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81Russian Japanology Review, 2021, 2, pp. 113-141 DOI: 10.24412/2658-6444-2021-2-113-141
Women's Comics in Russia: Initiated by Manga
Yu. A. Magera Yu. B. Tarasyuk
Abstract. In the USSR, like in many other countries, comics were mostly seen as light reading material and published in children's magazines. When a comics market formed in Russia during the 1990s, it consisted mainly of translated American and European children's comics, but first comics-only magazines aimed at teenagers and adults also appeared at that time (KOM, Veles, Muha, etc.). These magazines presented works made by men and for men, usually containing sexualized images of women.
There were no famous women among Russian comic artists during the 1990s, as female authors usually assisted their husbands or were known as part of comics artists duos. An example of the latter is Natalia Snegireva, who created "Keshka", a children's comics series about a cat, together with her husband Andrey. Another person is Svetlana Sorokina, who helped her husband Evgeny as a colorist and then designed book covers for the Russian edition of "ElfQuest" by Wendy and Richard Piny. The turning point for female comics artists in Russia came in the early 2000s with the growing popularity of Japanese manga and the spread of the Internet. Due to these factors, young women published comics in new magazines aimed at both children and teenagers (Klassnyi zhurnal, Yula, etc.) and at anime fans (Poppuri anime, Anime Guide, etc.). For example, Lina and Kotyonok ("The Kitten") by Enji were a romance and fantasy comics series with a girl as protagonist; Rytsari radugi ("The Knights of the Rainbow") from Yula magazine examined "girl
power" through the friendship between girls and magic adventures of Russian middle school students. Female artists who adopted the style of Japanese manga were not the only ones to open the door for new themes in comics and imagine girls as heroines, but their work definitely encouraged young girls to draw comics by themselves and participate in Russian comics festivals.
This article examines the role of manga, shojo manga (comics for girls) in particular, for the birth of women's comics in Russia and feminist themes. Its influence on the growth of women in comics both as readers and artists, the appearance of manga-inspired comics which address issues such as women's body and trauma Kniga tela ("The Book of Body") or Razdelenie ("Partition") by Yuliya Nikitina; lesbian romance Klub by Anna Rud'; life of a young woman during the siege of Leningrad Survilo by Olga Lavrentieva. Besides representational contents, the birth of feminist fanzines such as those by Nika Vodvud and group "Femlnfoteka" are also noteworthy.
Keywords: manga, Russian comics, female comics, feminism, female characters.
In the Men's Shadow
From the beginning of the 20th century, the government of the Soviet Union took a supportive stance towards women's emancipation. As early as in 1917, the governing cabinet welcomed its first ever female member, Aleksandra Kollontai, an advocate of the feminist ideal of a New Woman and free love.1 Throughout the history of the USSR, there were many examples of women in leadership positions as well as representations of strong women. Even manual labor, such as being a stacker of railroad ties, a combine operator, or a tractor driver, had female faces. The first female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova went on a solo mission in 1963. In the art world as well, prominent sculptor Vera Mukhina gained recognition in
1 Kollontai A (1918). New Woman, from The New Morality and the Working Class.
the 1920-1940S. However, everyday reality of the Soviet woman was less stellar. Women were a valuable part of the full-time labor force, working full time, yet, at the same time, they were expected to shoulder all the housework and childcare. Especially married women had little free time to pursue their interests and hobbies.
Because ofthe Iron Curtain, the USSR followed a rather different path in regard to the feminist movement. The first feminist activists began to appear at the end of the 1970s. Tatiana Mamonova was a member of literary-art magazine The Aurora, writing poems and participating in exhibitions of nonconformist art. Her own gender-related trauma (negative experience with the Soviet obstetrics and rape) motivated her to gather a group of female authors and to release the first feminist self-published magazine in the USSR. They wrote about abortions, food stealing in kindergarten, and marital problems, such as domestic violence and alcoholism, etc. The magazine, Women in Russia (1979), was published in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). The magazine's first issue originally had only ten copies; with the distribution of more copies, the publishers risked imprisonment. Despite this precaution, in 1980, the editorial staff was exiled from the country to Vienna, and the Western media referred to them as "the first feminist exiles from the USSR" [Yasenitskaya 2012]. Therefore, despite superficial claims for gender equality, actual feminist movement was suppressed by the authorities, putting a stop to the political feminist activism in Russia virtually until the end of the Soviet era. As a result, by the time the Soviet Union was drawing near its collapse, it was lagging behind on the gender equality front. It will not come as a surprise that gender representations in the media had been prevalently patriarchal.
Among the prolific variety of printed media, comics were a niche one in the USSR. The notion of comics and comics-like media referring to themselves as comics appeared during the last years of the USSR. However, long before that, there were publications structured as comics, specifically comic strips. In the USSR, like many other countries, comics-like materials were mostly seen as light reading material and published in children's magazines.
