to their fellow women (and, by extension, men such as myself who wants to know what they think about the medium/industry). Below their banner, they describe their site as:

A Compilation of Articles about Women in Comics. The opinions expressed by the links and materials we've gathered (even those directly posted on this site) are not intended as an expression of our own opinions. WFA only compiles, it does not take sides.

Of course, the links themselves may include the rantings of fanboys (and fangirls, of course), but you can be assured that there is a point to it and it's not an exercise in a stream-of-consciousness self importance.

3) It Forces Men to Reevaluate Our Relationship To Comics Vis A Vis Women: By clicking on the articles you often uncover real gold. Using the Bendis/Simone disagreement over working at Marvel as an example again, I am a well-edu-macated man and it never occurred to me that some women would find an environment where the finished work product objectifies women difficult to work in. A big D'oh on my part. That was so obvious I can't believe I missed it. (What's really interesting about this whole argument is that the Gail Simone penned Birds of Prey makes women the objects of men's affections more than most books, but I digress ...) The point being that in the male-dominated world of comics fandom, I am often not exposed to these perspectives.

4) It's Fun: One link may discuss the objectification of women by popular culture in general and the next might have buried inside it a discussion of Emma Frost's penchant for dressing like a high-class call girl. You never know what you're going to get. It's a grab bag. And that's a good thing!

5) They Share The Love: When Fangirls Attacks has also exposed me and others to lesser-known blogs that I may not have been familiar with. They have also linked to yours truly on occasion. With the comics blogosphere growing exponentially daily, they help me root out some of the good from the bad, helping me to avoid the umpteenth discussion of why Superboy Prime could not have done this or that.

Incidentally, Ragnell has her own blog, Written World and kalinara's can be found at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise, both of which are more than worth checking out too.

So what are you waiting for? Check them out!

--Mister Fanboy Comics