Ladies and gentlemen, please hold your "Sex Applause"

In this guest post, Cartoonist Teresa Dowlatshahi reflects on the perils of incorporating erotic subject matter in her daily GoComics strip, Frog Applause. 

FROG APPLAUSE FUN WITH JOHNNY BIG-GUN

I wonder if the creators of Yenny, Pibgorn and Last Kiss ever hear from fans named Johnny Big-Gun?

I was invited to talk about the gender divide in the comics, and what it's like to be an XX cartoonist in an XY comics world. No thanks, Lucas. I'd rather be wedged under a log in Barkeater Lake and left there to ripen. Instead, I'll talk about the changes I've made to my own comic strip, in part, because of my low testosterone levels.

"Frog Applause" is not a strip about sex (or anything else, really), but more than once it's been referred to as "Sex Applause" because of occasional erotic content. I stopped doing erotic cartoons several weeks ago because of the stalkerly (my word) reaction from certain readers, publicly (on GoComics) and privately (via email).

Perhaps I'm generalizing, but it seems that when a male cartoonist does an erotic gag, the focus is on the cartoon... but when a female cartoonist does a similar gag, the focus switches to the cartoonist. At least this has been MY experience.

Perhaps I should just be grateful that I haven't been receiving deranged missives from Johnny Submachine-Gun or Johnny Glynn-Gun. Yet.

Boys are cartoonists.... girls are not!

http://obituarytypo.blogspot.com/2009/04/im-glad-im-boy-im-glad-im-girl.html

- Teresa 

Comments

[Teresa]

The alert folks at UCLICK are very good about deleting creepy/scary/pervy comments on GoComics. No problem there!

[J.C. Duffy]

Sounds like a drag. I enjoy getting risque in The Fusco Brothers, and if it weren't for newspaper restrictions, I would get borderline filthy on occasion. Okay, more than borderline. And I do go beyond that border in other venues, such as blogging. And while the Commenting Community in general can get weird sometimes, I've never gotten the kind of comments Teresa gets on Frog Applause when sex is involved.

[Chained Bear (who still gets all kinds of sexual comments based on this innocuous username)]

That is indeed a drag. Unfortunately I think it's a symptom of how women are viewed/treated in the larger society. The quickest (probably not best) example I can think of is how everyone talks about Michelle Obama's clothing choices and her arm muscles--not the fact that she's an accomplished and well educated person who happens to be female. (I consider this particularly ironic since she met her husband when he was her employee.) Women are sex objects, sadly, and for all our trumpeting about equality, that fact hasn't ever really changed.

Keep on keepin' on, Teresa. Frog Applause should continue to be an expression of yourself, as it's always been. Johnny Big-Gun will have to learn that it ain't the gun that counts.

[reesetee]

Yikes. I'm sorry to hear that it's come to this. Geez, can't a cartoonist just be herself??

Go away, Johnny-MiniRevolver, and leave GirlyFrog in peace.

[whichbe]

I think the attention is, of course, a mix between the comic reader demographic (majority younger male, I'd wager) and the social anxiety that exists between gender duality; it plays out rather immaturely. I hope more and more men and women can take the reigns and become examples that transcend the limited social roles pre-cast for us. Men have to challenge themselves to see outside of their paradigm--not just because it's not fair, but because in the long term for them, a narrow view of women hurts them, too.

[Phillip Schearer]

The problem may resolve itself when there are no longer any daily newspapers to carry comics. With opt-in websites as the primary source of comics, Teresa and all other artists can get as funky as they want.

[Andrea]

I just hope people stop using sex as a weapon. Because it ruins the sheets.

[Tom Gammill]

I love this strip!

[Bill Hinds]

The second example is very funny, and I think "guy" humor. I'll never be able to walk along a beach looking at the sunset again, without thinking of it.
Men are fascinated by funny women, especially funny women who reference sex–Sarah Silverman comes to mind.
I think Teresa should go with whatever her muse presents to her.

[Fake Rockstar]

Having fans is great and having fans sucks donkey. It is the way of the brilliant cartoonist.

Furthermore, the people of Barkeater Lake thank you for the shout out, but ask that you never mention the practice of ripening corpses under logs again. Some traditions belong in the closet.

[Paolo]

It took me a while to understand what this is all about. In Italy, where I'm from, female comedians talk about sex just as much as male comedians. The same for all cartoonists that comes to my mind at the moment.

[Bilby]

I don't read the other comics often so I'm not familiar with what kind of comments they get. I'd be wary of stereotypes, though. Women hurl underwear at Tom Jones (even now he's old enough to look as if he'd appreciate lobbed arthritic bracelets rather than lace panties) while men don't do the equivalent to Dame Joan Sutherland.
I think the issue is more that in modern times notions of celebrity are increasingly personal. Once upon a time a man might have had his pin-up girl in his work locker; nowadays he can have her on his screensaver, on a t-shirt, on his mobile phone, in his eyes/ears/head 24 hours a day. It doesn't surprise me much that some readers easily fantasise that the content of a cartoon is some kind of personal message from TD to themselves. That doesn't make it okay but it's a corollary of the way modern media content is marketed. Now TD as I know her is not a glory-seeking, shamelessly self-promoting hussy, hence is perhaps an unlikely target for the kind of responses of we have seen on FA. That said, the majority of responses are funny and positive and the WQ (Weirdo Quotient) hasn't reached a level where it'll stop me reading. There does appear however to be a syndrome whereby a lusty comment high up the list will incite similar ones. Perhaps there is a perception among commenters that if someone else can 'get away with it' they might as well give their own lewd skeletons an airing. Conversely, if the early comments set a modest tone then that tends to continue.
Plus, the internet is a stalker's delight. It's a pet dread of mine that low-level Pupkinism is on the rise; I believe it is.

[RandomGenius]

Bilby ... that's one of the best replies I've ever read.

And whatever Pumpkinism is, you can be sure I don't want it until late October or so.

[John Lustig]

Teresa, you asked whether male creators of certain other comics (including my own Last Kiss) have experienced anything similar. I can't speak for anyone else, but I've experienced some mildly "stalkerly" attention from one female fan.

What you're experiencing sounds a lot worse, though.

I think there are crazies out there--male and female. But I cans see how the "novelty" of a female cartoonist making suggestive gags might drive some nutcases over the edge.

Frankly, my vote is that you do whatever comics you like!

Hang In There,
John Lustig

[yarb]

What did Johnny BG actually write? Is there a link, or was it so awful it was deleted and can only be alluded to?

Of course I agree with you in general - it's certainly rude to be aggressively sexual, or chauvinistic, in any medium. The best response is usually to ignore them, but if the stalkerism gets serious, you obviously ought to call the cops. Although I like the odd cartoon, I'm not a devotee, so I can't comment on that medium in particular. But the internet is full of gimps.

[yarb]

p.s. I didn't mean to sound condescending in my first sentence.

[Sisyphos]

Teresa, are you aware that Brooke McEldowney (Pibgorn, 9 Chickweed Lane) had to shut down the Comments-board for 9CWL over at That Other Site because of the pervs and slugs? It got way out of hand, so he just had to have it closed, and it remains so to this day.

[razor__ck2824]

I thought it was because somebody stole his work, replaced Brooke's words with his words, and advertised the comic as his own?

[Low Testosterone]

I think it is sad that women cartoonists have to worry about things like that. Men are scum. Or at least some.

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