Lumberjanes, a new release from BOOM! Studios, is a tremendously delightful read. The story focuses on five tween girls at summer camp, fighting monsters and saving the day. It is also one of the most important new comics coming out this year.
On an episode of The Big Bang Theory, the main characters are in their local comics shop when a woman walks in. One of our long-suffering protagonists turns to another and says, "Is she lost?" This is the entirety of the joke. Cue laugh track.
It’s a joke premised on a woefully outdated understanding of the comics industry, but an understanding that persists with the ugly and unwarranted tenacity of an angry goose hassling a picnic. If the internet has been successful at one thing, it is getting stories and ideas into the minds of people who wouldn’t ordinarily have been exposed to them.
It turns out that queer people, people of colour, and women actually read and enjoy comics immensely. In fact, a survey done at the most recent Emerald City Comic Con found that 52 per cent of respondents listed their gender as female and two per cent as non-binary, putting men in the minority. These are both groups for whom comics aren’t typically written, and whose exclusion makes Big Bang’s awful joke a joke in the first place. Everyone — not solely straight white men — wants to see themselves in the story, to be able to relate, to draw inspiration and feel included.
So why, then, is Lumberjanes so important? For starters, its central premise of problem solving and rough-and-tumble adventure is one that has traditionally been relegated to stories for and about boys (i.e. The Goonies, The Hardy Boys, ad nauseam). Taking this story trope and casting the main characters as a group of five young girls is daring all on its own, but each of these well-rounded heroines also has a different background and distinct personality.
Moreover, there is a strong element of queer identity in the storytelling. Given the age of the protagonists, most interactions will be on the chaste side, but innuendo will be embedded.
"If you are reading between the lines that something gay is happening, something gay is probably happening," said Grace Ellis, one of the series’ writers, in a recent interview with Autostraddle.
No amount of superlatives I could heap on this book would be sufficient to convey how important this kind of representation and acknowledgement is for queer youth. Giving their audience relatable, empathetic characters is a prime consideration made by the entire creative team.
"I want publishers and retailers to look at Lumberjanes and say, oh yeah, people do actually want stories like this, maybe we should look into more stories about and by women and queer people and people of colour and trans people and people who are disabled... Maybe we should tell some stories that aren’t about straight white dudes and the sexy women they save," Ellis went on to say
At this year’s Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, I had a chance to talk to another one of the creative minds behind Lumberjanes, Brooke Allen. Allen is the sole artist on the project. Her credits include work on the venerable Adventure Time series. A young woman herself, she brings her insight and enthusiasm to every panel of the comic, and it shows. Visit this article on the GayCalgary website to watch the full video.