Children's periodicals have a long tradition in Russia, beginning with the Soviet period Murzilka, 1924-present, Veselye kartinki ("The Funny Pictures"), 1956-present. These magazines contained miscellaneous materials, such as informative material, fairy tales, cut out puzzles, coloring sheets, riddles, etc. The comic strips appeared in these children's publications as well, yet they occupied a minor place and were perceived as a type of illustration, rather than comics. Most Soviet comics were short humor strips, created by famous children's book illustrators. For that reason, there were few authors who saw themselves as comics artists in the USSR, and comic strips were usually not presented as "comics" at the time. Russian comics historian Aleksey Pavlovskiy refers to the Soviet stance towards comics-like materials published in the USSR as follows: "Comics existed in the USSR, but they were reduced only to children's works. In 1986, N. Mansurov wrote that Western comics entertain, but do not educate the younger generation. The Soviet comics were not supposed to take a child away from the reality, its main goal was to arouse in children a sense of collectivism, love for the Soviet Motherland and faith in a bright future" [Pavlovskiy 2016, p. 93].
When the first comics which were actually referred to as "comics" appeared in the Russian book market during the early 1990s, they consisted mainly of translated American and European titles for children (Disney comics, Asterix series, etc.). However, soon the medium was rediscovered and adopted by Russian authors as well. The appeal of comics was recognized and Russian comics magazines started to aim not only at children, but also at teenagers and even adults.
If we look at the Russian comics industry of the 1990s, we see that female authors were almost excluded from the comics production. In this period, the realm of comics was a rather minor artistic niche, which appeared more male-centric than other branches of the publishing industry.2 There are very few examples of women participating in content
Women worked as illustrators, animators, or writers. For example, graphic artist Tatiana Vyshenskaya (1901-1990), who drew covers and characters
creation. Usually they carried out functions of assistants, such as colorists or illustrators. Their labor was frequently uncredited. There are almost no examples of women being mentioned as co-authors.
One of the representative comics production groups, studio "KOM", was established in 1988 as a branch of the newspaper Vechernyaya Moskva ("Evening Moscow"). This studio consisted of male artists and caricaturists, who called themselves "komovtsy" and who published original comics and comic strips for the newspaper. Comics by "KOM" were aimed at an adult audience and examined such genres as comedy, action, and horror. Today "KOM" is seen as an important part of the Russian comics history and most of the artists who worked there in the early 1990s maintain their interest in comics.
Andrey Snegirev, a "KOM" affiliated artist, is frequently singled out as the creator of the most renowned Russian original comics of that period, although the work he is most famous for was aimed at children. Keshka (1991-1998) is a series of short strips, published in the early 1990s in the newspaper Sem'ya ("Family") and later compiled into comic books. Keshka is the name of the cat-protagonist. When in 1993 Keshka strips were compiled into a book and colorized, Andrey Snegirev's wife, Natalia Snegireva, was mentioned as a co-author and colorist. Subsequently, all new stories about Keshka were in color. Andrey created the stories and layouts, while his wife added color. However, despite the fact that the official website of Keshka comics refers to Snegireva as "Keshka's mother", most of the secondary sources have omitted her as a co-author.
Natalia Snegireva did not work for "KOM" studio, but she was one of the first women to help create Russian comics. She also exemplifies the omission of female comics artists from the Russian book market in the 1990s. All the famous Russian comics magazines were edited by men and published works for men. Comics made by independent female authors hardly existed during that period. The few existing examples of female authors usually refer to male artists' wives. Furthermore, while Natalia
for children's humor magazine Veselye kartinki, and famous artist Tatiana Mavrina (1900-1996), who created filmstrips.
Snegireva was credited on the covers, the names of other female colorists and assistants have become public only recently.
Another example of a married couple who worked on comics, Evgeniy Sorokin and Svetlana Sorokina, are not associated with original material. Instead, they worked on adapting translated comics and related artwork for Russian publications. This time too, Sorokina assisted her husband as a colorist. During the early 1990s, Evgeniy Sorokin worked for the Soviet-Danish publishing house Egmondt FIS (joint company with publisher Fizkultura i Sport ("Physical Culture and Sport")). Egmondt FIS was the first publisher in the USSR to issue comics magazines about Mickey Mouse and Scrooge McDuck from 1988.
Each comic book was about 20-30 pages long and was accompanied by different puzzles for kids, additional artwork, and coloring pages with characters from comics. These coloring pages and additional images did not belong to the original creators, but were drawn by Evgeniy Sorokin. His copies were created with the permission of the copyright owners and could hardly be distinguished from the original. As a result, Russian readers frequently were not aware that the coloring pages were made by a local artist. Dmitriy Sorokin, the son of this married couple, revealed that many color pictures that Evgeniy Sorokin produced were in fact colorized by his wife, Svetlana Sorokina [Sorokin 2019]. Dmitriy refers to his parents as an ideal creative tandem. Working for Egmondt FIS, Evgeniy Sorokin did the sketches, and Svetlana Sorokina colored them. However, Egmondt FIS did not employ Svetlana officially. In other words, her labor was unpaid and uncredited.
