☼ Mental health
How comics can help connect people suffering from mental health issues and stop the stigma associated with it. This is an issue very personal to me, as I struggle with mental health sometimes, so I think I'd stay interested in and passionate about CoP if I picked this topic.
Practitioners/resources:
- Sarah Andersen
- Ruby Elliot
- Bethdrawsthings
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/35564616/mental-health-week-how-drawings-on-social-media-are-changing-the-conversation
- Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
- Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green
- Marbles by Ellen Forney
One of my favourite illustrators, Kate Beaton, focuses on comic strips that parody literature and history. A lot of her strips are feminist, and explore the fact that women throughout history have been erased. Similarly, Jacky Fleming, another comic artist, does this too, especially in her new book, The Trouble With Women.
There's a lot of potential for this topic I think, as I'm sure there are a lot of academic resources discussing it, but I'm not sure I'd be able to keep the momentum going through-out CoP if I picked this topic.
☼ Women in cinema
From looking at Laura Mulvey etc. for Study Task 3 and from my essay on advertising and gender for CoP1, I think I could expand on those ideas but looking specifically at women in cinema. I am a feminist, so I can see myself getting quite riled up and passionate about what I'm writing about, which will at least help me stay motivated. Probably.
Some resources I've already identified are:
- The Bechdel test: Alison Bechdel is a comic-artist who also came up with a way to test how well women are represented in films. The main criteria for a film to pass the test is that at some point in the film, two women have to talk to each other about something other than a man.
- The Hawkeye Initiative: many female characters in comics (particularly superhero comics) and on movie posters are shown in compromising (ridiculous/impractical) positions compared to male characters. The Hawkeye Initiative is the suggestion that if a female character can be replaced by Hawkeye (a male superhero) in the same pose without it looking ridiculous, then the pose is acceptable and not sexist.
- Women in Refrigerators: a list of female characters in comics who have died/had some kind of violence committed against them (quite often purely to further the plot of a male character)
- Naomi Wolf
- Germaine Greer
☼ Narratives/comics (in general)
This is what Ben suggested I do. I'm worried about doing narratives in general because it's not focused enough on a specific area. There are so many types of sequential illustration, comics and books etc. that I think I'd be overwhelmed by the amount of information available, and not know which bits to focus on.
However, perhaps it might be good for it to still be quite a vague question? I can choose which bits of information to focus on and then perhaps create my own narrative for Studio Brief 2.
☼ Music - gig posters
This is the only topic I've thought of that may not necessarily be comic-related. I love music and gigs, and I like the idea of investigating gig culture, music subcultures and the illustration within them, such as gig posters.
However, I could also choose to explore narratives still, by making up my own stories and comics in response to what I find out about certain subcultures.
