Do you think animation and comic strips allow people to express taboo parts of themselves? After watching a few episodes of South Park (my latest cartoon crush), my own aborted experiment writing about Transmetropolitan, and an excellent, if disturbing, documentary on underground cartoonist R. Crumb, I'm struck by what unites them.

Namely:

Adopting a non-threatening technical strategy allows for expression of thoughts, feelings, and impulses that are deeply taboo.

Don't let the two dimensions fool you; comics can take you to dark places.

I've been meaning to link to Jeff's post at Feminist Allies for a while now, and this gives me opportunity to do so: Gender Identity in the Comics.

Here's an excerpt:

"Some might say I'm trivializing gender stuff by focusing on a small segment of pop culture—comic strips. But again, these are solid parts of our day-to-day lives (ok, of my day to day life), and I think this is where a lot of the work on recognizing gender norms and how they might negatively affect us can be done."

Karen Healey explains how we get "the world's most disturbing cover", which she titles, "Kissing Daddy's Rapist".

Also worth checking out at Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed) is In Fiction, No One Will Have You Fired. She's created a chart to illustrate the complex web of crushes and relationships comic book characters have with each other. She's got some text in her post as well, of course, talking about the comic book in question: CardCaptor Sakura.

Lastly, here's a link roundup from When Fangirls Attack, a blog Healey describes as "the link blog that started compiling feminist fandom and commentary on women in comics and in the process prompted increased awareness, discussion and activism."

One post that caught my eye was about the double-standards enforced by Marvel Comics when they decided to recall Spider-Man: Reign.

Melinda Casino's personal blog is Sour Duck.

Image: Wikipedia

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