Women in comics: collaboration, creation and representation

How do you collaborate with a scriptwriter? How do you construct a comic script? What is the place of female authors and illustrators in comics today? Discover the second part of the report on the round table "Women in comics" organized to mark the 60th anniversary of GOBELINS Paris.

Today, women illustrators represent only 12% of published illustrators. This event is part of GOBELINS Paris' commitment to promoting female talent in the creative and cultural industries, and to combating gender inequality and discrimination.

Our four guests:

A 2018 graduate of the Concepteur et Réalisateur de Films d'Animation program, Sixtine is an author and cartoonist, as well as a 2D animator and director. In 2025, she signed her first graphic novel, "Sibylline, chroniques d'une escort girl", with Glénat. In it, she shares the intimate and complex story of a student who falls into prostitution.

A graduate of the Concepteur et Réalisateur de Films d'Animation course in 2011, Claire is an author and cartoonist, having published her first comic in 2015 with Casterman, and has since released several comic albums. Her favorite themes are adolescence, art and love, often in a contemporary context.

A graduate of the 3D Character Animator course in 2015, Audrey is a 3D animator and comic strip artist. She has penned four albums for Marabulles ("Moi en Double", "Mal briefée", "Les Cœurs insolents" and "Les lois du cœur") and a comic strip for Dargaud ("Petites leçons de permaculture").

A 2017 graduate of the Concepteur et Réalisateur de Films program, Diane is a 2D animator and webtoon illustrator. After winning a competition with her scriptwriter Rutile, she transformed herself into a virtual mangaka and created the webtoon "Colossale", which was published two years later in 5 paper volumes by Jungle Editions.

Audrey works remotely with her scriptwriters. She is used to receiving scripts chapter by chapter, but she can also work with very little material for scheduling reasons. Normally, the scriptwriters give indications of what's going on in the scenes to guide the drawing and layout, but some may go forward in small steps, making the process more complex.

Diane and Rutile, her scriptwriter, had to produce one webtoon episode per week. They would therefore meet every 10 episodes to detail the action to come.

"It was a constant pingpong, we both came up with ideas, we get on really well, we have the same references, we knew straight away what we wanted to say. For me, it's the right way, each of us coming up with ideas for staging. "
Diane Truc

"Les Coeurs insolents" - Navie and Audrey Lainé

Sixtine's story is based on the testimonies of the escorts she was able to gather, adding more universal themes (how it is to evolve in a big city as a young woman, the relationship with sexuality, the way men look at you...). She kept to a classic structure , dividing the play into acts and scenes that respond to each other.

"When I watch a film and a scene strikes me I'll make a note in my phone and then try to understand the mechanism that made me feel that emotion so I can recreate it."
Sixtine Dano

Claire has a similar writing process, blending her own experiences with the themes that interest her.

"My latest comic is about sexuality. As a reader, I was tired of reading erotic comics in which I didn't recognize myself at all; I often had the impression that they were made by men for men.I wanted to bring my own point of view to the table."
Claire Fauvel

"Night is my kingdom" : Claire Fauvel

Sixtine created her storyboard on iPad using Procreate to adjust the boxes and synchronize the drawings with the text. After printing the pages in A3, she redrew them in Indian ink on a light table, adding the gray levels with charcoal. For Sixtine, the traditional method offers the advantage of having original plates that can then be exhibited or sold, creating a second economy and a second life for the comic.

Audrey uses Clip Studio Paint. For her, this software is a very interesting tool for storyboarding and the early stages of comic book creation, enabling sequences and whole pages to be moved without shifting anything. Having experimented with tradi with her first comic, she prefers to work with brushes, which have a rendering fairly close to traditional. She also sometimes combines digital with hand inking, using Indian ink.

"I like the idea of doing the color by hand, you can't totally reproduce the rendering of watercolor or ink with digital."
Audrey Lainé

Claire created each of her albums using a different technique. She works in pencil, ink and gouache, but also with cintiq and Photoshop. She plans to start using webtoon and Clip Studio Paint.

"Sibylline, chronicles of an escort girl" : Sixtine Dano

For Diane, the webtoon is a great way to get started as a woman in the comics business. She points out that female readers buy more comics and are more loyal to the authors, an aspect sometimes neglected by publishing houses.

"Ultimately, in terms of business plans, it's better to address women than men!"
Diane Truc

Sixtine points out that the fact that three female authors were finalists for the Grand Prix at Angoulême this year is also thanks to the militant actions of feminist authors' groups, who are organizing to combat the invisibilization of women at festivals.

For her, parity is not yet a given, but she has observed the emergence of a counterculture with events such as the Pop Women Festival, which choose to showcase mainly female artists. She also points out that this new wave of progressive, feminist publications has been made possible by editors and publishers who have supported a committed editorial line and brought about a revival in comics and graphic novels.

Audrey notes that women authors are too often confined to certain subjects, which are not easy to break out of. However, she points out that the rise of the graphic novel has enabled new themes to emerge in the world of comics, and the graphic representation of female characters to evolve.

"I'd love to do popular science on subjects like space, but these are subjects that are more likely to be left to men."
Audrey Lainé

Claire has seen the world of comics evolve and change. When she started out in comics, she was often the only female author invited to festivals. In just a few years, she has seen parity achieved in training centers, schools and among author/illustrators. She points out, however, thatit remains insufficient among editorial directors and publishing house managers.

"Colossale" - Rutile and Diane Truc

Diane was greatly influenced by the work ofHiromu Arakawa, the author of "Fullmetal Alchemist", and by Florence Duprès Latour. She points out that "Demon Slayer Dungeon Meshi" and "Gachiakuta", the most popular mangas at the moment, were all written by women.

Sixtine recommends the work of Mirion Maille, Anaïs Flognyand Léa Murawiec.

Audrey recommends looking at female authors who have been nominated for or awarded the Angoulême Grand Prix, such as Catherine Meurisse. She also recommends the work of Cécile Guillard (class of 2019).

Claire buys and reads a lot of comics drawn and written by women, and recommends Lucrèce Andrea (class of 2010), Elizabeth Holleville, Iris Pouy, Anne Simon, Aude Bertrand, Lisa Blumen, Marie Mohanna and Melek Zerta, among others.