When Evgeniy Sorokin left Egmondt FIS at the end of 1993, he started to work with Machaon publishing house in 1994. Soon his wife Svetlana was hired together with him as a colorist. Machaon focused on translations of the American comic ElfQuest by Wendy and Richard Pini. Svetlana was responsible for the covers of the Russian editions of ElfQuest (Saga o lesnykh vsadnikakh, 1994) comic series: she colored black and white images created by Wendy Pini. Her work was approved by Machaon and then by the Pinis themselves. As a result, Svetlana was in charge of the Russian edition of ElfQuest, and she was also asked by
Wendy Pini to draw a cover for the first volume of ElfQuest (collection of the first five issues). This cover is the only one to have Sorokina's signature on it.3 Despite her contribution, Svetlana Sorokina was not officially recognized until 2019, showcasing the peculiar gender bias that plagued the industry in the 1990s.
Generally, the women who worked together with their husbands were the only ones to receive recognition, even if delayed, in the Russian comics history. There were, however, some exceptions. Lena Uzhinova (a.k.a. Alyona Kamyshevskaya, b. 1967) can be named as the first independent female comics artist in Russia at the end of the 1990s, although, at first, she did not consider herself a comics artist [Kunin 2018]. Uzhinova created her first comics at the age of twenty but is most known for her animated works and the short comics she made for several non-comics magazines and newspapers in the 1990s. Her first comics, Zhizn' vo mgle ("The Life in Darkness", 1987),4 told the story of a hippie girl who goes to work where everything and everybody is standard.
In 1995, Uzhinova was in Paris and chanced upon the comic Leon La Came (1993-1998) by Nikolas de Crecy. Heavily under the influence of this work, Uzhinova realized that she did not just want to read comics but also devote herself to making comics [Kunin 2018]. Only after 2004 did Uzhinova begin to take comics more seriously, when she was invited by Andrey Snegirev to take part in the third Russian comics festival KomMissia (short from "Comics Mission"). Finally, she began to produce comics fulltime in 2008, after taking part in the Saint Petersburg comics festival Boomfest as a special guest.
Not only was Lena Uzhinova the first female comics creator in Russia, but she also addressed gender inequality already in one of her earlier
One more interesting fact is that the covers of the Russian edition had the
subtitle "picture novel" (roman v kartinkakh), but not "comics". This comics could be only seen in her personal interview. For more information see: Kunin A. Lena Uzhinova: Raznost sluchaya [Lena Uzhinova: The Difference Being], July 2009, accessible at http://chedrik.ru/2009/ lena-uzhinova-raznost-sluchaya/
3
works. From 1998 to 2012, she created a comic series which includes thematic cycles about women's life: childhood, adulthood, first love, casual and non-casual sexual relationships, joys, disappointments. In one of her biographical essay comics Byf mal'chikom ("To Be a Boy", 1998), she described her attempts to become a boy. Lena depicted herself as a little girl who hates wearing dresses and prefers different attributes of masculine culture such as black toy pistols, Chapaev toy soldiers, slingshots, boys' jeans and sneakers. But the only thing she cannot emulate is the ability to pee standing up. As a result, she pees over herself. But at the end of this story she finds her own way of peeing in order to extinguish a campfire. At first glance, it seems that penis envy is represented here, but the criterion of masculinity, defined only by physiological characteristics, appears to ridicule physiological gender determinism.
Byt' mal'chikom is one example of how a female comics artist portrays a female character, addressing problems of femininity during the 1990s. At the same time, their male counterparts were also depicting female characters in comic art.
During the 1990s, Russian comics were appearing in different cities of the former USSR, but, in many cases, they were oriented towards Western models. As mentioned by culturologist Daria Dmitrieva: "In fact, the comics of the early 1990s, aimed as entertaining adventure reading at teenagers and adults, were created from scratch, often by directly moving the Western tradition to the Soviet ground" [Dmitrieva 2015, p. 301]. The most famous magazines of that time were Muha ("The Fly") in Ufa city, and PIF or Priklyucheniya i fantastika ("Adventures and Sci-fi"), and Veles in Ekaterinburg. All three magazines had exclusively male staff. Main genres of their stories were comedy, adventures, and action. These magazines presented works made by men and for men and usually included sexualized images of women.
One of the first periodical post-Soviet comic magazines Veles, which was published from 1991 to 1995, shows how male comics artists were looking for inspiration in American superheroes and Slavic mythology (Veles is a name of a pagan god of the ancient Slavs). The comic story
Attractive Baba Yaga in Veles comic magazine № 2, 1993. © Igor Kozhevnikov
with the same name, Veles (1993), tells about an animal being, sheltering a human baby. The animal figure takes the baby to Baba Yaga and asks her to breastfeed the baby. The famous Slavic folklore character Baba Yaga is usually portrayed as a scary, old woman, but here she looks very sexy, and all the evil male forest spirits come to see her. After feeding the baby, Baba Yaga has a sexual affair with the animal being who brought the child. Another comics, called Kosmicheskaya nimphomanka ("Space Nymphomaniac", 1991), was supposed to be the first Ural erotic comics with female protagonist, but it was never published [Pavlovskiy 2017]. However, such stories demonstrate attempts to depict women only as an object of male sexual desire.
