216 FEMINISM
more positive, and thus has attracted many more female fans. Two such examples that
were then adapted for comics are Xena, Warrior Princess, and Buff y the Vampire Slayer,
whose respective self-titled television programs had considerable success in the 1990s.
A San Francisco lesbian bar held “Xena Nights” once a week, showing Xena on a large-
screen television set to an overfl ow crowd of women. When Topps Comics published
a Xena follow up, and when Dark Horse published a series of Buff y-related comics
(many directly involving Buff y creator Joss Whedon ), both heroines were rendered
in the same realistic style as their real life models, rather than hypersexualized in the
traditional comic-book way, and both books gained a large female following.
Another element too often found in superhero comics is the use of the death or
injury of women characters as a plot device to stir the male hero into action. In 1999, a
group of comic fans created a Web site titled “Women in Refrigerators,” a term coined
by writer Gail Simone , to list and criticize the death and disempowerment of women
in comic books. Th e term refers to an incident in Green Lantern #54, 1994, in which
the title superhero discovers the body of his girlfriend stuff ed into a refrigerator.
Similarly, Girl-Wonder.org, which has since grown into a collection of sites dedicated
to female characters and creators in mainstream comics, started as a single site advocat-
ing for better treatment of female characters. Girl-Wonder was named for Stephanie
Brown, a superhero character who served as Batman’s sidekick, Robin, for several issues;
then she was tortured to death by a power drill, in a long drawn-out graphic sequence
spanning a number of issues.
In 2008, Girl-Wonder.org added Th e Convention Anti-Harassment Project to its
site. Th is is a grass-roots campaign designed to deal with sexual harassment at comic
conventions. It was the sexually threatening atmosphere at a convention that inspired
the formation of the international nonprofi t organization, Friends of Lulu. In 1994,
at Wondercon, a San Francisco comic convention, a group of women, incensed when
the convention sponsored a look-alike contest for the pornographic comic character
Cherry Poptart, met to form an organization for women in the industry. Th e following
summer, the newly formed organization held its fi rst meeting at the San Diego comic
convention. Editor, blogger, and journalist Heidi MacDonald provided the name, based
on Marge Henderson Buell’s Golden Age girl character, Little Lulu, who was always
trying to break into the neighborhood boys’ clubhouse. Friends of Lulu is open to both
men and women. Th ey have published a number of books, including How to Get Girls
(into your store) , a guide for comic store owners, Broad Appeal , an anthology of com-
ics by members, and Th e Girls’ Guide to Guy’s Stuff , featuring the work of 50 women
cartoonists on the subject of men. Since 1997, Friends of Lulu has presented Lulu
Awards to men and women in the industry. Th e Lulu of the Year is given to the creator
(male or female), whose work best exemplifi es Friends of Lulu’s mission statement;
the Kimberly A. Yale Award for Best New Talent, named for a comic book writer and
Friends of Lulu founding member who died in 1997, is awarded to a woman who
has worked in the comic industry for less than two years. Th e Women of Distinction
Award is open to women who work in the comic book fi eld as something other than
