Posts tagged Comics

actioncomics:

The DC vs Marvel debate only makes sense if you’re talking about it from a business standpoint. 

For example, Marvel has (recently) made better decisions regarding how to translate their characters to the silver screen compared to DC.

or

Marvel is innovating in a way that DC currently is not.

or 

DC, despite all controversy, is a pioneer for rebooting their entire line, and initial sales prove that this was a wise financial decision, one that Marvel has since psuedo-imitated.

The DC vs Marvel debate is childish if it boils down to:

DC sucks because Marvel is better or I prefer Marvel because DC sucks.

Can any of you tell me how to sync my main Comixology account with my Android app? If I purchase a comic on the app it syncs to the main account, but not the other way around.

comiccharm:

Yesterday after I uploaded my submission to The Hawkeye Initiative, I had an anon send me this:

‘Please, the Hawkeye Initiative is about drawing Hawkeye smut, nothing to do with with showing the disparity between the genders. There’s nothing wrong with that, but lets not call it something it isn’t. ‘

I did write a reply which some people wanted me to make re-bloggable, so here it is with some elaboration on why we need things like the Hawkeye Initiative.

Firstly, the Hawkeye Initiative is all about showing disparity between the genders. It was created solely for that reason, and of course to have a laugh at the industry’s expense at the same time. What better way to show the difference between the depiction of women in the comic media then by swapping the genders of the characters being presented?

In most cases, people won’t recognize things like the presentation of women in the media until the tables are turned.  This initiative isn’t the first time someone has used it to illustrate such a disparity either.  Some examples:

Rion Sabean’s male pin-up calendar

Jim C. Hines poses like women from fantasy covers

Breakdown of ‘if men posed like women’

While this initiative may not seem like much to you, it means a lot to many of us who are sick and tired of women depicted as nothing in comics other than a walking set of breasts.  (Or asses, or both.)
Yes, it’s all in good fun and is pretty much just us having a laugh; and some people may be doing this for less than noble reasons.  But that doesn’t negate the gender disparity issue this initiative is making fun of. Just yesterday when I shared my Hawkeye drawing on Facebook I was met with comments like:

‘Sex sells, so of course women are presented this way in comics.’

‘The guys are half naked too so maybe you should complain about that instead.’

‘You want to take the sexiness away from comics, prude.’

Comments like this usually arise when the representation of women in the media comes up, but there-in lies the problem and what I feel is a miscalculation of the comics audience. People say that ‘sex sells,’ but I’d like to at least think that quality comics featuring realistic and relate-able characters and their stories is worth far more to the average reader than how low cut Catwoman’s costume is.

And even if it is the case that ‘sex sells’ to the lowest common denominator of your buyers, is that worth the numbers of readers who will drop the books who start overly sexualizing women for no reason? The comics market, and the audience has changed. The fact that publishers are still sticking to an unsubstantiated prehistoric paradigm who assumes that their audience is just a bunch of sweaty virgins who will throw money at anything with a pair of breasts is insulting, to me and to their ‘target audience.’

Comic sales have been dropping steadily over the years, in 1966 the biggest selling title of the year as Batman from DC comics, they sold just under 900,000 copies.
In 1969 it was Superman, with just over 500,000.

In 1995 Marvel sold over 300,000 copies of Fantastic Four volume 2, #1.

In 2009, the highest selling comic was DC’s Blackest Night issue #3, which sold exactly 140,666 copies.
These days it’s phenomenal for a comic to break the 200k mark in sales, and there has been a steady long-term decline, with a small improvement in 2000 due to things like selling trade paperbacks and all of the comic book movies that had come out at the time.
Some of our comics are moretitillating than ever, so if ‘sex sells’ then why aren’t we selling more comics?

For that matter, why aren’t comic publishers like Zenescope and Big Dog Ink comics whose entire business model is based on the idea that ‘sex sells’ constantly out-selling the publishers like Marvel, DC and Image?

In 2011, Diamond’s final sale figures list the first company that wasn’t Marvel or DC to make it into the top 1000 best selling comics list for the year was IDW at 102 with ‘Godzilla – Kingdom of Monsters’ selling 71,700 books. Next, Image made it to 120 with ‘Spawn,’ selling 67,900 copies.

In fact, Zenescope first appears on the list at 487 for ‘Grimm Fairy Tales’ volume 9 with a mere 2,300 sales.


Gail Simone has pointed out that suggesting that we hate sex in our comics and want to ‘take the sexy’ away in comics is ridiculous, and it’s not what we want at all. I love sex in my comics and can enjoy seeing sex in comics, but my enjoyment comes down to how it’s presented.
Take these two examples of sex and ‘sexy’ female characters from two books that have come out in the past year or so. Catwoman #1 from DC and Conan the Barbarian #3 and #10 from Dark Horse.