The next periodical comic magazine, Muha, was published from 1992 to 1995 (nineteen issues), every issue including five comics stories by different Russian authors. This magazine had a characteristically sexist
way of portraying female characters. The women wear skimpy outfits, and the panels tend to focus on their large breasts. Female characters are portrayed prevalently as seductive antagonists or damsels in distress. Finally, they are represented as objects of the male protagonist's desire and as his "prize" at the end of the story.
A later comic magazine Velikolepnye priklyucheniya ("The Amazing Adventures", 1999-2003) focused on children audience and promoted healthy life and creativity. It consisted of stories about the adventures of a group of teenagers. There were five male characters in the group and only one girl, Leska, who played a supportive role. Leska was portrayed as "sporty", "pretty", and "brilliant". Such description is a reference to a famous Soviet movie Kavkazskaya plennitsa ("The Caucasian Prisoner"), a romantic comedy about a university student falling in love with a girl, Nina, who against her will is sold by a relative to a local man as a bride. In the movie, Nina is described as "a sporty girl, a Komsomol girl, and just a very pretty girl", a phrase which still endures as a running joke, referring to the female ideal of the Soviet period. Leska from Velikolepnie priklyucheniya is also "sporty" (has an ideal figure), "pretty", and "brilliant". The word "brilliant", (in Russian, the word umnitsa, "умница" is used), refers not only to being smart or clever, but also connotes obedience. Specifically, umnitsa in this context refers to an obedient little girl.
Although, as mentioned above, Velikolepnie priklyucheniya was a magazine aimed at children, women were usually portrayed here in the same subordinate position as in comic magazines for adults. For example, a nurse from the first issue of Velikolepnie priklyucheniya, who arrives to help the characters, is not wearing a proper nurse uniform, wearing a short dress instead. The main male character gets pushed accidentally into her large breasts, while other characters make jokes about how they want to be "healed by the nurse", implying sexual interaction.
There were no Russian comics magazines aimed at women or girls during the 1990s. Comics, as well as videogames, were considered entertainment for the male audience, something largely enjoyed only by boys and men. There was no place for accurate female representations
or representation of women's issues and interests. The only positive or educational female images aimed at the female consumer are very patriarchal, such as good wives and mothers, or those obedient to their parents or husbands. During the 1990s, this point of view was popularized throughout Russian media such as TV shows, women's magazines, etc., which did not feature any female protagonists. But soon, when the year 2000 was around the corner, the situation began to change slowly with the appearance of anime, populated by independent female protagonists.
Manga as a New Form for Women's Self-Expression
As previously discussed, the first female comics artists appeared in Russia during the 1990s, but, with the advent of the 21st century, they have gained new possibilities to express themselves, borrowing the format of Japanese comics - manga. Among the many reasons why manga appealed to the Russian readers, one may highlight the more positive image of Japan compared to other countries. As mentioned by professor Yulia Mikhailova: «...even during the cold war the Soviet mass media looked at Japan more sympathetically than at other "capitalist" countries: Japan, in a way, was regarded as the "victim of American imperialism"» [Mikhailova 2006, p. 182]. In 1970, Soviet journalist Vsevolod Ovchinnikov wrote the book "Sakura (The Story of What Kind of People the Japanese Are)", which became very popular among Soviet citizens, who started to associate Japan with a high level of culture and refined manners.
The positive image of Japan was adopted by the younger generation. The new Japanese media, such as anime and manga, also offered representations of more fluid gender identities and relationships between sexes. Combined with innovative story-telling and striking visuals, these imported media attracted young Russians searching for a new form of self-expression after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The influence of Japanese pop culture was very strong at the beginning of the 1990s not only due to the distribution of anime and manga, but
also due to the development of computer games and such companies as Nintendo or Sega. In this case, the first information about Japanese anime and manga could be found in post-Soviet magazines dedicated to video games, such as Video Ace Dendy, Velikiy drakon ("Great Dragon"), Strana igr ("Game Land"), etc. By the end of the 1990s, however, information about manga and anime began to appear in periodicals for Russian children and teenagers. In the post-Soviet era, some of the major children's publications were Klassnyi zhurnal ("Cool Magazine", a pun on "classroom journal", which sounds the same in Russian, 1999-present), Gen-13 (2001-2008), Popurri anime ("Potpourri Anime", 2003-2005), Yula ("Whirligig", 2004-2009), etc. Their content became less ideological and more entertaining, although they preserved the familiar format of miscellaneous content, borrowed from the Soviet times. However, the comics began to play a more significant role. For example, American comic strips about Garfield, Bugs Bunny, Calvin and Hobbes, and Snoopy filled the pages of Klassnyi zhurnal.
These post-Soviet children's magazines were sold by the thousands of copies (usually 20,000 copies) at Soyuzpechat' kiosks, which distributed periodicals since the 1930s and, after 1994, as a result of the corporatization of the monopoly Soviet agency, were renamed Rospechat'. Now, according to the information on its website, the Rospechat' Agency is one of the largest players in the Russian market of distribution of periodicals and the owner of more than 2,000 kiosks in 17 regions of the country. The system of periodical distribution inherited from the Soviet era helped to popularize the novel media such as comics before the wide spread of the Internet.
