You want to know why comics are stuck in a rut? It's because it's a tiny niche industry (composed, as the vagina blog points out, of people who probably couldn't get a job in any other branch of publishing) where the same hundred people spend their lives giving jobs to each other. And the really talented ones keep getting poached to go work in more lucrative businesses - to do advertising art, or to write screenplays. That's why you get tie-ins that don't tie in to anything, it's why you get Bruce Jones on Checkmate, it's why lots of things happen.
This is pretty true. My friend letters for DC on a shitload of books, and he knows everybody at DC. And I mean, much as I like him he's not exactly a rock-star. It's an incredibly small, very close group of people. He's also a good artist and writer who's spent 4 years with DC doing nothing but lettering. He's not going to get art or writing work at DC until someone dies. It's part of why he's freelance now.
It's always weird to me to give out names of people I know on the internet because I fear that all of you are just waiting for the right chink in my armor to track me down and destroy my life like you did Sandra Bullock's but yes he does:
The woman's name is Valerie D'Orazio; she used to be an assistant editor at DC. Her later behavior has revealed her to have...issues...but her story about IC has been independently confirmed by others.
Yeah, I thought that too. I started to click through her posts and had to stop, as they started to piss me off. I know what she's trying to show is a valid point, but seriously? Post after post of "females are treated badly in comics" just gets old.
Her original writings regarding Identity Crisis were interesting for me, as an avowed Identity Crisis basher. But her blog quickly degenerated into, "This week a woman got punched by a man. What the fuck comics?" Then there was shit like complaining about Final Crisis without having so much as read scans, and so on and so forth.
I will be buying her Cloak and Dagger series though, just to see how her writing is in comic format.
Well, lets see... every time something bad happens to a woman in comics she's either raped, or stuffed in a fridge. Every time a guy dies, he is cradled lovingly in the arms of a loved one, having died a noble, valiant death, and not having been raped by Darkseid.
This is a simplification, but lets be honest, I think angry vagina lady has a point.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Well, lets see... every time something bad happens to a woman in comics she's either raped, or stuffed in a fridge. Every time a guy dies, he is cradled lovingly in the arms of a loved one, having died a noble, valiant death, and not having been raped by Darkseid.
This is a simplification, but lets be honest, I think angry vagina lady has a point.
The most recent female death in comics I can think of is the Wasp, and even though how she died wasn't to heroic, she did go down fighting and was sufficently mourned by not only the heroes but the general public. She for sure didn't get raped or thrown in a fridge.
Oh I agree in a lot of cases. And there's still dumb, "Well let's just traumatize this chick and sexualize the violence against her to make it seem worse," stuff going on in comics. Brian Reed had numerous female superheroes I liked get sold as "interactive art" in the pages of Ms. Marvel, with the implication being that some pervy shit was gonna go down once the buyers got them. I still say Leinil Yu made poor decisions in depicting Tigra's "hit so hard her tits pop out" beatdown at the hands of the Hood. Don't even get me started on the way Jeph Loeb's written Red Hulk as some kind of super misogynist. Christ, the dude's done everything but tell She-Hulk to suck his cock while she cooks his dinner.
But crying wolf at every perceived slight only makes it harder to be taken seriously when some real stupid shit goes down.
The most recent sexually-charged and vastly dehumanizing thing to happen to a female character was Mary Marvel getting turned into a fetishistic monster, I guess.
I really can't rationalize that at all.
But at the same time, this is a trend we're all aware of and that every one of us has pointed out at one point or another, so it's not really her point so much as it's something the fandom as a whole understands, acknowledges, and to one extent or another has been resisting for years.
Well, lets see... every time something bad happens to a woman in comics she's either raped, or stuffed in a fridge. Every time a guy dies, he is cradled lovingly in the arms of a loved one, having died a noble, valiant death, and not having been raped by Darkseid.
This is a simplification, but lets be honest, I think angry vagina lady has a point.
