Women that draw, script, and publish! Self-publishing as a resource in the Argentinian independent comic field

Abstract

The comics’ publishing field has been, both in Argentina and in the rest of the world, predominantly male since its inception, at the end of the 19th century, and until a couple of decades ago. However, the female role in the world of cartoons has been ostensibly resignified, within the framework of a profound reconfiguration of the field that began in 2001, when the market for local periodical comic magazines disappeared. The reduction of publication spaces and the renewal of actors and editorial models are characteristics of the period, and in this context, publishers seeking to respond to the demands and needs of this relatively young space have begun to appear. Self-publishing, in particular, has become a common practice and, on occasions, necessary to guarantee the circulation of works. So, this work proposes, through a study of a series of cases, to analyze the motivations and the place from where women cartoonists act as self-publishers, in order to contribute, through this approach, to the study about how women are narrated and how they are self-perceived. The choice of this publishing form, for its part, responds to the fact that it is a practice that originates and responds to the main problems related to this publishing subfield.