Characters grimacing on covers

[dancj]

Can I end this thread with this post. Absolutely pointless thread started from a gripe and awarded with two pages! Next time, just Don't raise to the idiot

I pretty much never agree with him, but I find Trey Strain’s threads consistently entertaining.

[Lee Stone]

Honestly... I would join the anti-Trey battalion.
But this time he's mentioning something I personally have noticed, as well.

Ever since about the mid-'90s more and more covers feature grimaces or 'come at me' looks. (Interestingly, this appears to also parallels the rise in the broke-back female pose.)
This is a reflection, I think, in the change of heroes being role models and voices of positive change to being activists and tragic figures.

Of course, all things come and go. And one day, people will look back, with their comics of smiling heroes being cheered by the public they serve, and remark on how 'heroes smile too much to be heroes, why can't they look more serious like they used to?"

[dancj]

Ever since about the mid-'90s more and more covers feature grimaces or 'come at me' looks. (Interestingly, this appears to also parallels the rise in the broke-back female pose.)
This is a reflection, I think, in the change of heroes being role models and voices of positive change to being activists and tragic figures.

I think most people would agree that it was terrible in the 90s - and went along with all of that terrible 90s art.

There's been a minor resurgence of that style of since then, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was.

[Trey Strain]

They look constipated. Maybe laxatives would help.