This panel considers the relationship between comics codes and gender codes, asking how the comics medium has both reinforced and challenged normative depictions of gender. Viola Burlew (University of Colorado) highlights the role women played in running the infamous Comics Code Authority and analyzes the tangible impacts they had on female-led comics series from 1954 to 1971. Michael MacBride unpacks the life of gay cartoonist Joe Johnson and his fabulous creation Miss Thing. Elke Defever (Binghamton University) argues that the asexual paradigm of Moebius' Edena reconstructs humanity through perception, transformation, and relationality beyond the body.
