Single Asian Female was a webcomic. It wasn’t very funny, but it also wasn’t meant to be. Written by Ethan Lee, it was about the life of Jennie Low, a 21 year old college student majoring in Asian American studies. It was meant to follow her journey through life, and open a dialogue for the reader to think about the deeper implications of race and gender in the lens of our 21st century lifestyle.
It didn’t quite get there.
Why is that? Well, it wasn’t from a lack of trying. According to it’s now-archived homepage, Ethan would research the topics he was trying to write about, and run each comic strip by a number of Asian Americans, both male and female. He wanted to represent all sides of a conversation, using the lens of a female protagonist to get there as it was “difficult and limiting” to use a male protagonist. As Ethan explained, “Asian American females suffer dual oppression and they experience racism and life differently from Asian American males. [...] With an Asian male lead character, I couldn’t tell the story about Asian females getting hit on by white guys with Asian fetishes.”
Also, “the good domains were already taken.”
Oh.
To be fair, the idea behind the comic was not a bad one! Ethan Lee was right in that Asian American representation in comics, web or otherwise, was not the strongest. A slice-of-life serialized narrative would be a great way to examine the stereotypes that could invade the day-to-day. He came out swinging, getting a small bit of press coverage, teasing a number of storylines he was already planning. But only a handful were finished before the plug was pulled.
Though Ethan never commented on why the strip ended, it is possible that the backlash he received was too much, obfuscating the original message the comic was meant to push. It was posted and torn apart on imageboards and bad comic wiki’s, with people focusing on the main character and how she seemed to hate everyone that wasn’t a Single Asian Female. The fact the original homepage already had a section on people and products to boycott rubbed some potential readers the wrong way. The comic was not written as strongly as it should have, and it suffered because of it.
Perhaps if the comic had started slow, if there wasn’t a push to get as many eyes on it as possible, the author could have gotten to a place where Single Asian Female did accomplish its goals. Where frank and open discussion about Asian American stereotypes could have been had, where issues like racism and depression could have been thoughtfully examined.
Instead, it became a punchline.