Wapsi Square Forum

lake_wrangler wrote:So yes, there are plenty of bit parts being offered to guys... just not very many lasting roles...

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Thor wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:So yes, there are plenty of bit parts being offered to guys... just not very many lasting roles...

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I'm sure many people like to see lots of positive female roles, played by many physically attractive ladies... but have you ever heard of the saying "too much of a good thing"? There has to be some balance, at some point...

lake_wrangler wrote:

Thor wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:So yes, there are plenty of bit parts being offered to guys... just not very many lasting roles...

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I'm sure many people like to see lots of positive female roles, played by many physically attractive ladies... but have you ever heard of the saying "too much of a good thing"? There has to be some balance, at some point...

There's an awful lot of stories--a fairly huge amount really--with a large sprawling cast, but with a total amount of female characters that could be counted on a single shop-teacher's hand.

There doesn't have to be some balance; this is some balance.

Thor wrote:There's an awful lot of stories--a fairly huge amount really--with a large sprawling cast, but with a total amount of female characters that could be counted on a single shop-teacher's hand.

(Emphasis mine)

Really? Let's see:

Monica, Shelly, Amanda, Jacqi, Katherine, Tina, Jin, Bud, Brandi, Pratt, McBride, Phix, Nudge, Tsillah, Atsali, Castella, Calista, Jessie, the other mermaid, the gym coach, Castela's teacher, Georgette, Jill (Jet's sister), Euryale, and that's just off the top of my head... So, how many 24-fingered shop teachers do you know, hmm?

Thor wrote:There doesn't have to be some balance; this is some balance.

If I tried, I could probably count close to as many guys as the list I just made of girl characters. However, they ALL have supporting cast roles, with diminishing importance from there. So while there may be almost a balance on the number fo characters, there is a definite imbalance on the importance of the roles assigned to each gender in this story.

You're missing the point. It isn't that this cast lacks main females, it's that most other webcomics (and other "entertainment") has all to majority male casts. I have seen some where the only female in the cast was only there as fan service, and did nothing to move the story along. See: "Bechdel test" for more examples.

Opus the Poet wrote: See: "Bechdel test" for more examples.

I was gonna mention that if you hadn't.

I remember how happy i was when i stumbled across Tamora Pierce's "Protector of the Small" series, and went from there go her "Immortals" and "Alanne" series - all of them well-written YA fantasies, all featuring strong, competent and badass-when-necessary female protagonists who could stand equal to or even above their male equivalents.

Opus the Poet wrote:You're missing the point. It isn't that this cast lacks main females, it's that most other webcomics (and other "entertainment") has all to majority male casts. I have seen some where the only female in the cast was only there as fan service, and did nothing to move the story along. See: "Bechdel test" for more examples.

Thank you. Wapsi has been a near-perfect example of a franchise that "fails the gender-reversed Bechdel test", something that is rarer than rooster's teeth.

Examples in Wapsi of two male characters who have a conversation about something other than a woman, number only about two or three, and I believe all of them are merely trivial tangents to much more important discussions of a woman character: Tepoz chides Kukulcan for his dress sense after being assigned guardianship of Monica. Kevin and Alan trade barbs about Magnum, P.I. after a deep discussion about M's aggressiveness.


I think all other dialogue are about their girlfriends. Generally male characters in Wapsi don't speak to one another "on screen" at all.


Pablo is on record as having never heard of the Bechdel test until years after he began the strip; he just likes telling stories the way he does.

Note that the "test" is really more a social thought experiment to raise awareness of the lack of depth of women's stories in most media, than a hard and fast litmus of artistic worth or intentional sexism. Kind of like how Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment in the philosophy of quantum physics and not an actual physics experiment to attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test

Hmm... thinking about the other webcomics I read... excluding comics that strongly center on just one or two characters (granted that's kind of subjective). I also recognize that the comics I like are not necessarily representative of webcomics in general.

Blindsprings: most of the cast is female.

El Goonish Shive: 8-person core cast has one person who is almost-always male, one who is male most of the time, and one who is male about half the time when on-screen. The other five are almost-always female. (Yeah, it's the kind of comic where "almost" is needed.)

