Women Who Love Comics

I recently learned of and watched a DVD called Women Who Love Comics with the subtitle "Comic Book Pajama Party." It's essentially a documentary of a group of about eight women who collect comics and their discussions about the medium.

The first thing that I noticed about the film was that the production quality isn't that high. The camerawork is from a hand-held unit, and one of the early movie clips was clearly taken from a multi-generational VCR tape. Some of the still shots of various comic art is somewhat pixelated, from what looks to be overly extreme JPG compression. Now, while those things were disappointing -- they probably would have been more irritating had I paid more than $10 for the DVD -- there was still a lot that I got out of it.

The documentary starts out in a comic shop with each woman introducing herself and giving a couple of high points about what they like about comics. They all then go to one woman's house and, in sweats and pajamas, start discussing what they like and dislike about comics. The DVD lasts not quite an hour, and most of it follows the women's discussions. It's very informal -- it's a pajama pary, after all -- and there's wine and chocolate going around throughout the event, and they end the evening with a game of Twister. But the chats range all over the comic landscape.

There's an early, seemingly obligatory, rant about all the gravity-challenged boobs that show up in so many mainstream comics. They talk about some of the books they really like, and why; Vertigo titles seem particularly popular. There was a long side discussion about manga and anime. And the general consensus was that Batman has the sexiest costume.

Personally, I found it very interesting a) as a guy and b) as someone who's interested in comic fandom. Although it's unclear how well the women all knew each other prior to filming, but they all seemed fairly comfortable enough with each other to have some very open and candid talks. I don't know if this something that's got a wide potential audience, but for anyone interested in this type of thing, it's worth at least an hour's viewing.

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