The development of video-recording technology increased the popularity of Japanese anime, which was shown on Russian television or sold on VHS cassettes and gathered a big group of fans, especially after the anime series Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon was broadcast in Russia in 1996-1997. The story about a middle-school girl Usagi Tsukino, who received magical powers and became the Sailor Soldier, was aimed mostly at a female audience and displayed visual tropes of anime style (big eyes, colored hair, exaggerated emotions). One may theorize that the
popularity of Sailor Moon became the reason why the original Russian comics in manga style mostly targeted an adolescent female reader.
Young Russian artists began to create their own works, which combined the elements of American comics (they used color, uniform panel layout, right-to-left direction of reading) with visually distinct Japanese character design. One early example is Nika - the first Russian comics in manga style, which were drawn by a Moscow artist Bogdan based on the script by Slava Makarov and serialized in Klassnyi zhurnal, starting with the first issue (1999) through the 119th issue (2001). It tells the story of a 17-year-old schoolgirl Nika Novikova. She is an orphan with big eyes, fluffy hairstyle and white headband, reminiscent of Japanese hachimaki. Nika studies martial arts, can handle weapons and fights against villains. Despite her brave personality, she is frequently not strong enough and ends up needing the help of two young men: Vyacheslav Radnov and Brys' (short for Bolshaya rys' - "Big lynx", a pun on a similar sounding onomatopoeia that is used to chase animals away). Despite her shortcomings, Nika is generally depicted as cool and sexy, referencing a heroine of the "girls with guns" genre. Nika also uses a magic power, which connects the heroine with the popular girl's anime of that time in the maho shojo genre. Both plot-wise and in respect to its visual design, Nika makes a striking contrast in comparison to pretty and funny characters of other comics in the Klassnyi zhurnal magazine, for the most part cute animals and kids.
Nika inspired many Russian authors, among them was Sideburn004 (Tatiana Lepikhina, b. 1984), who became a very famous manga artist, working today in the seinen and boys' love genres. She states about her interest in comics: "Who among us didn't like to read comics - stories in pictures - as a child? I also loved it and tried to illustrate my stories. Once I got the magazine Klassnyi zhurnal in my hands, at that time it was printing manga Nika by Bogdan. I was captivated by the pictures, characters, humor. This time I had no idea about manga and its difference from comics, but I already had been watching anime and tried to draw some girl-characters in the style with big eyes" [Al'manakh russkoi mangi 2013, p. 250].
Active, independent, and strong heroines became a distinguishing feature of Russian comics in manga style of the early period. The comics reflect the struggle for survival and the cruel reality of Russian society of the 1990s. This struggle is put on the shoulders of a young female protagonist.
Brave and sexy schoolgirl Nika Novikova in the first Russian comics in manga style, Klassnyi zhurnal № 3, 1999 © Bogdan Kulikovskikh
The next Russian comics in manga style, Lina, shows how many elements from famous anime, such as Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Chobits, Curious Play, move to after 'anime'. Lina was drawn by Enji (Anastasia Kameneva, b. 1985) and serialized in the magazine Klassnyi zhurnal, starting with the issue № 2 ([122], 2002) through issue № 46 ([214], 2003). The main character Lina is a schoolgirl with big eyes and yellow hair. The school director gives Lina and her friends a task to find the Queen of Spirits. During the journey it becomes clear that Lina is much alike the Queen of Spirits, and evil forces try to kill her.
Her friends protect Lina, turning into Fire warrior (red-haired girl Aola) or Water warrior called Ocean Wind (pink-haired girl Yuniko), with similar functions to Sailor soldiers in the Sailor Moon. Also, the author herself appears in this story as a guardian Angel under her own pseudonym Enji (Anastasia took her pseudonym from the song name of her favorite music band). At the end of the story, Lina is represented as the other half of the Queen of Spirits, because many years ago her body and soul were separated. The story ends with the episode where Lina wakes up in the morning and realizes that the whole adventure was just a dream. The manga "Lina" is reminiscent of a short Russian version of "Sailor Moon", repeating the idea of reincarnation of the main heroine from the modern world into an ancient Goddess (like schoolgirl Usagi Tsukino and Princess Serenity), and provides Russian readers with comics made in the conventions of the magical girls genre.
On the left: Lina on the cover of Klassnyizhurnal #8 (128), 2002 © Enji On the right: Katy Lero and the appearance of her magic cat in manga "The Kitten" (Kotyonok) - Klassnyi zhurnal, #15 (231), 2004 © Enji
The next work by Enji - The Kitten (Kotyonok) - was published in Klassnyi zhurnal in issue № 9 ([225], 2004) and demonstrated how Japanese themes are reinterpreted by the author. The main heroine Katy Lero returns to Russia after living in Japan for 16 years. She is very happy to see Europeans in her class: "Finally, I saw heads not with the same hair color and the same faces. It was probably one of the happiest days of my life".5 At the same time, her classmate Maya Ido, a Japanese girl born in Russia, states that she does not really want to live in Japan, "on a tiny island, among wayward, narrow-eyed wunderkinds, where you need to be able to read strange signs and know the art of chomping, dressing kimonos and tea ceremony".6 These statements indicate stereotypes and make some distance for understanding Japanese culture, which is still exotic.