The most recent female death in comics I can think of is the Wasp, and even though how she died wasn't to heroic, she did go down fighting and was sufficently mourned by not only the heroes but the general public. She for sure didn't get raped or thrown in a fridge.
Oh yeah? Check her Ultimate counterpart.
I agree with the crying wolf part... I imagine though that getting ignored every time you point out the real shit might make you kind of shrill and over-the-top.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Yes, comics are pretty sexist, a lot of terrible things happen to female characters, but the hyper-machisimo aspects of them could probably be inferred as just as sexist and offensive to men if you're really going to have a rod up your ass about it.
(Obviously cases like Identity Crisis are worthy of extra attention, though.)
Yeah, after some thought, I really don't think you can say the situation is improving in any immediately noticeable way.
As for sexist portrayals of men, what exactly are you thinking of, zero? Is it just that all the men are in perfect shape and rarely show any kind of emotional vulnerability?
Because I'd call that limited, but by no means offensive.
Yes, comics are pretty sexist, a lot of terrible things happen to female characters, but the hyper-machisimo aspects of them could probably be inferred as just as sexist and offensive to men if you're really going to have a rod up your ass about it.
(Obviously cases like Identity Crisis are worthy of extra attention, though.)
completely true. And I'm sure if you ever take a feminist perspective class on comic books that will be discussed... but typically comments on sexism in comics is very superficial and begins and ends with female characterization. Frankly, Wolverine can't have done men any good from that perspective.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
So, was there a rape in Final Crisis I missed or is this not a Final Crisis thread anymore? Just checking because the ending was pretty crazy and I might have missed someone getting raped.
So, was there a rape in Final Crisis I missed or is this not a Final Crisis thread anymore? Just checking because the ending was pretty crazy and I might have missed someone getting raped.
we all got raped.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
Yes, comics are pretty sexist, a lot of terrible things happen to female characters, but the hyper-machisimo aspects of them could probably be inferred as just as sexist and offensive to men if you're really going to have a rod up your ass about it.
(Obviously cases like Identity Crisis are worthy of extra attention, though.)
Possibly. Though when Supes and Bats have costumes with cleavage holes on them, you'll have a stronger argument. Just sayin', is all.
Yes, comics are pretty sexist, a lot of terrible things happen to female characters, but the hyper-machisimo aspects of them could probably be inferred as just as sexist and offensive to men if you're really going to have a rod up your ass about it.
(Obviously cases like Identity Crisis are worthy of extra attention, though.)
Possibly. Though when Supes and Bats have costumes with cleavage holes on them, you'll have a stronger argument. Just sayin', is all.
Yeah, while male heroes are undoubtedly given equally impossible physiques, the fact remains that the writer doesn't expect the reader to get a hard-on when Ra's Al Ghul cuts off Batman's shirt, and so the very reason why gratuitous nudity of female characters is bad (the overriding sexual element) is absent.
Yes, comics are pretty sexist, a lot of terrible things happen to female characters, but the hyper-machisimo aspects of them could probably be inferred as just as sexist and offensive to men if you're really going to have a rod up your ass about it.
(Obviously cases like Identity Crisis are worthy of extra attention, though.)
Possibly. Though when Supes and Bats have costumes with cleavage holes on them, you'll have a stronger argument. Just sayin', is all.
I don't really buy that argument. Every male comic book character is unrealistically ripped to Hell and look at how Alex Ross draws packages:
Regarding the style of narration used by Morrison for this story, as it relates to the future of Detective Comics Comics: it appears as though DC was already losing traction in the "getting the established, insular market to try out our new #1's and events". So while I applaud the effort and recognize its significance to the medium, if that's how one chooses to feel about it, I don't think it was the right story for your "big event". On that note, I'm starting to sound like a broken record so I'll just shut the hell up about it.
