Female Comic Characters: Sexy or Smart?

What are the implications of female characters in comics for women?

This article ponders the question: who are today’s superheroines aimed to please? Laura Hudson describes how often contemporary comics claim their portrayals of women are sexually liberating, while they are instead undermining women.

This is an especially interesting cultural dissection when contrasted with Lisa Simpson, the literary backbone of the beloved Simpson family. The Atlantic‘s article, “A Visual History of Literature References On ‘The Simpsons”, selects from the impressive collection of literary references on the Lisa Simpson Book Club tumblr.

“The focal point for the cultural awareness of The Simpsons is, of course, Lisa, precocious bookworm and perennial conscience of the family, who laments that she’s destined for a life without friends or, even worse, a life confined to ‘grown up nerds like Gore Vidal, and even he’s kissed more boys than I have.’”