I grew up on Sailor Moon, so my love for tough female characters started at a very young age. The last zine project I curated was Moon Power, which was a Sailor Moon fanzine, and after the success of that project I decided I wanted to do a new zine that focused on female characters and had original content from artists. I’ve always loved the character design and art direction behind video games such as Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, Guilty Gear, Soul Calibur and others.
These games and the female characters in them were the biggest inspiration for FIGHT! zine. This project invites illustrators to create their own original female fighting game characters to face off in the pages of this book. Each artist is given a direction to draw their character facing and the spreads of the book mimic the appearance of versus matches in a fighting game.
I think one of the best parts of the zine is the breadth of diversity and creativity involved. My favourite part of fighting games is going through the roster of characters and trying each one out. Looking through the artwork for this zine, you can just imagine the fighting styles and moves of each of these characters. Whether they would be slow but hard-hitting, agile and quick, or just ridiculously overpowered with supernatural powers, they’re all amazing in their own unique ways.
FIGHT! is an important zine because it is about promoting the representation of women. I want to see more representations of women as tough, strong warriors. I love seeing women depicted with a lot of physical strength; I don’t think that’s something that we get to see often enough, and I think people have been gravitating towards this project because it’s addressing something that lots of people are hungry for.
I also don’t think we get to see strong female characters fighting as much as we’d like, especially fighting other strong women. There is a growing trend of fans wanting to see more diverse characterizations of women, and this project is an attempt to address that need. I also want to empower the women who read this zine with these great female characters created by the outstanding contributing talent.
While I think there are more examples of powerful women in the media now more than ever, this is a trend that is important to push and fight for. FIGHT! Is an initiative to get artists involved in continuing to promote strong female characters. You can donate to the FIGHT! zine Kickstarter here!
Jenn Woodall is an illustrator and comics person who dwells in Toronto, Ontario. She is part of Friendship Edition, a Toronto-based collective of artists who produce arts + comics. She curates zines and also creates her own comics. Find her at her website http://jennwoodall.format.com, her shop jennwoodall.bigcartel.com, or on Twitter @jenn_woodall.
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