Regarding sexism in comics: the common portrayal of male characters in comics just isn't offensive to men. At least not any man, gay or straight, that I have ever met (or even heard of). The portrayal of women, however, is apparently offensive to many of them. I think that's enough of a reason for writers to step back and make an honest assessment of how they deal with female characters in their stories - instead of dismissing critics, usually forcefully, as I have often seen them do on the Internet. Well, maybe "forcefully" is the wrong word. Vehemently.
Teth on
#1
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
It's always weird to me to give out names of people I know on the internet because I fear that all of you are just waiting for the right chink in my armor to track me down and destroy my life like you did Sandra Bullock's but yes he does:
Yes, comics are pretty sexist, a lot of terrible things happen to female characters, but the hyper-machisimo aspects of them could probably be inferred as just as sexist and offensive to men if you're really going to have a rod up your ass about it.
(Obviously cases like Identity Crisis are worthy of extra attention, though.)
Possibly. Though when Supes and Bats have costumes with cleavage holes on them, you'll have a stronger argument. Just sayin', is all.
I don't really buy that argument. Every male comic book character is unrealistically ripped to Hell and look at how Alex Ross draws packages:
:P
Well, Alex Ross does have a, how shall I say, hard-on for Golden and Silver Age Comic Book characters, if you catch my drift. So he's an exceptional case.
FCD on
Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
0
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Regarding sexism in comics: the common portrayal of male characters in comics just isn't offensive to men. At least not any man, gay or straight, that I have ever met (or even heard of). The portrayal of women, however, is apparently offensive to many of them. I think that's enough of a reason for writers to step back and make an honest assessment of how they deal with female characters in their stories - instead of dismissing critics, usually forcefully, as I have often seen them do on the Internet. Well, maybe "forcefully" is the wrong word. Vehemently.
Yeah. A lot of them, when talking about it, really come off like the "nice guys" that D&D and H/A so rightly hold in contempt. "How could I hate women? My Mum's one!" The comics equivalent is "but I write strong women!" Which more often than not means "well, they may wear fuck-me boots, but they sure kick ass in them!"
Which isn't to say that I think comics is a den of raging misogyny, but you've got a lot of undersocialized dudes working in an insular, clubhouse atmosphere, and they're selling by and large to an audience that's a lot like them. I think it just doesn't occur to them that anyone could be offended by depictions of rape and fridge-stuffing - and when it does occur to them, they have an echo chamber of colleagues ready to reassure them that it's just the crazy wimmins having their time of month again. It's not lost on me that the creators that have noticed this stuff, and commented on it, are the ones who came to comics having worked in other industries, where the gender disparity isn't as great and this stuff gets called out.
And yeah, D'Orazio says a lot of weird or stupid stuff in her blog, but that doesn't invalidate her points about IC or the harassment of female employees at DC - which were corroborated by other sources - and she's not the avatar of her gender. And it's not an isolated experience. Creators like Jim Owsley/Christopher Priest and Larry Hama have shared some interesting stories about the minority experience at Marvel and DC.
Jacobkosh on
0
Bloods EndBlade of TyshallePunch dimensionRegistered Userregular
edited February 2009
Yeah, didn't Gail Simone have some choice things to say after she left Marvel?
Yeah, didn't Gail Simone have some choice things to say after she left Marvel?
I believe a lot of her complaints were just about the usual problems writers have with editors. I know she got dicked around on Deadpool and Agent-X, constantly told to re-write a line of dialogue several times, having plot points dictated to her, and then summarily changed for no reason, and so on.
I do remember her mentioning that Marvel's a bit of a boy's club, but I never got the impression that was why she left.
I find discussions like this somewhat bizarre:
1. Of course it's a boy's club. How can anyone even be surprised by this? It's an industry that has primarily targeted young boys (and now men) since it's conception. It's composed almost exclusively of men in every level.
2. The industry is beyond incestuous. There are a handful (metaphorically) of employees that constitute a largely unchanging body of staff. This is just a function of the size of the industry, apparently.
