Free Comic Book Day this year took me to a couple of events at stores around the city. They were mostly like non-events though with some local artists drawing and a few people in cosplay. This was actually the first time that I had been to a FCBD at all, and other than the free comics I was not sure what to expect. I didn't even have much of an idea of what to expect from the free comics as I had never been out for them before either. I got a few titles that I recognized and a few that I didn't. I had mostly been interested in the Mermaids comic as at some point I do intend to catch up on Damsels, but I generally just took what was available, which were generally things that I wouldn't pick up. There were some local indie stuff, and a lot of tie-ins from other media and a few children related and this brings me to my main point of this blog - that there are no real life adults that can wear pink like the girls in Strawberry Shortcake can.

The berry girls showed up in a flip cover edition with Sesame Street on the other side. The are perfectly aimed at young girls under a certain age as the stories are short and sweet (in my favourite Strawberry Shortcake's friend rally to help after she gets the blueberry flu.) There is a sort of combination of adult and children's roles here, as the characters run cafes, bookstores and the like, yet they look like they are five years old. When it comes to the colour pink, this is the problem that women face when wearing this colour. They can look either juvenile, or even worse like an adult inadvertently looking juvenile. There are ways around this as peachy pinks and brighter and darker fuchsias can substitute for pink, though these are even tricky as they delve into either matriarch-like colours or hideous bridesmaid uniforms. Therefore somewhat ironically, for being what most would consider the most feminine of colours, pink is not as easy of one to pull off. It was an unintended observation from FCBD but it kind of makes me happy that there is a place (even if only fictional) where pink is not only possible but the norm.