Footloose: about half the major characters and the most powerful of the minor characters are female. It's set in a sort of magical college, founded and run by a female, with two of the separate schools of the college consisting almost entirely of females. In fact there's a side comic about the only male in one of those schools, the Magical Girls school (check pretty much any comic, manga, or anime in the Magical Girls sub-genre and you'll know what that school is about). Some of the other schools in the college are male-dominated, but nowhere near that level of exclusivity.

Flaky Pastry: the core cast is all female.

Gaia: fairly balanced, but leaders are mostly women.

Namesake: major characters are mostly female or androgynous.

Shotgun Shuffle (occasionally nsfw): the core cast is a bunch of sisters (siblings, not religious). Not sure how many, I think at least five.

Sister Claire: it's set in a nunnery. The core cast is all female, mostly nuns.

The Flying Cloud: the main cast is mostly the crew of a military airship shortly after the First World War, and they spend quite a lot of time on the airship flying around the western Pacific. Which makes the presence of four female major characters somewhat unrealistic; but there they are, and none of them are primarily love interests. In fact, two of them are crew.

Too Much Information (nsfw): the core cast includes two males (one a full-time transvestite) and at least six females.

TwoKinds (arguably nsfw): Group A has one female and three males (one transgender), total three or four species; plus probably-temporary add-ons of two females and four males, possibly adding a fifth species. Group B has two males and three females, plus a possibly-temporary add-on male and a fourth female who probably isn't sapient (but there's good reason to leave the question open), total three species.

And if you're into superhero comics, which I am not, check out Grrl Power. The leader of the group is female. The superhero who is quite possibly the most versatile and (once she gets some training and experience) powerful of the bunch is female - but as far as the most common superpower (warning: TVTropes link) is concerned, well, she's been described as being on the A team. (I'd love to swipe HER and stick her in any one of at least four other comics; the rest of Grrl Power I really don't care about.)

I have to point out that despite Sister Claire being set in a convent (at least at first) not all of the cast are female... Well, genetically, anyway.

Yamara wrote:

Opus the Poet wrote:You're missing the point. It isn't that this cast lacks main females, it's that most other webcomics (and other "entertainment") has all to majority male casts. I have seen some where the only female in the cast was only there as fan service, and did nothing to move the story along. See: "Bechdel test" for more examples.

Thank you. Wapsi has been a near-perfect example of a franchise that "fails the gender-reversed Bechdel test", something that is rarer than rooster's teeth.

Examples in Wapsi of two male characters who have a conversation about something other than a woman, number only about two or three, and I believe all of them are merely trivial tangents to much more important discussions of a woman character: Tepoz chides Kukulcan for his dress sense after being assigned guardianship of Monica. Kevin and Alan trade barbs about Magnum, P.I. after a deep discussion about M's aggressiveness.


I think all other dialogue are about their girlfriends. Generally male characters in Wapsi don't speak to one another "on screen" at all.


Pablo is on record as having never heard of the Bechdel test until years after he began the strip; he just likes telling stories the way he does.

Note that the "test" is really more a social thought experiment to raise awareness of the lack of depth of women's stories in most media, than a hard and fast litmus of artistic worth or intentional sexism. Kind of like how Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment in the philosophy of quantum physics and not an actual physics experiment to attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test

BUT what does REAL LIFE have to do with a comic????? boooooring...

I won't deny I'm surprised my comment sparked such conversation, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

A lot of people... Trying not to name them, seem to get really defensive at the sheer idea of there being some actually important male characters in the story as well. Prior to him being given The Bus treatment, Darren was maybe the most important man in the entire comic because of the wisdom he would dish out to the rest of the cast. After he was brushed away, I'd say it was probably Justin for a good while, as all the other boyfriends were in the background. Maybe that's because he was a paranormal all along? I don't know how Paul does the writing, so whether he was planned to be what he turned out to be is hard to say.

Over the years the comic turned from... slice of life, of a girl and her friends getting sucked into some really weird shit. Into, as it says now, A Slice of Supernatural Life! Seeing as how much of our cast has either become supernatural themselves or know the truth of it.

There's a problem with that though. In the transition, we've lost 99% of the male characters. Most of the ladies were the non-human types. It does seem that Paul has changed to focus more on the supernatural stuff, which is why I'm glad that Jacob has been introduced. I'd like more of that. If Atsali's little group of friends is going to be like a... to use my own example from another post her "Girl Meets World" to Monica's "Boy Meets World" we'll have to get at least one dude into the group of friends.