3. I disagree entirely with the assertion that a half-naked male in comics is somehow less of a sexual ploy than a half-naked female. This suggests a rather naive conception of how sexuality works. Heterosexuals employ same-sex nudity as a means of validating and reaffirming their models of gender and sex. When men share images of nude and near-nude males in peak form, e.g. comics, they are reasserting "this is our standard, this is what we all aspire to". It is no different from the beauty magazines for women that are filled with unachievable female bodies.
4. There's such a thing as sour grapes, even in a crappy situation. The Broken Vagina blog is obsessed wit the idea that any insult to a woman is an insult to all women. Even as she complains of people who demand female solidarity, etc., she interprets every such gesture as an attack on all women.
I find discussions like this somewhat bizarre:
1. Of course it's a boy's club. How can anyone even be surprised by this? It's an industry that has primarily targeted young boys (and now men) since it's conception. It's composed almost exclusively of men in every level.
2. The industry is beyond incestuous. There are a handful (metaphorically) of employees that constitute a largely unchanging body of staff. This is just a function of the size of the industry, apparently.
3. I disagree entirely with the assertion that a half-naked male in comics is somehow less of a sexual ploy than a half-naked female. This suggests a rather naive conception of how sexuality works. Heterosexuals employ same-sex nudity as a means of validating and reaffirming their models of gender and sex. When men share images of nude and near-nude males in peak form, e.g. comics, they are reasserting "this is our standard, this is what we all aspire to". It is no different from the beauty magazines for women that are filled with unachievable female bodies.
4. There's such a thing as sour grapes, even in a crappy situation. The Broken Vagina blog is obsessed wit the idea that any insult to a woman is an insult to all women. Even as she complains of people who demand female solidarity, etc., she interprets every such gesture as an attack on all women.
We talked a bit about the whole "crying wolf" thing, but honestly, that doesn't invalidate the notion that sometimes it's true. And like I said, I think if I kept trying to draw the industries attention to the blatant ones and got ignored, it would likely make me more shrill about the subject.
Sentry on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
wrote:
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
3. I disagree entirely with the assertion that a half-naked male in comics is somehow less of a sexual ploy than a half-naked female. This suggests a rather naive conception of how sexuality works. Heterosexuals employ same-sex nudity as a means of validating and reaffirming their models of gender and sex. When men share images of nude and near-nude males in peak form, e.g. comics, they are reasserting "this is our standard, this is what we all aspire to". It is no different from the beauty magazines for women that are filled with unachievable female bodies.
Apart from the fact that beauty magazines are literally instruction manuals designed to tell people how to pursue a goal most can never attain whereas comics no such advice, I tend to believe that the use of art rather than real life models in comics provides a degree of separation which prevents most readers from ever attempting to model themselves on the looks and behaviors of the persons they read about.
In fact, if you compared the number of beauty magazine readers who are currently on diets or spend a more than usual amount of money on beauty products to the number of comic fans who do the same, you'd probably end up with far more of the former. Most men who go out of their way to pursue their own difficult to achieve model of gender and sex are probably reading body builder magazines, male fashion magazines, and other men's magazines, not comic books.
I've personally never been able to connect with a comic book superhero on any level, and couldn't imagine having feelings of envy or inadequacy from reading about them (well, perhaps there's some envy of Batman - being so rich that you can practically do anything is mighty alluring).
However, I can identify with characters like Yorick Brown, who are more realistic (though still sensational in some respects), on an intellectual level. So I guess I must have a man crush on Brian K. Vaughan.
Does DC always make shitty trade-binding decisions? I know the Seven Soldiers trades do not include the JLA Classified arc (1-3) that introduce the Sheeda. And it seems The Final Crisis trade will only collect FC 1-6.
