This weekend, the award-winning cartoonist Carta Monir read a recent review of Girl Town by Carolyn Nowak, published by Top Shelf/IDW and written by Comics Journal contributor Jake Murel. And wanted to share some of it…
I’ve written for tcj before and I respect a lot of what they do, but this review should never ever have happened
Why would you give the book Girl Town to a male reviewer who writes like this?? Fucking “gynocentric?????” pic.twitter.com/9caDI95QuS
— Carta Monir (@CartaMonir) February 2, 2019
Carta didn’t name the writer or link to the original post. But there was one word that everyone would seize upon. See if you can see it…
As this suggests, Nowak’s gynocentrism connects her disparate stories. Each comic–this book collects five comic shorts–focuses on a female character’s experience in the world, although these are not “women’s issues” narratives, whatever that label may designate. The quandaries Nowak explores are universal regardless of gender: questions of friendship, belonging, knowing one’s self, and the search for meaning.
In this way, beyond ostensible gynocentrism, Girl Town is characterized by what its back cover describes as Nowak’s ability to “capture the spirit of our time.”
And later…
For example, how can panels, gutters, or page layouts be manipulated to further Nowak’s gynocentric lens? Given this intentional lens, how might she develop an écriture féminine unique to comics? Can the panel’s innate separateness by utilized to reflect the solitude expressed by Nowak’s characters? Rather than explore these or similar creative endeavours, Girl Town, despite its use of multiple genres and styles, follows a largely standard comics layout.
And it was that last one which made me facepalm the most.
“I wonder if she could have done something with the panels to highlight how all the characters are women” is…interesting analysis
— Samantha Riedel (@SamusMcQueen) February 2, 2019
Basically that. But there was all sorts of reaction from all sorts of people.
Holy shit
— Kate Beaton (@beatonna) February 2, 2019
Uhhhhh.
— Jody Houser
(@Jody_Houser) February 2, 2019
y i k e s
— Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) February 2, 2019
wtffffff
— “Sweet” Mey Rude (@meyrude) February 2, 2019
This is offensive on a level I frankly wouldn’t have thought possible outside c*micsgate—although I’d be surprised to learn any of those guys could come up with the term “gynocentric.”
— Karen Green (@klg19) February 2, 2019
Love how comics about and by men are a unquestioned universal, to the point it’s not even really considered a particular perspective, but a comic by a woman? Featuring and about women?? GYNOCENTRIC! Why aren’t the panels in the shape of boobs!!
— Zainab Akhtar (@comicsandcola) 2 February 2019
So men get to write exclusively about men in stories with only men, and that’s normal, but when a woman writes exclusively about women in stories with only women, she’s wrong. Okay. Cool.
— Amanda Schott (@cloveofgarlicVI) February 2, 2019
And Carolyn replied as well,
This thread is a gift !!! I weren’t even mad but look at all these nice people with the compliments hey hey!!
— Carolyn Nowak (@CarolynCNowak) February 2, 2019
Grateful someone called me out though as I have finally wrested my head from mine own vagin and can now see the light of universal narrative. Someone give me a star war to make. I’m ready.
— Carolyn Nowak (@CarolynCNowak) February 2, 2019
ah yeah gynocentrism, Galileo’s famous assertion that the earth revolves around a giant cosmic vagina
— Sara Bess (@achenesense) February 2, 2019
If he’d given me a thoughtful negative review that had anything to do with the actual work I would have probably had some solemn day of reflection but instead I just got a lot of attention and my household was utterly full of witchy cackling and gynocentric jokes
— Carolyn Nowak (@CarolynCNowak) 3 February 2019
So, who will be the first to put out a comic actually called Gyno-Centric? It is clearly the current zeitgeist.
Girl Town by Carolyn Nowak, published by Top Shelf/IDW.
The post ‘Gyno-Centric’ Comics Journal Review Increases Facepalming Across Internet appeared first on Bleeding Cool News And Rumors.
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