The realm of comic book superheroes like Superman and Batman has traditionally been a male domain. The majority of its fans, as well as its creators, are male. So it’s not surprising DC Comics illustrator Rebecca Buchman has encountered the occasional raised eyebrow.
“I was standing in line at a [comic] convention and an editor wouldn’t even look at my stuff,” said Buchman, 25, who is single and lives in Bethlehem with her two German shepherds, Lucky and Tucker. “It wasn’t until I said I ink for DC that they started giving me attention.”
Nevertheless, being among the few female creators of mainstream comic book superheroes has not deterred the artist, whose work can be seen in DC’s “Green Lantern Corps,” a series about a team of superheroes that wields power rings and polices the universe.
“I’ve broken in faster than some of my guy friends,” she said. “One guy I know is 32 and he’s been trying to break in for 10 years.”
She attributes her success to old-fashioned persistence.
“You need to make yourself seen,” she said. “You need to make [editors] look at your stuff. You need to look them in the eye and show them your best work.”
In the hierarchy of comic book creators, Buchman is what is known as an inker. She converts the artist’s pencil drawings into detailed line drawings before the colorist takes over.
“I like inking,” Buchman said. “I get to work over a variety of different styles with different artists, which is fun. It keeps the work interesting. When I draw, I like to draw realistically – wildlife portraits. The comics field doesn’t call for that.”
In fact, Buchman had no interest in comics until she was 16 and took a high school comic book illustration class in her hometown of Macomb, Mich.
“I didn’t really read comic books until I started getting into drawing comics,” Buchman said. “I read a little bit of ‘Spawn’ because I liked the artwork. I started to get into DC stuff in college.”
A 2007 alumna of the Savannah College of Art and Design, Buchman apprenticed with Atlanta inker Dexter Vines, who has worked on multiple projects for Marvel and DC.
Buchman’s first published work was DC’s “Superman/Batman” No. 46, part of a long-running monthly series featuring the two iconic superheroes. Since then she also has inked issues of Marvel’s “Avengers: The Initiative” and “Thunderbolts.” Currently she is exploring other artistic outlets by writing and illustrating a children’s ABC book.
Despite the paucity of female creators of mainstream superhero comics, Katie Cook, artist of LucasFilm’s “Star Wars: Clone Wars” Web comic, said there are a growing number of women writing and illustrating independent comics, like Wendy Pini, co-creator/artist of “Elf Quest”: Colleen Doran, creator/artist of “A Distant Soil”; and Jill Thompson, creator/artist of “Scary Godmother.”
Still, Cook said, “There aren’t that many women [in the mainstream industry] so you don’t hear about them as much. We’re revered because we’re the girls in the nerd world.”
June Brigman, a Doraville resident who drew Marvel’s “Power Pack” in the 1980s and has illustrated the “Brenda Starr” newspaper strip for 15 years, credits manga for attracting more women to the industry. A comic book genre that is Japanese in origin, manga has gone global and spans subject matters from action-adventure and romance to historical drama and commerce.
“Back in the day, women weren't interested in comics because there were so few titles that appealed to women,” Brigman said. “Manga has changed that… I think it’s because the more character-driven stories appeal to young women.”
Dan Mishkin, a writer for “Wonder Woman” in the mid-1980s and the creator of the DC characters Blue Devil and Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, agreed that the industry is changing.
“I hope we’re at a place now where people don’t need to worry about the gender of who’s doing comics, but what we need to pay attention to is good comics.”
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