The Sheeda were introduced? I thought like, oh, apparently evil fairy people are a big part of DC now who knew? And why in the hell would you collect 1-6? Are they planning on releasing 7 stand-alone or something?
The Sheeda were introduced? I thought like, oh, apparently evil fairy people are a big part of DC now who knew? And why in the hell would you collect 1-6? Are they planning on releasing 7 stand-alone or something?
Yeah, I just recently heard about this too. You can find the JLA Classified stuff in JLA: Ultramarine Corps. The summary doesn't mention the Sheeda, but apparently that's where they first appear, including Neh-Buh-Loh.
Posts
Does he have a website we can look at?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
StrangerFictions.com
The picture at the bottom is all blurry and stuff most likely because he doesn't want the entire world to know he is the scrawniest boy.
I think it got botp'ed last time.
Yes, we get it, it's become an overused plot point that sucks and is just a button that says "DEPTH AND CONTROVERSY" for some writers.
Although it's far superior to whining about the costumes.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I will be buying her Cloak and Dagger series though, just to see how her writing is in comic format.
Tumblr Twitter
This is a simplification, but lets be honest, I think angry vagina lady has a point.
The most recent female death in comics I can think of is the Wasp, and even though how she died wasn't to heroic, she did go down fighting and was sufficently mourned by not only the heroes but the general public. She for sure didn't get raped or thrown in a fridge.
But crying wolf at every perceived slight only makes it harder to be taken seriously when some real stupid shit goes down.
Tumblr Twitter
I really can't rationalize that at all.
But at the same time, this is a trend we're all aware of and that every one of us has pointed out at one point or another, so it's not really her point so much as it's something the fandom as a whole understands, acknowledges, and to one extent or another has been resisting for years.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
What did you expect them to do? Not have a teenage girl in bondage gear try to face rape somebody?
Tumblr Twitter
Oh yeah? Check her Ultimate counterpart.
I agree with the crying wolf part... I imagine though that getting ignored every time you point out the real shit might make you kind of shrill and over-the-top.
Yes, comics are pretty sexist, a lot of terrible things happen to female characters, but the hyper-machisimo aspects of them could probably be inferred as just as sexist and offensive to men if you're really going to have a rod up your ass about it.
(Obviously cases like Identity Crisis are worthy of extra attention, though.)
As for sexist portrayals of men, what exactly are you thinking of, zero? Is it just that all the men are in perfect shape and rarely show any kind of emotional vulnerability?
Because I'd call that limited, but by no means offensive.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
completely true. And I'm sure if you ever take a feminist perspective class on comic books that will be discussed... but typically comments on sexism in comics is very superficial and begins and ends with female characterization. Frankly, Wolverine can't have done men any good from that perspective.
we all got raped.
Possibly. Though when Supes and Bats have costumes with cleavage holes on them, you'll have a stronger argument. Just sayin', is all.
Yeah, while male heroes are undoubtedly given equally impossible physiques, the fact remains that the writer doesn't expect the reader to get a hard-on when Ra's Al Ghul cuts off Batman's shirt, and so the very reason why gratuitous nudity of female characters is bad (the overriding sexual element) is absent.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I don't really buy that argument. Every male comic book character is unrealistically ripped to Hell and look at how Alex Ross draws packages:
:P
but
but it's okay if we do, right?
right, guys???
Regarding sexism in comics: the common portrayal of male characters in comics just isn't offensive to men. At least not any man, gay or straight, that I have ever met (or even heard of). The portrayal of women, however, is apparently offensive to many of them. I think that's enough of a reason for writers to step back and make an honest assessment of how they deal with female characters in their stories - instead of dismissing critics, usually forcefully, as I have often seen them do on the Internet. Well, maybe "forcefully" is the wrong word. Vehemently.
And then I remembered that terrible movie.
Damn you Durandal. Damn you.
it is a-ok
keith it is okay for you
Well, Alex Ross does have a, how shall I say, hard-on for Golden and Silver Age Comic Book characters, if you catch my drift. So he's an exceptional case.
