Taking a Stand: I Support Janelle Asselin's critique of Teen Titans #1

[Iron Maiden]

Please take another look at the cover.

You're right , I should have opened a larger window to look at the bottom half. It is a bit glam looking. One thing that is totally nonsensical on female superhuman types is the thong look i.e. Psylocke
Where do you have the artist "draw the line" (no pun intended)? What about a Frank Cho or Amanda Connor with Power Girl's more infamous window? What part is artistic license and what part is pandering to an audience? Is the artist allowed to keep their style or should they conform to some house style then?

[LEADER DESSLOK]

Personally, I think this was much ado about nothing. While no one deserves to be personally attacked, the criticism about the cover, while valid, just flies in the face of close to a hundred years of comic book production. For good and ill, the physical attributes of Human beings, male and female, have ALWAYS been exaggerated in comics. Most men and women who appear in Soap Operas don't look nearly as beautiful 24\7 as they do in the soaps. And don't even get me started on modern cinema.

If I have anything to complain about the cover, it's the fact that Wonder Girl's right leg doesn't appear to have any bones in it! How can the poor woman even STAND?!

[BumbleBecc]

Personally, I think this was much ado about nothing. While no one deserves to be personally attacked, the criticism about the cover, while valid, just flies in the face of close to a hundred years of comic book production. For good and ill, the physical attributes of Human beings, male and female, have ALWAYS been exaggerated in comics. Most men and women who appear in Soap Operas don't look nearly as beautiful 24\7 as they do in the soaps. And don't even get me started on modern cinema.

If I have anything to complain about the cover, it's the fact that Wonder Girl's right leg doesn't appear to have any bones in it! How can the poor woman even STAND?!

It the same false equivalence though.

The female characters are drawn 'sexy' for the male gaze.
The male characters are drawn 'strong' for male power fantasy.

In both cases it's for the benefit of male readers. None of it is for the benefit of female readership.


Furthermore concentrating on the perfectly valid criticisms of the cover, of which there are many others, from the poor perspective to nonsensical composition, it's deflecting from the point that such gentle criticisms were met with unrestrained fury by a section of the male comic reading populace... all because of one woman criticising a not very good comic cover.

[dupont2005]

the criticism about the cover, while valid, just flies in the face of close to a hundred years of comic book production.

Not really.
There have always been comics with women like that, somewhere on the stands, but only in the past 15-20 years has pretty much 95% of the industry been dedicated to only depicting women like that. And never before has every panel on every page been dedicated to unflattering angles and poses of women. Look at a 25 year old X-Men comic.


Just a few years later the clothes and waists disappeared, and the busts and poses completely took over every page


And it's gotten more and more ridiculous since. Save for a few titles, usually struggling titles, where Marvel will allow someone to try something different.

[dupont2005]

You can do the same when looking at Sue Storm from the 60's to today. Or Jean Grey. Or even Mary Jane Parker, who was always supposed to be attractive, and out of Peter's League, but she went from looking like an attractive woman to looking like the main event at a breast implant convention.

[Cipher]

Not really.
There have always been comics with women like that, somewhere on the stands, but only in the past 15-20 years has pretty much 95% of the industry been dedicated to only depicting women like that. And never before has every panel on every page been dedicated to unflattering angles and poses of women. Look at a 25 year old X-Men comic.

Look at those indeed. It's so refreshing.

There was a time when you could put Hawkeye in 90 percent of cover and interior art poses given to female characters in superhero books, and it wouldn't have caused a cognitive disconnect. And, as pointed out, the body styles were similar to the men's (peak physical specimens, but not exaggerated in any hyper-sexualized fashion).

The stuff Jim Lee and co. were doing in the '90s was ruinous. We're still feeling its effect by way of mainstream influence today. It's not okay.

Also, Psylocke is wearing lipstick in those panels. It's nice to know she takes the time to do that before heading into the Savage Land to fight Magneto.

[PwrdOn]

The female characters are drawn 'sexy' for the male gaze.
The male characters are drawn 'strong' for male power fantasy.

In both cases it's for the benefit of male readers. None of it is for the benefit of female readership.

Frankly neither of those is particularly healthy. Whether it's cheesecake wank fodder or a vicarious vessel for self-worship, masturbation is masturbation.

[Pinsir]

My favourite body type is the one they had during the Bronze Age



> hour glass figure
> muscular physique
> no T&A focus
> clearly healthy looking ideal
> strong posture

[Cipher]

Frankly neither of those is particularly healthy. Whether it's cheesecake wank fodder or a vicarious vessel for self-worship, masturbation is masturbation.

Ah, yeah, I'd love to see both the hyper-masculine mountains-of-muscle men and hyper-sexualized women fade away (thought the former already has, in comparison to the latter). One of those is definitely more exclusionary than the other though.

[LEADER DESSLOK]

As for the distortion of the human figure for purely cheezy reasons. Most times it's just plain laughable, especially when anatomy is thrown to the winds."

...Also, Psylocke is wearing lipstick in those panels. It's nice to know she takes the time to do that before heading into the Savage Land to fight Magneto.

And so it goes...

[dupont2005]

Frankly neither of those is particularly healthy. Whether it's cheesecake wank fodder or a vicarious vessel for self-worship, masturbation is masturbation.

And honestly, I think that's fine. There's a time and place for everything and comics as a medium has plenty of room for cheesecake. I just think it's taking up more than it's fair share of room, and I think the "time and place" for this sort of thing is not in the comics we grew up reading in elementary school, and not with characters featured on Saturday Morning Cartoons. Eros comics is fine, not a single complaint from me. I don't buy them, but they're not really doing anything wrong. It's a publishing company that pulls no punches about what their content is, and they market it accordingly. They don't fill the shelves at Toys R Us and they don't have coloring books and baby books teaching children their ABC's with the same characters.

[LEADER DESSLOK]

My favourite body type is the one they had during the Bronze Age



> hour glass figure
> muscular physique
> no T&A focus
> clearly healthy looking ideal
> strong posture

Agreed. I don't have a problem with the idealization of the human form, Barry Windsor-Smith and Nestor Redondo are two of my all-time favorite artists but I have a problem when a female character's back is apparently broken just so the artist can exaggerate both her backside and her breast size--SIMULTANEOUSLY!

However, I notice that no one has yet commented on Wonder Woman and The Amazons' apparent disregard for the man's safety. He's obviously been in some sort of accident and could possibly drown but he is being told to back off! What? Back into the sea--with the sharks? As a Wonder Woman fan, I find this apparent lack of compassion completely out of character and it amazes me that the cover met with editorial approval.

[DDD]

Remember the good old days of DC? Julie Schwartz?
Covers like these:

Fans who heard, saw and said nothing.

[BumbleBecc]

Frankly neither of those is particularly healthy. Whether it's cheesecake wank fodder or a vicarious vessel for self-worship, masturbation is masturbation.

Actually i completely agree with you. I think you will find that many disagree with us though.

[Pinsir]

However, I notice that no one has yet commented on Wonder Woman and The Amazons' apparent disregard for the man's safety. He's obviously been in some sort of accident and could possibly drown but he is being told to back off! What? Back into the sea--with the sharks? As a Wonder Woman fan, I find this apparent lack of compassion completely out of character and it amazes me that the cover met with editorial approval.

Its a Silver age (and Bronze age) dickery cover. Its one of the few WW ones I know about.