Frank Cho Leaves "Wonder Woman"; Blames Greg Rucka's 'Political Agenda'

[Thrashalla]

Im a little disappointed in Cho because it seems like American artists find ways to disappoint fans at every available chance.

Clarify, please.

[KingsLeadHat]

I like Cho's art, but he presents the same probably to me that J. Scott Campbell did. These are two artists who's style I love, but I've long since outgrown the desire for gratuitous cheesecake in comics. When I was going through puberty in the late 80's and early 90's it was a different story, but now? Eh. I love sexy women, but if I wanted to look at beautiful/sexy examples I'll look and pictures of real women. When 90% of everything you produce is cheesecake, it gets old fast. I'd much rather Cho do a long extended run of interior art on Hulk or Thor or Wonder Woman. I'd much rather see covers and art featuring action and adventure scenes, particularly with a pulp flavor, since he's damn good at those.

[Thrashalla]

I like Cho's art, but he presents the same probably to me that J. Scott Campbell did. These are two artists who's style I love, but I've long since outgrown the desire for gratuitous cheesecake in comics. When I was going through puberty in the late 80's and early 90's it was a different story, but now? Eh. I love women, but if I wanted to look at beautiful examples I'll look and pictures of real women. When 90% of everything you produce is cheesecake, it gets old fast. I'd much rather Cho do a long extended run of interior art on Hulk or Thor or Wonder Woman. I'd much rather see covers and art featuring action and adventure scenes, particularly with a pulp flavor, since he's damn good at those.

Agreed completely. I would love to get Cho out of cheesecake land and back into drawing adventures. His work on TA Hulk was such a tease.

[filthyfujoshi]

The old costume in the same pose probably would have made Rucka's head explode.

Attachment 37966

Depriving Wonder Woman fans of this great art is such a shame. RIP.

Cho Wonder Woman.jpg

[yet another]

Agreed completely. I would love to get Cho out of cheesecake land and back into drawing adventures. His work on TA Hulk was such a tease.

He can do both. I liked that Jungle Girl series he did some years ago.

(His Wonder Woman not so much, the style does not fit the character imo)

[TooFlyToFail]

Agreed completely. I would love to get Cho out of cheesecake land and back into drawing adventures. His work on TA Hulk was such a tease.

Then you should make sure to keep following the developments surrounding his upcoming BOOM! comic, Skybourne.

[Rene Narciso]

Is Frank Cho a good fit for Wonder Woman? Probably so. I sort of like his artwork.

Is Frank Cho a good fit for a Greg Rucka-written Wonder Woman book? No. Even as a artist for alternate covers, they're covers plastered over Rucka's story.

Marvel and DC have this problem that I call "schizoid" comics. It goes like this: Get a writer that is progressive and wants to write serious stories about female empowerment. Then, get an artist that is squarely in the 1990s tradition of T&A artwork. Have them working together. And so we get aberrations like Gail Simone writing Birds of Prey with Mike Deodato artwork, the Emma Frost comics from the early 2000s that were sort of a YA series with an underage girl coming of age, but with Greg Horn ultra-sexy covers, and Greg Rucka's own run in Wonder Woman, that was pretty great and dramatic but had J. G. Jones doing ultra-sexy fetish covers.

It's like the writing and artwork are geared towards two completely different audiences. And no, I'm not saying that it's impossible to write a female empowerment story while simultaneously making the heroine sexy and appealing to a male audience. But it's much trickier than just "get one guy from each camp and let each do their thing."

[Thrashalla]

Then you should make sure to keep following the developments surrounding his upcoming BOOM! comic, Skybourne.

Ooh, thank you. I just looked it up and will be checking it out when it's released.

[GDC3]

This isn't fine art, it's commercial art and as such illustrators are expected to collaborate with those outside the discipline. Frank should know better, unless he thinks he's The Untouchable Frank Cho now. Apparently DC editorial disagrees.

Considering Cho's been drawing Lynda Carter at least since his University2 days, I gotta say I've found the two covers I've seen disappointing. As an art director, I'd argue the head on one is 15% too small and the pose on the other doesn't make sense (deflecting bullets with her elbows?) but maybe I'd be considered a censor for offering constructive criticisms.