In spite of such negative reflection on the Japanese culture, the manga The Kitten continues to borrow some elements of anime, especially from Pokemon. Katy Lero gets magic powers due to a "kitten" - an anthropomorphous animal, who represents her inner world. This creature appeared from her body during the entrance ceremony to the Japanese weapons section, where all the participants create a Japanese atmosphere: they are dressed in kimonos and carry katana. Her friends also have such "pets", who represents different types of anthropomorphous cats.
In 2001, Voiny snov ("The Soldiers of Dreams") was published in Ekaterinburg. It became the first Russian magazine devoted only to anime and manga. Unlike other magazines which were in color, this magazine was black and white and associated not with comics, but with manga, using this new word on the cover. But some kiosks incorrectly identified the direction of this magazine, positioning it as a coloring book. This magazine published a manga of the same name, in which a girl named Sonya uses magic powers of transformation to fight evil in the mysterious world of dreams. The girl has friends who become soldiers of dreams and
5 Klassnyi zhurnal № 9 (225), 2004.
6 Klassnyi zhurnal № 10 (226), 2004.
The 1st and 2nd issues of the Voiny snov magazine (The Soldiers of Dreams), 2001
command animals that look like Pokemons. The main male character, like Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon, protects Sonya and becomes her romantic partner.
The authors of this story did not hide the source of inspiration: sometimes the characters of Voiny snov discussed popular anime, comparing their own costumes with Sailor suits. However, after the second issue, the magazine ceased publication. Some years later, in 2004, a Moscow publishing house Advance-Press started the release of a monthly anime stylized magazine called Yula ("Whirligig"), which was targeted at girls of primary and secondary school age. It became very successful and was published until the 50th issue in 2008. Yula was the first children's magazine containing only original Russian comics and comic strips without any translations of Western comics. The slogan was "the magazine for energy girls".
The magazine was made by a group of young female artists and scriptwriters: Anna Kirsanova (a.k.a Gaallo), Aleksandra Kramarenko (a.k.a. Dilandu), Oksana Guseva (Oka), Yulia Kukushina (Yul'cha), Natalia Sudareva (a.k.a. Aeri), Evgenia Romanova.
The central role in Yula magazine was played by The Knights of the Rainbow (Rytsari Radugi) comic series, which, according to the interview, was supposed to be a Russian version of maho shojo. The story was about three Russian schoolgirls, who represent certain types of women: Juli is a clever girl, Zyun'ka is a handmade mistress and Yul'cha is a beauty and lover of animals. The girls find a magic pet which looks like a rabbit and together they start an amazing adventure. During this adventure they receive magic powers, travel to the Rainbow planet and awaken the legendary Talisman.
On the left: Mania and Kira on the cover of the 1st issue of the Yula magazine, April 2004 On the right: Juli, Zyun'ka and Yul'cha from the comics "The Knights of the Rainbow" (Rytsari Radugi) - Yula magazine № 3 (12), 2005
The authors recognize that they were greatly influenced by anime Sailor Moon and Italian-American series Winx Club, so The Knights of the Rainbow is a cross between manga and European comic books. The authors used common anime clichés because of which many readers can see parallels with anime and manga Magic Knight Rayerth by CLAMP. The magazine's mascots characters - blonde Mania and red-haired Kira -are also suggested types of gender behavior in ongoing comic strips. Mania represents the traditional activities of a woman, such as cooking, ironing, house cleaning, wearing pretty dresses, or dancing ballet. Her sister Kira looks like a tomboy who enjoys skateboarding, repairing things, wearing jeans, listening to loud music, and so on. Therefore, the comics Rytsari Radugi show a greater variety of women's roles compared to previous works, and readers can choose between traditional (feminine) or more masculine behavior.
Anime guide was a new Russian magazine aimed at anime fans from an older age range (for teenagers and college students), which started to be published in 2004. It contained many different materials as well as original Russian manga. One of the first manga was Ne govori mne, kto tvoi drug ("Don't Tell Me Who Your Friend Is"), created by Mila & Delfina (Lyudmila Melnikovich), later reorganized in "Studia Kauri" -a group of female artists and scriptwriters. In the story, a young man Ron, to save his life, was forced to make a contract with a mysterious girl Remi. Ne govori mne, kto tvoi drug, like the previous manga-style comics from the magazines Yula or Klassnyi zhurnal, is made in color and read from left to right. But, because of the adult oriented audience, it contains elements that cater to the older fan-base: naked bodies, panty shots, sexy costumes, cat ears nekomimi, etc. The female characters become more sexualized, reflecting anime patterns for male audience.
Russian children's publications of the post-Soviet period began to popularize comics as a new genre, but, in most cases, it was strongly influenced by Japanese anime and manga, which was a fashionable hobby of the time, following the slogan "Anime is trendy". Bright, cute, and big-eyed characters conveyed, first of all, feminine elements. For that reason, Russian manga-style comics of the early period describe adventures
of female characters and contain women's names in the titles (Nika, Lina). Also, it borrowed famous anime clichés about a group of fighting girls, which can be seen in such comics as Rytsari Radugi ("The Knights of the Rainbow") and Voiny snov ("The Soldiers of Dreams"). This makes it clear that manga in Russia has become associated exclusively with the female genre.
