The worlds of the cartoon, comic book, and the graphic novel have historically been dominated by straight, white men. The representational misogyny of the contemporary superhero comic genre has historically created little room for female authors and artists, eventually helping to create a girls’ market in comics, still mostly drawn by men, in the 1950s. However, since the rise of the underground comics movement in the 1960s, cartoons, comics, and graphic novels have created more space for women to become involved not just as readers, but also as artists and authors. These shifts in representation continue today.

Diversity, Representation, and Authorship

As more women became cartoonists, artists, and authors, women in comics transitioned from being represented as sexualized objects to taking on more diverse, realistic, and heterogeneous ...

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