Chelsea Cain’s Man-Eaters Series Bashed For Not Including Trans Teens

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Sep 28, 2018

Chelsea Cain recently threw Marvel Comics under the bus for dropping her planned The Vision series, which she claimed she had been working on for the past two years and only completed four issues. Now, Cain is getting bashed for her latest Image Comics’ series Man-Eaters with artist Kate Niemczyk.

Alex de Campi, who has most recently been working with 2000 AD on a [easyazon_link identifier=”B00ARF93AQ” locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Dredd[/easyazon_link] movie tie-in movies in [easyazon_link identifier=”1781086621″ locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Dredd: Final Judgement[/easyazon_link] criticized Cain and Niemczyk’s Man-Eaters stating, “This book would have been a LOT more rich and interesting if it had included trans teens in its concept.”

Others would chimed in claiming the exclusion of trans characters in the story was a “gut punch.”

Marvel colorist Tamra Bonvillain would claim the story “erases us all.”

De Campi would then Mock’s biggest comic book claim to fame, her Mockingbird #8 cover that had Mockingbird wear a shirt that read, “Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda.”

De Campi would then declare the book would have been “better” with the inclusion of a trans character.

De Campi and Bonvillain weren’t the only ones who criticized the book for its exclusion of transgenders.

At least one person even began questioning if Cain is transphobic.

In an interview with Women Write About Comics, Cain answered a question about how Man-Eaters would tackle hormone therapy for characters who aren’t cis:

“I think it’s really important to tell stories from a lot of different points of view. This is a story about what it’s like to be a cis gendered female coming of age in a culture that consistently reinforces the messaging that periods are shameful, that our bodies are shameful, and that womanhood—and the biology that goes along with it—is something gross and not for polite company. It’s about rejecting that narrative and making something powerful from it. You don’t have to have a uterus to be a woman. Anyone who thinks that hasn’t been paying attention. But let’s not get lost or distracted here—this is a specific story, about a specific experience—the way that all good stories are. And if I’m doing my job well, I think that anyone can relate to it. I think that someone who is trans knows full well what it feels like to struggle with being defined by biology and by the social messaging that makes us all, at one point or another, feel like monsters.”

What do you make of de Campi, Bonvillain, and others criticism of Cain?

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