"Don't Tell Me Who Your Friend Is" (Ne govori mne, kto tvoi drug) -Anime Guide № 2, 2004 © Studia Kauri
Between Manga and Comics: Female Comics Artists in Russia
The popularity of manga in Russia revived interest in comics. During 2011-2016, several new comics publishing companies were founded, some of them working together with Russian authors. The new generation of Russian artists, who grew up reading Japanese manga, as well as original Russian manga, began experimenting with style.
Their works usually present a mix of manga, European, and American comics features. Many amateur artists began to participate in "The Alley of Authors" - an activity included in different comics festivals, where authors can get a table in a special area to sell their own fanzines and self-published comic books. More and more women started to work in the Russian comics industry, developing new themes and style features, and raising new questions in comics.
Manga has proven to be a great impetus to the development of women's comics in Russia. For example, as comics artist Anna Rud' remembers: "Technically, I took a lot from manga: the frame setting, dynamics. I liked the way how emotions were conveyed in manga, not the same as in comics, where everyone walked around with stony faces and stood in frozen lifeless non-human poses".7 Anna Rud' (b. 1990), who in her childhood was a fan of Sailor Moon and Russian edition of ElfQuest, created The Club - a lesbian comics, made in black and white and read from right to left like original Japanese manga. The Club was officially published in Russia in 2016, but, for the first time, it was posted on a website Mint-manga in 2013. Posted on this website are original works by Russian artists and scanlated Japanese manga. The Club was tagged as "erotic", "josei", "yuri", and "drama". Both josei and yuri genres belong to the terminology of Japanese manga industry. Josei is a manga genre, aimed at the young adult women, and yuri is a genre dedicated to lesbian romantic and sexual relationships. The Club tells about two women who meet at a night club and engage in a sexual affair, and they fall in love with each other. There is no doubt that Anna focused on audience interested in manga because, in 2013, it was the only type of comics in Russia describing same sex relationships.8
Comic Con Russia 2016: Intervyu s Annoi Rud [Interview with Anna Rud'], October 2016, accessible at http://spidermedia.ru/comics/comic-con-russia-2016-intervyu-s-annoj-rud
The first Japanese manga of yuri genre appeared on Russian book market in 2011. The publishing house "Comics Factory" supposed to release three volumes of Chirality. But they could publish only one book, because same sex
7
Later Anna Rud' was hired by the Moscow comic book publisher Bubble Comics. This company specializes in Russian superheroes comics. Their Bubble Visions label focused on original works with non-superhero themes, and this is where The Club was published.
The main heroine of The Club, Malena, is an "ideal" woman -a blonde with long hair, perfect body and makeup, wearing a short dress, the same image of woman circulated widely by male artists from the pages of the Muha, Veles, Velikolepnie priklucheniya magazines. At the beginning of the story, we see Malena with a boyfriend in a night club. Malena's boyfriend does not pay attention to her feelings and flirts with other girls. At first Malena plays the role of obedient partner, pretending she is okay with her boyfriend's behavior and just watching him silently. In the club's toilet Malena meets a mysterious woman - self-confident, physically strong and sensible - all the traits "ideal" women do not have. They begin a relationship, causing Malena to have doubts. There is a dialogue between the heroines, when Malena is asked by her girlfriend to stay with her a little longer. Malena replies furiously: "And what will be later? A wedding, kids and all the things?", defining the only things an "ideal" woman should care about. In the end, Malena returns to her man, though Malena and her girlfriend still have feelings for each other and Malena understands that her life with a man will be unhappy. Malena's girlfriend tells that "It could be different", which means that only Malena (not her boyfriend or society) is free to choose what kind of life she wants to live. A woman does not have to endure unwanted things because life is happy if you have a caring partner.
During her work at the Bubble Comics company, Anna Rud' continued to develop her own style, and, as a result, her comics now are drawn more in the "Marvel" style than the manga style. Such changes can be seen for many female artists who started their way into Russian comics industry
scenes in this manga caused controversy in the censorship committee and the manga was removed from the production cycle. The next year, "Comics Factory" compiled Chirality in one book and put it in additional cellophane cover.
from manga in the early 2000s: at first, they copied manga-style and manga page layouts, and then they developed their own style, carefully adapting favorite elements from manga to comics.
One more example is Alina Erofeeva (also known as Meissdes, b. 1989). Her drawing style was heavily influenced by manga by such authors as Oda Eiichiro and Hayashida Q. Her work For the Blessed Ones and Holy Fools (Dlya blazhennykh i yurodivykh, 2011), which she created together with scriptwriter Natalia Devova, won the 1st prize of comics festival "KomMissia" in 2011 as the best manga. After joining Bubble Comics in 2013, Erofeeva changed her style in order to draw comics about Russian superheroes (Besoboy, Exlibrium, etc.). It shows that superhero themes mostly aimed at male audience9 need authors to abandon the feminine manga style.
