Comics Undressed is a Chicago-based comics documentary about economic, gender-based, and racial representation in the comics industry. Our Kickstarter is currently running and will continue to run until August 18th. We are aiming for a $15,000 goal, and with your help we can reach that goal.
The Ladydrawers documentary Comics Undressed is an ambitious project with the primary aim of addressing media justice in comics and popular culture. We intend to portray the underlying forms of discrimination that impact representations of women, queers, trans folk, non-binary gender people, and people of color. We seek to support a diversity of racial, gender, and sexual identities that make up our society as well as unveil the surprising economic injustices and cultural biases that occur. Our goal is to present a sincere heartfelt documentary that captures our love for comics while critiquing the structure of the comics industry. We intend to implement an experimental process to give form to our extensive original research that mirrors the comics themselves. Through a myriad of interviews with comics creators, readers, bloggers, vendors, fans, and the general public, we strive to foster a multiplicity of viewpoints in the comic-book world and our culture at large.
We are a loose Chicago-based collective called the Ladydrawers that does original research to uncover media injustice and the lived experiences of women, genderqueers, and people of color interested in comics and culture. The Ladydrawers do a monthly column on news website Truthout, and have published their work in Bitch, Annalemma, and Tin House. We achieved international acclaim with our 2011 postcard project and our 2012 road trip to deliver sex ed books to Rep. Todd Akin. Featured in the Chicago Reader, our most recent endeavor, SEX. MONEY. RACE. GENDER: The Ladydrawers (of Chicago, Ill.) is an exhibition and workshop series that opened on June 27th and will run until July 27th at the A+D Gallery in Chicago.
We put a great deal of effort into publicizing, and paying, underrepresented comics creators. This documentary will utilize statistical information gathered by the Ladydrawers and will become an extension of our comics work in hopes of spreading our findings through a medium accessible to an even larger audience. But in a way that the comics can’t, it will also show the world against which comics are set — the sometimes uncomfortable boob-heavy, bro-friendly faniverse that publishers — and, increasingly, movie studios — aim to keep happy.
Many of the interviews and the general production of the documentary will take place in the city of Chicago, a mecca for budding comics creators. In addition to one-on-one interviews with local creators in Chicago, the Ladydrawers documentary crew has attended a large scope of comics-related events, conventions and festivals such as the Chicago Zine Fest, Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), The Man of Steel movie midnight showing and The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE).
On our own we have managed to make it far into the production phase of the documentary. However, due to a lack of funding we now look to you to reach our goal to complete our film. All proceeds from this Kickstarter campaign will directly finance the rest of the production of this documentary and start the post-production cycle of this film. If we reach our goal, we will be able to:
– Buy/Rent equipment
– Cover transportation costs
– Attend more comics-related events
– Pay for the labor of the production team
– Purchase an original music score
– Create motion graphics
– Produce DVD copies of the documentary
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ABOUT US:
Fran Syass (Director/Producer) is a Chicago-based experimental filmmaker and artist. A recent graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, his last film, False Morels, screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center. He is also a co-founder of the Chicago-based film group, Psychopomp Productions. He hopes to combine his interests in experimental filmic constructions with the reality conveyed through the production of a documentary. He started reading comics early in life, favoring thick compilations of Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side over books that might ever give him a shred of literary credence. He was deeply dissatisfied by the recent adaption of the X-Men series and has two cats.
Lindsey Smith (Assistant Director/Producer) is a Texas born, Chicago-based animation and film student currently obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the creator of the ongoing pen-pal comics and animation series Letters and has worked as Directors Assistant on the experimental video Musing. A jack-of-all-trades and connoisseur of superheroes, her love of movies and comics has led her to supporting any creative outlet that combines both mediums.
If you have questions or wish to contact us please email us at ladydrawersdocumentary@gmail.com
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