Akeche wrote:I won't deny I'm surprised my comment sparked such conversation, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

A lot of people... Trying not to name them, seem to get really defensive at the sheer idea of there being some actually important male characters in the story as well.

Yeah, there's a natural human tendency to go argumentum ad personum when one feels the other person in the conversation isn't listening. I think it has to do with feeling so secure in one's own position that if others disagree, the assumption is that something must be impaired with their knowledge, or barring that, their ability. When usually a position is held for a range of interests a person has vested themselves in. Thus, every give-and-take can be construed in terms of offense and defense, and taking action on that knowledge can drive things off-topic for the sake of needless rancor.

I'd say there have been important male characters in Wapsi all along, with depth of character appropriate to the genre and mood of the piece. They aren't the stars of the show, so they interact as needed; the fact that they're missed when not in panel testifies how interesting and important they truly are to readers.

Akeche wrote:Prior to him being given The Bus treatment, Darren was maybe the most important man in the entire comic because of the wisdom he would dish out to the rest of the cast. After he was brushed away, I'd say it was probably Justin for a good while, as all the other boyfriends were in the background. Maybe that's because he was a paranormal all along? I don't know how Paul does the writing, so whether he was planned to be what he turned out to be is hard to say.

Over the years the comic turned from... slice of life, of a girl and her friends getting sucked into some really weird shit. Into, as it says now, A Slice of Supernatural Life! Seeing as how much of our cast has either become supernatural themselves or know the truth of it.

There's a problem with that though. In the transition, we've lost 99% of the male characters.

Nowhere near 99%, we've only "lost" Owen (and he's eloped with Lakshmi, not dead), and Darren had an appropriate send-off. Tepoz is AWOL, but he's immortal. We'll see him again. No other boy is more absent than, say, Jacqui, Luci or Heather.

Counting Kevin as being written out is a mistake, even a misreading. Up until he was dumped, we knew very little of his own motivation. He's coming forward as a more interesting and involved character than ever, and as a poster said the other day, "even Monica ships Kevin and Bud".

Monica dumped Kevin, Wapsi hasn't. Maybe his story is so compelling that readers rush to his emotional support.

But don't worry: He's important all on his own. After all, didn't he realize all by himself that there was no reason to wait until 2012 to stop the Calendar Machine?

Ah wait, Bud thought of it too. They must be on the same wavelength.

Akeche wrote:If Atsali's little group of friends is going to be like a... to use my own example from another post her "Girl Meets World" to Monica's "Boy Meets World" we'll have to get at least one dude into the group of friends.

And the buildup to the cute boy in Atsali's diary has been going on for a year. Wapsiworld isn't running out of men, or even women doting on them. They're just not the stars of the show.

One thing I have noticed about this comic is that it attracts readers who like character-driven stories with strong female characters. I mentioned that I had been reading comics that had only a token female for fan service that did nothing to drive the plot and then you guys started mentioning comics that were mostly female characters and eventually listed about 80% of the comics I read regularly (I still read a few of the fanservice-only female character comics because I like the stories).

So the main reason most of you guys (and gals) are here is the stories and the characters that happen to be mostly female.

Opus the Poet wrote: So the main reason most of you guys (and gals) are here is the stories and the characters that happen to be mostly female.

hey if you know a comic as good, SFW but with mainly males, please do link it...
here is my list..

a very old one, C 1996 - 2006.. (but set to read from the archive everyday) - My first good one back then, hence my 'nick.. lots of PC support jokes..

www.the-whiteboard.com/ good, but infrequently updated...
www.battlepug.com even less frequently updated..

Akeche wrote:I won't deny I'm surprised my comment sparked such conversation, but I don't see that as a bad thing.

The conversation about the female-to-male ratio in Wapsi Square has been going on for quite some time now, but if you want to take credit for starting it, knock yourself out.

Yamara wrote:Yeah, there's a natural human tendency to go argumentum ad personum when one feels the other person in the conversation isn't listening.

Um, I haven't seen this. People here are debating the merits of the argument, not attacking the people making the arguments.