Oh No What Is This

Okay, so after a discussion on Comics Are Great about writing for girls, I started to think a lot about the topic (I always do anyway, but that’s besides the point.) I wanted to approach the topic of women in comics- not as creators, but as the characters themselves.

In media, writers sometimes seem to think that writing female/female-identified characters is an entirely different animal from writing male characters. In some ways, it obviously is, but taking that line of thought too far can create a situation where you end up with nothing but sexy cardboard cutouts, or characters in ensembles whose only personality trait is being The Girl.

The thing I’ve always hungered for in fiction is adventure stories with heroines who aren’t just strong, but relatable and human. It turns out, the exact specifications of what I want are extremely hard to find in comics (which is good, because then it’s a great impetus for me to do my own comic, but that’s besides the point), so I wanted to get a little more general than that.

This is a list I set out to create of comics (I don’t care where they come from: webcomics, superhero comics, manga, etc etc) with relatable female heroines who are unarguably the protagonist, OR stories with an ensemble cast that is a relatable female/female-identified majority. After some twitter crowd-sourcing, here’s what I came up with:

(NOTE: I have not read all of these, so I can’t totally vouch for some of them! I’m vetting the best I can though. I’m considering this a living document. Eventually, I will edit this into age categories (Youth/YA/Adult, really), but I’m going to have to look into a lot of the titles I haven’t read yet to be able to do that. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please feel free to recommend them to me!)

THE LIST

Gunnerkrigg Court
Cleopatra in Space
Space Case Sally
Girls With Slingshots
Octopus Pie
Bobwhite
Roza: The Cursed Mage
Spera
Monster Pulse
Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant
The War at Ellesmere
Zombies Calling
Friends With Boys
Locas (Love & Rockets)
Finder: Talisman
Finder: Voice
Anya’s Ghost
I Kill Giants
Smile
The Babysitters Club
Courtney Crumrin
Lost At Sea
Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery
Daisy Kutter: The Last Train
Amulet
Skim
Marlys
Rumble Girls
Chiggers
Jax Epoch and Quicken Forbidden
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Magic Knight Rayearth
Sailor Moon
Codename: Sailor V
High School Debut
A Bride’s Story
Emma
Yotsuba&
Azumanga Daioh
Twin Spica
Tokyo Mew Mew
Basara
Cardcaptor Sakura
Ouran High School Host Club
Kamisama Kiss
Amethyst Princess of Gemworld
Queen and Country
Polly and the Pirates
Castle Waiting