Female characters in comic books

Comic books are a fun way to tell stories and share your imagination with others. They’re also a great way to bring out your creative side and engage in some of the best storytelling that has ever been created. But comic books have come a long way since they first started back in the 1930s. In fact, today’s comic books have become so diverse and inclusive that there is now plenty of material for us to work with when creating designs for female comic book covers!

The design process for these covers was a lot of fun. Designing covers for comic book heroines offers our students the freedom to create imagery that represents their character and power. 

How can you make your comic book cover more inclusive?

• Include more female characters.
• Show female characters in leadership roles.
• Create a more diverse cast of characters. The more you can diversify your comic book, the better! This also includes gender, race and sexuality — but it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach; sometimes creating a character who has been underrepresented before can be just as important as making sure that every character is representative of different groups equally.
• Be aware of the stereotypes you use in your illustrations (for example: women only wear dresses).

Create a more diverse cast of characters.

While including female characters, authors should make sure they’re not just sidekicks or love interests either. They can also be the main character(s) who have agency over their own lives (e.g., they have jobs where they make decisions).

Show female characters in leadership roles.

They can also use their female characters to show women in leadership positions. While women have traditionally been excluded from leadership roles, this is starting to change. Many readers are now seeing women as leaders in real life and want to see these types of images reflected in comics and other forms of entertainment media. Women make great leaders, so it makes sense that they should be portrayed as such on comic book covers!

Students should be aware of the stereotypes they use in their illustrations.

• Avoid stereotypes and clichés that reinforce gender norms and social expectations.
• Not make fun of someone’s disability, race, or sexuality.
• Not perpetuate harmful stereotypes about a group of people by portraying them as one-dimensional characters with no agency over their own lives.

Comic book heroes are so diverse and inclusive now, which means there is a lot of material for students to work with when creating designs for female comic book covers.

They may have seen the recent coverage of comics being more diverse and inclusive, but what do they need to know about how this will affect their design process?

When it comes down to it, there is a lot of material for design students to work with when creating designs for female comic book covers. Female comic book heroes are so diverse now that there’s no reason why they can’t be on the cover. Just like with any other character type or genre, authors want to make sure that their readership can identify with them; otherwise, they won’t buy their product.

There are plenty of amazing female comic book heroes to choose from, and the possibilities for their covers are endless. Go forth and create!