But some of those who work at Bubble Comics continue to draw in the manga style (black & white, right to left direction of reading, system of emotions and characters' types), combining elements of male and female comics genres. The most popular series in Bubble, reprinted several times during the last three years, is Tagar (20172019) - a mystery and action manga series by Marina Privalova (artist, b. 1989) and Anna Sergeeva (scriptwriter, b. 1989). The volume's first circulation of 2,000 copies quickly sold out, which is absolutely unique for Russian comics. The commercial success of Tagar stimulated Bubble Comics to open a special division for manga series, and,
9 Male protagonist in comics Major Grom, The Monk, Besoboy.
"The Club" by Anna Rud', 2016
consequently, Russian manga began to be strongly associated with female authors. During the exhibition "Romanga-do: Russian Manga Way", which was held at the Saint Petersburg Comics Library in 2018, works by twenty-eight authors were presented, twenty of whom were female manga artists [Magera (ed.) 2018].
Popular Russian manga series "Tagar" (Vol. 1-2) by Marina Privalova (artist) and Anna Sergeeva (scriptwriter)
The comics form began to be used by some Russian feminists. In 2016, young feminist activities began to spread through Russia. The most famous Russian feminist Nika Vodvud (also known as Nixelpixel) made a YouTube channel with videos on feminism, which was new content for Russian media. Nika also published her comics Pyosya ("Doggy") about three anthropomorphic characters (a dog named Pyosya, a cat, and a hedgehog), who explain ideas of feminism and tell readers about themes like abuse and transsexuality. After Vodvud's success many artists began to make short comics about feminism and publish it on the Internet. The popularity of feminist fanzines has also grown substantially. In 2016, the
Femlnfoteka library opened in Saint Petersburg a big collection of books, comic books, and comic fanzines about feminism. Now there are nearly 300 fanzines with articles and comics, which examine themes of rape, abortion, domestic violence, abuse, etc.
We can say that comics in modern Russia become not only a new way for women's self-expression, but also the way to talk about inner experiences in a form of autobiographical comics. Many popular autobiographical stories in Russia are also created by female comics artists. In 2014, Lena Uzhinova published Moi seks ("My sex") as her first comic book, telling about the lack of sexual education in the USSR. It describes Lena's struggle through life trying to find her place in the Soviet reality and, later, in the post-Soviet space. In an ironic and playful way, she tells about her sexual experiences with different men, search of love and her pregnancy.
Yuliya Nikitina (b. 1988) is a comics artist, who in the beginning of her career drew fan art of favorite manga such as Bleach and Naruto. Later, she began to experiment with her drawing style. Nowadays she is best known as the author of autobiographical comics Polunochnaya zemlya ("Midnight Earth"), Kniga tela ("The Book of a Body", 2015) and Razdelenie ("Separation", 2015). Kniga tela is a silent comic, which addresses issues of the female body. This theme was continued in her comic book Separation about the experience of pain and illness inside the body, summarized by the author.
One more example of autobiographical comics is Survilo (2019) by Olga Lavrentieva (b. 1986). It is the story of the author's grandmother Valentina Vikentievna Survilo and her life during the siege of Leningrad in 1941-1944. Survilo won the 1st prize of the Comics Boom website as the best comic book in 2019. In 2020, it was translated into French and published by the French publishing house Actes Sud. It shows all the suffering a young woman went through. The tragic story of a woman from Leningrad becomes the prism through which one can see the history of the whole country.
Modern Russian comics market is no longer dominated by men as it was in the 1990s: women not only draw comics, but also open
publishing companies (like Anna Korostyleva), edit comics and organize comics exhibitions. Some comics artists agree that it is not necessary to divide works into "female comics" or "male comics":10 the story plays the main role and it does not matter who the author is (man or woman).
Russian comics are still in the process of development and growth, but there are already unique works in different genres, such as autobiography, mystery, comedy, or drama. The form of manga and its visual effects were necessary for Russian female artists to begin drawing comics freely with the characters and stories they have been longing for. Their works became a seed for the next generation of female artists, who now provide beautiful cultivated flowers - modern Russian comics. And sometimes we can still feel a great influence of manga in it.
References
Alaniz, J. (2010). Women in Post-Soviet Russian Comics. Komiks: Comic Art in
Russia. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010. Pp. 196-215. Almanah russkoi mangi [Almanac of Russian Manga]. (2013). Vol. 7. Ekaterinburg: Comics Factory. (In Russian)
10 Komiksy Peterburga: O chem risuyut zhenschiny [Comics of Saint-Petersburg. What do women draw?], March 2018, accessible at http://spbformat.ru/ articles/komiksyi-peterburga-o-chem-risuyut-zhenshhinyi/
Olga Lavmitk'va
ACTESSUDBD
French edition of the comics "Survilo" by Olga Lavrentieva, 2020
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MAGERA Yulia Aleksandrovna - Senior lecturer, Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies of National Research University "Higher School of Economics" (HSE).
Secretary of the Annual Russian Comics Conference "The World of Comics".
ORCID 0000-0002-6601-5032 E-mail: [email protected] Personal web-site: http://mangalectory.ru/
TARASYUK Yuliya Borisovna - Head librarian of the Manga and Comics Center (A. P. Chekhov Central District Library at Saint Petersburg).
E-mail: [email protected] Personal web-site: https://kaigan.ru
