Zatanna: My New Comic Book Love

First I read Wonder Woman, the cliche feminist go-to. I liked it.

Then I started reading Batgirl, and fell in love with Gail Simone's writing.

And now I'm in love with Zatanna.

Not an easy book to find, mind you. Volume 2 of the series is the only book still in print, and no one had it. Not Comicopia, not New England Comics, not Newbury Comics. But wanting to support a local comic book shop and not just order it from Amazon, when Comicopia offered to order it for me I enthusiastically accepted the favor. And it was worth the wait!

A comic that centers around a woman? Yes! A story about a creepy, possessed marionette? Hell to the yes! A female magician? Oh yeah! Well not magician, sorceress that does magic shows . . . and it's never clarified if the audience knows about her powers . . . but still, yay!

Really my only complaint is the way she's constantly sexualized. Her usual outfit wasn't too problematic, although I dunno, pants would be nice. But in some of the chapters her breasts were insane. Not all of them, sometimes she had normal sized boobs, but what purpose did those melons serve? And then the fan art is all about sexy sexy sex times, further reducing her to a sex object. The fandom seems to be mostly male and mostly concerned with her appearance than her character or the stories told in the books.

really?

seriously?

Oh come on . . .

. . . she had better be doing an escape act here!

Look! Pants! Finally!

Zatanna: Because a successful female magician is so inconcievable, she only exists in comic books.

Well sort of. I know there are female magicians out there, but I once heard that there is not one female magician with her own show in Vegas. I went to a magic bar that sold black shirts that said "escape artist" - "for the boys," the headliner said; and "for the girls," they had pink shirts that said "I <3 [the magician's name]" Don't get me wrong, I did really like him, as do many young ladies, but the way the shirts were gendered rubbed me the wrong way, and ultimately reminded me how far south I'd traveled. I want to take this moment to talk about women in magic, and keep in mind that magic is tengentially related to nerd culture, there seems to be a considerable overlap between the two interests.

Part of the problem lies in the way women's clothing is designed. Dresses and women's suits are fitted and rarely have functional pockets, leaving little room for women to hide things. Women tend to have small hands, making sleight of hands illusions especially difficult (yet I still can't palm anything smaller than a quarter). While women are never actively discouraged from pursuing magic, they're not exactly encouraged either. A lack of female magicians out there mean that lots of girls don't even consider learning magic, and girls are still socialized not to be too outlandish or "attention seeking," because it's not ladylike to show off the way boys do with their magic tricks. And if those shirts at the magic bar say anything, it's that we just don't expect women to be interested in things like magic and escape artistry, their role is that of a groupie or, if they're lucky, the lovely assistant.

(Don't get me wrong, I loved being called up on stage that night; if it happened again I would not complain in the slightest)

Er, I guess that's it really. Obstacles, not cool. If would be awesome if the series addressed the gender disparity in the magic world, maybe showing Zatanna deal with sexism from male magicians. Maybe it has happned, but it's not gonna be cheap to track down the back issues or out-of-print graphic novels, gotta get a new job first to see what happened in Every Day Magic and Zatanna vol. 1. But if it hasn't happened in her story, it probably won't, since the series that centers around her has been disconinued. Zatanna was not part of the New 52 series of reboots. Maybe it's time to start writing some fan fiction.

Anyway, the series is not overtly feminist, nor are most of the fans, but I'd say the series is worth checking out if you're looking for something new to read.