Alas, I think she'd have to stop juggling two webcomics at once first. Doesn't she draw stuff for patreon patrons sometimes, though?
Hhhhm... I mean, there's no magic, and I think part of what matters is what Steffi is trying to project herself as, and that's definitely superhero and not magical girl. But on a meta-level there's a lot of clear influence from magical girl stuff, I think? And if @littlewhitemouse likes the writing and later art of SD, I'd rec KB for sure.
Like how Sailor Moon would do episodes on bullying or not dieting and stuff. Standard kids fare with a side of cute girls puching large monsters as manifestations of the moral of the week sort of thing. I started with Smile!, but Fresh is pretty good and the original Pretty Cure is loads of fun. Smile and Princess Pretty Cure are standouts though.
Well, as someone who dun watched every blessed episode of Sailor Moon, a little camp or a little preachy won't get to me. There's just this realm of too kiddy, you know? Where you just can't watch it because it assumes you're five and is talking down to you all the time. Now, a show that assumes I'm TWELVE and talks down to me, that's fine.
Pretear is an old fav of mine, fairly short (I think it was 26 eps? and the manga is 4 books) and aside from the usual Sailor Moon-style half naked transformation sequence I don't remember much creepy fanservice. Alice 19th is a manga where the MC uses the power of words which is pretty cool. I'm not sure if it totally counts as magical girl genre but it felt like it. I read it a long time ago and what I do remember is that it got pretty dark, and there were a couple instances of nudity but they were non-sexual iirc? I'd pull my books out to check but they're deep in storage.
I'm not sure how good it is yet, but there's also Mahou Shoujo Tokushuusen Asuka, which has magical girls with PTSD. But there's only 3 translated chapters so far, so I'm not sure if it's really good yet, you know? Asuka and her friends became magical girls to fight Underworld Monsters, and won, but there were many massive battles in the process, and a few teammates died, along with many soldiers. After the war is over, Asuka gets called back to a special ops group or something? Because monster attacks are appearing again, I guess. like I said, it's too early to tell if it's good or not. I've liked what I read so far, but to be fair I'll watch a LOT of things with magical girls in, and it'll take a lot to get me to quit. There's gorey stuff, and the art could. Use some work with costume design and such, so, y'know.
For a fanfic/fancomic on that same lines, I've heard really good things about Sailor Nothing. It runs on a young sailor soldier (light Sailor Moon AU) who's horribly exhausted and traumatized, and trying to figure out how to de-enlist, while dealing with effectively an endless youma war and the machinations of Tuxedo Gunnery Sargent Hartmann. I don't know how good it actually is though, so keep that in mind.
I've really been enjoying Miraculous Ladybug - French setting, there's a guy hero too, but they both get transformation scenes and the main character's friendship with her best friend is really well done.
Sailor Nothing is an old favorite of mine, so you're right on target with that >u< I didn't mention western art or fan works in original post so yeah I've spent time in this circus too. Miraculous Ladybug I've also seen quite a bit of! Adorable, may watch some more if ever feeling peckish. Really like the maternal feelings destroyer in the cat suit.
@Key and I are collaborating on a pseudo-magical girl comic (it's ... actually tiny robots, not magic, but our starting point was "what if magical girl comic with tiny, cute, shy protagonist whose style of fighting is hitting things really hard" so it's still more or less in the genre). Link! I just binge-read the archive, and I like this so much, it's just my style of story. And it's so pretty.