Yeah. A lot of them, when talking about it, really come off like the "nice guys" that D&D and H/A so rightly hold in contempt. "How could I hate women? My Mum's one!" The comics equivalent is "but I write strong women!" Which more often than not means "well, they may wear fuck-me boots, but they sure kick ass in them!"
Which isn't to say that I think comics is a den of raging misogyny, but you've got a lot of undersocialized dudes working in an insular, clubhouse atmosphere, and they're selling by and large to an audience that's a lot like them. I think it just doesn't occur to them that anyone could be offended by depictions of rape and fridge-stuffing - and when it does occur to them, they have an echo chamber of colleagues ready to reassure them that it's just the crazy wimmins having their time of month again. It's not lost on me that the creators that have noticed this stuff, and commented on it, are the ones who came to comics having worked in other industries, where the gender disparity isn't as great and this stuff gets called out.
And yeah, D'Orazio says a lot of weird or stupid stuff in her blog, but that doesn't invalidate her points about IC or the harassment of female employees at DC - which were corroborated by other sources - and she's not the avatar of her gender. And it's not an isolated experience. Creators like Jim Owsley/Christopher Priest and Larry Hama have shared some interesting stories about the minority experience at Marvel and DC.
Ooh, I wanna read that.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I believe a lot of her complaints were just about the usual problems writers have with editors. I know she got dicked around on Deadpool and Agent-X, constantly told to re-write a line of dialogue several times, having plot points dictated to her, and then summarily changed for no reason, and so on.
I do remember her mentioning that Marvel's a bit of a boy's club, but I never got the impression that was why she left.
Tumblr Twitter
1. Of course it's a boy's club. How can anyone even be surprised by this? It's an industry that has primarily targeted young boys (and now men) since it's conception. It's composed almost exclusively of men in every level.
2. The industry is beyond incestuous. There are a handful (metaphorically) of employees that constitute a largely unchanging body of staff. This is just a function of the size of the industry, apparently.
3. I disagree entirely with the assertion that a half-naked male in comics is somehow less of a sexual ploy than a half-naked female. This suggests a rather naive conception of how sexuality works. Heterosexuals employ same-sex nudity as a means of validating and reaffirming their models of gender and sex. When men share images of nude and near-nude males in peak form, e.g. comics, they are reasserting "this is our standard, this is what we all aspire to". It is no different from the beauty magazines for women that are filled with unachievable female bodies.
4. There's such a thing as sour grapes, even in a crappy situation. The Broken Vagina blog is obsessed wit the idea that any insult to a woman is an insult to all women. Even as she complains of people who demand female solidarity, etc., she interprets every such gesture as an attack on all women.
We talked a bit about the whole "crying wolf" thing, but honestly, that doesn't invalidate the notion that sometimes it's true. And like I said, I think if I kept trying to draw the industries attention to the blatant ones and got ignored, it would likely make me more shrill about the subject.
In fact, if you compared the number of beauty magazine readers who are currently on diets or spend a more than usual amount of money on beauty products to the number of comic fans who do the same, you'd probably end up with far more of the former. Most men who go out of their way to pursue their own difficult to achieve model of gender and sex are probably reading body builder magazines, male fashion magazines, and other men's magazines, not comic books.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
However, I can identify with characters like Yorick Brown, who are more realistic (though still sensational in some respects), on an intellectual level. So I guess I must have a man crush on Brian K. Vaughan.
The Sheeda were introduced? I thought like, oh, apparently evil fairy people are a big part of DC now who knew? And why in the hell would you collect 1-6? Are they planning on releasing 7 stand-alone or something?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Yeah, I just recently heard about this too. You can find the JLA Classified stuff in JLA: Ultramarine Corps. The summary doesn't mention the Sheeda, but apparently that's where they first appear, including Neh-Buh-Loh.