Either way, I have no idea what Rucka's problems were with Cho's art but what should have been a dream assignment for Frank and eye candy for fans has turned into frustration for us all.

Hopefully Rucka responds.

Hopefully not. These things do not need to be played out in a public forum or appear as open convos for the readership to debate over back and forth. There has been enough of this in the last few years. I hope he errs on the side of professionalism, discusses it with Cho privately, and/or just moves on. We don't need to hear any more about this.

That said, I'll miss Cho's Wonder Woman variants.

[Colossus1980]

If you like Frank Cho's art you are plain and simple a Misogynist.

I guess I'm a Misogynist.

[phonogram12]

I'm a big fan of both of them but both have personality traits that would make putting them together a nightmare scenario.

Rucka is a social justice warrior (I'm not using that term as a pejorative) with a borderline misandrist devotion to feminism - read his interviews and his social media posts and this is blatantly clear. Most disturbing is that he refuses to even have a conversation about the opposite views unless he's sniping from Twitter. Again, I'm a huge fan of his work and I even agree with his basic principles - it's the extremism that makes me look at him slightly askew.

Then Frank is a (overly )sensitive artist type who definitely sees the female form from an artistic point of view. As an artist myself it does get difficult to politicize the human body after studying it for so long - it's just lines and curves and, as an artist, drawing exaggerated curves feels better than chiseled straight lines - it's in the way our arms and joints move - curves are a natural pattern for the arm to move in. It actually takes practice and restraint not to make every hip a big swooping curve. However, he does have a tinge of the unsavory as he does lean toward cheesecakey pinups and he likes to 'poke the bear' with his variant covers and his 'Drawing Sexy Women' series of books doesn't give him any equality street cred. He's also a volatile contrarian who digs his heels in at the slightest criticism.

"Yeah, but really - come on..." Is my reaction to both of them.

I really don't think either is at fault - the fault lies with whoever put these two on the same project and expected it to go smoother.

I will say this - with how much word service that writers get, if I were Cho, I'd be raising a fuss as much as I could as it seems like one of the only ways that artists get press these days. (And he's absolutely right about the interior art showing just as much skin.)

So much this.

[vonfaustus]

This isn't newsworthy.

Those are fantastic variant covers though.

[ShaunN]

I really like Frank Cho's art but, let's face it, the man himself is more than a bit of a sexist pig. That's fine, it takes all types to move the world, but if you ever look at his facebook or other pages, it's pretty clear that his attitudes towards women are somewhere in the Stone Age. He loves drawing women and does a tremendous job of creating physically beautiful creations (even if it seems he can only draw one face) but there is no question that "sexualizing" is what he does, and he does so without the slightest bit of self-awareness.

That being said, when you hire Frank Cho to do your variant covers, you know what it is you are getting - or you should, at least. Censoring him is not appropriate, if that is what has happened here.

[skyvolt2000]

Hopefully not. These things do not need to be played out in a public forum or appear as open convos for the readership to debate over back and forth. There has been enough of this in the last few years. I hope he errs on the side of professionalism, discusses it with Cho privately, and/or just moves on. We don't need to hear any more about this.

Sorry but we all know that will not happen.

Because the MOMENT it started hurting my wallet-guess who talks. See John Rozum and the Static Shock mess. When folks made it clear they were not going to support his work or hie him based on that book-he spoke up.

Notice the only person still working from that mess the editor-chased David Walker to Marvel and his current book is among the worst sellers in all of DC.

Im a little disappointed in Cho because it seems like American artists find ways to disappoint fans at every available chance.

So he's suppose to stay on a gig that is pretty clear is a waste of his time? Why bust your behind on those cover just to have someone who don't care for you nitpick it to heck?

When you can go elsewhere and be happy? I am sure Khary Randolph is happier doing Black & Mosaic after seeing all his work on We Are Robin ignored, Funny how Duke's appearance changed in 5 different Batman books.

[RobinFan4880]

Mountain out of a mole hill.

Two creators disagreed with one another. One creator has veto power. The one without veto power left.

It isn't a big deal.