female characters in comics, strong female characters

Want to Create Great Female Characters? Start with her brains, not her boobs

female characters in comics, strong female characters

“How do I create strong female characters?”

It’s a popular question many comic book creators now ask as they develop their stories. The short answer?

Develop her brains before you draw her boobs.

It is painfully, embarrassingly, obvious when a creator inserts a female character whose primary purpose lies in sexual objectification and exploitation.

The longer answer starts with a better question… How do I create great characters?

Character development for women isn’t any different than it is for men. There isn’t a special “pink book of characteristics” you must refer to in order to make fantastic female characters.

plague_4ripNEWWhether a creator is motivated by a genuine desire to include women as equals in their stories or is driven by less altruistic ideas (i.e. not wanting to end up on the front page of The Mary Sue for perpetuating stereotypes, or finally realizing the buying power of women, or realizing it may be be easier to get press because, “Look! Girls in Comics!”), it is imperative that comic creators avoid making the same stupid mistakes others have made that alienate readers and frankly, ruin a good story.

I wanted to make my female characters in Legend of the Mantamaji equal to the men in every way. That is why the Sanctuants (women heroes) in my story found a way to survive for thousands of years when the men could not. They are the backbone of the story.

Listen, character development is difficult. From nothing, you have to create a well-rounded, interesting person. The person has to have that ‘it’ factor in order for readers to care about what they say and do. If you’re still stuck on creating a relevant, female character, these three tips should help:

1. Develop her brains before you draw her body.

Get inside your character’s head and get to know her. What does her voice sound like? Where did she grow up? Why? How would she react if x happened? Why? What is her value system? Would it ever shift? How does she interact with other characters in the story? Why? What does she do in her downtime? Why? If you don’t understand a character’s motivation, your character is flat and unrealistic.

main_sanctuants_1NEW2. Don’t confuse girls who kick ass for characters with agency.

If your character’s actions don’t affect the story, you’re wasting ink. Kelly Sue DeConnick called it the “sexy lampshade test.” If you can replace the character with, say, the lamp from A Christmas Story and the quality of the story doesn’t decline significantly, your character sucks.

“But she is a total badass,” you say. “She can shoot big guns!”

So, what? Why is she shooting big guns? If it’s simply because someone told her to – seems like a lame reason.

3. Remember she is not “just” anything.

She’s not just a girlfriend, or just the mom or just the secretary. Look at the women you know. Are they “just” anything? They have lives, dreams goals and motivations outside of their interactions with you. Or to put it another way, would you ever throw a male character into a story just so he could get killed? How about throwing him in the story just so the hero has a way to be ‘humanized?’ Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

It’s lazy writing, bad storytelling and terrible karma to marginalize an entire group of people in your stories.
Why do the Mantamaji fight? Why does Superman fight? Is Wonder Woman simply waiting around for people to give her instructions? Is Detective Sydney Spencer sitting around the police precinct waiting for someone to kidnap her? No! They have their own reasons for taking up the mantle of hero or villain.

If your character development is lacking in any of these three ways it’s time to go back to the drawing board, you still have work to do.

Check out more great characters from Legend of the Mantamaji and pick up the books here.

female characters in comics, strong female characters

Strong Female Characters in Comics: Not that hard to create

Creating well-rounded female characters in comics isn’t hard. Just look around you for inspiration and if you can’t find real life representations, you need to expand your own circle.

Sanctuants, strong female superheroes in comics, legend of the mantamaji

The Sanctuants have the ability to conjure biogenic energy in their bodies. Almost wiped from the face of the Earth throughout the centuries, they currently live in secret among humans.

Diversity in comics is usually one of the main topics of the conversations I have when discussing creating the Legend of the Mantamaji with the press. And interestingly, the discussion of race tends to be shorter than the discussion of the portrayal of female characters in the series.

The reality is, creating strong, well-rounded, fully fleshed females isn’t any more difficult than creating any other type of character – and inspiration isn’t hard to find.

In my life and in my career, all the people that have been behind my advancement have been strong women.

When I first came to Los Angeles and started working on comedies, the creators and people in charge were women:

  • The Executive Producer who got me in the Directors Guild of America as an assistant director.
  • The Line Producer who was behind me getting my opportunity to direct.
Sydney Spencer female characters in comics, strong female characters, legend of the mantamaji

Detective Sydney Spencer, smart, tough with a mean right hook. She believes in the impossible possibility of supernatural happenings happening in her city and she’s going to get to the bottom of it.

They were all the same in that they were smart, strong and extremely talented. They were also mothers. I am lucky that, in my life, I have always been surrounded by women who were strong and who were hustlers. I have always seen women who were doing everything you traditionally saw men do and doing it well.

My mom is a life-long educator who still consults at John Carroll University in Cleveland in Multi-cultural Affairs. My wife owns her own thriving business. So when I created Sydney, Cornerstone and the other female characters in Legend of the Mantamaji, I was drawing on people I have seen, known, worked with or worked for.

Sanctuants from the Legend of the Mantamaji series are explicitly mentioned as equal to the male Mantamaji warriors. It’s an unusual call out among the comic industry, but I didn’t want any of the female leads to be any less than the main hero, just different. It makes the story’s history so much richer.

If I had to boil down three things I wanted to accomplish with the female characters in Legend of the Mantamaji, I have to say I wanted to create a new batch of heroes who are full, real characters; I wanted to make sure people were interested in their journey and I wanted to give women readers what they have been asking for and deserve from comic book creators – real representation.

strong female super villains in comics, legend of the mantamaji

Lisa Legardi AKA WRATH OF PLAGUE. Her day job she rules the airwaves in America with her own TV network. Her alter ego, Wrath of Plague, has the ability to shoot hundreds of deadly disease and plague-ridden daggers from her body.

That really shouldn’t be unusual. It shouldn’t be noteworthy to show women who have more going for them than being a love interest, a damsel in distress or a hero just waiting in the wings until someone needs help.

From our experience at the conventions and speaking with media pros and readers, people LOVE the Sanctuants and they love Sydney from the beginning to the end. They even want to see more of them. It’s the best response I could ask for and accomplishes all I wanted to do.

READY FOR A BUTT-KICKIN’ GOOD TIME? CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE LEGEND OF THE MANTAMAJI TODAY!