In the first issue of Catwoman there was that infamous sex scene. I for one wasn’t bothered by the idea of a sex scene, especially one between Bruce and Selina. I think they’re a highly sexually-charged couple with a lot of potential for some hot and steamy rendezvous, but like most people who had an issue with this scene - I didn’t like the way it was presented to us.

For starters these scenes are about the male gaze. Selina is usually posed in ways to make both her buttocks and her breasts visible to the reader, even when it makes no anatomical sense.
Even in the last climactic panel when we assume they’re actually ‘doing it,’ we cannot even see Bruce’s face. We don’t know if he’s enjoying it, from what we can see it looks like he’s just sitting there not engaging with Selina at all. Like the viewer he seems like just a spectator, or another inanimate object for Selina to pose all over.

Not to be crude, but nothing ruins my lady boner faster than a guy who looks like he doesn’t even care if he’s having sex with me or not. For it to be hot for me, it has to be hot for him too.

Conversely, let’s look at a couple Conan and Belit’s sexual encounters. One thing to know about Belit, is that like Selina Kyle – this woman is sex on legs. She usually doesn’t wear much, at all… funnily enough Belit can usually be seen wearing more clothing just before sex than when she’s casually walking around her ship. However there is a huge disparity between the way Belit and the way Selina are both drawn from panel to panel.

During a lot of the sex scenes drawn by Becky Cloonan the emphasis is on touching and facial expressions. You rarely get a full-body glimpse of the couple, but the moment is still intense and you get the sense that the pair is a tangle of sweaty bodies and body parts.

In a later issue in a scene drawn by Declan Shalvey we have a clearer view of the couple in the throws of passion, and yet again we can see a lot of unbridled passion and intense need from both Conan and Belit.  Conan isn’t just laying there like a dead fish, nor is Belit posing for a viewer she doesn’t know is there. Both characters are right there with each-other in the moment, not taking a second away from each-other and not being distracted by anything other than their (shared) passion.

For further reading on the disparity between the presentations of gender in comics I highly suggest reading Kelly Thompson’s, ‘It’s Not Equal.’ Especially before you’re about to spout something like ‘men are also objectified and idealized in comics.’

And lastly, think about this - the entire blog and idea of The Hawkeye Initiative wouldn’t exist for you to have an opinion on if such silly comic covers and pin-ups didn’t exist in the first place.  So if you really feel that strongly, take your anger out on the industry that’s helping fuel blogs like this.

randomredux:

And by that I mean the whole stupid, foolhardy concept. I’ve said before that if you really believe there’s a horde of attractive women faking interest in nerdy things just to get your attention, you have a massive case of unwarranted self-importance, and I still believe that. I also believe you’re incredible insecure, and threatened by some ‘enemy’ who is no such thing.

The world of comic books, sci-fi, videogames, all these things, is no longer a boy’s club with a “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” banner hanging on the door, and it never should have been (indeed, I suspect it never really WAS but for this very idea - girls aren’t REAL nerds, especially attractive ones! And then the internet came up and holy shit look, women came out in droves to discuss their interest in these things, going back to the 1980s and earlier like the rest of us). If you insist somehow that it should be, that you should act as some kind of gatekeeper - he is a real nerd, she is not - then quite frankly you are just one of the saddest specimens we have to offer. Many of us grew up being picked on for having a non-mainstream interest, and now that this interest is spreading you attack and snarl and demean and exclude instead of actually being happy that you have new people to share these wonderful interests with.

You complain about games being rehashes, comic book reboots that are just retreads, but actively keep out the new blood and perspectives that could actually offer something you haven’t seen or considered before.

You demean women who cosplay as attention seekers in skimpy outfits, ignoring that they didn’t create those outfits, WE did.

Who cares if someone’s exposure and love for The Avengers came from the movie, and not the comics first?

Who cares if someone plays Angry Birds more than Dark Souls? What, you never fucking played Tetris? Don’t give me that non-game crap.

Oh no, she watches Thor because he’s tall blonde and built like a brick shithouse and isn’t afraid to comment that the guy’s a stud and so’s his brother? Yeah, because you read Tarot: Witch of the Rose for the riveting storytelling and characterization, right?

Oh no, someone’s writing fanfic about Tony Stark and Steve Rogers buttfucking! What a demeaning thing to do to the characters, you say as browsing the pictures I’ve been hired to draw of the women of X-Men having a lesbian orgy.

At the core of it all, for some insane reason, you are so threatened by the presence of women in your interests that you insult, you cajole, you harrass, and you embarrass the rest of us who are just happy to share. You slam women who are attractive and cosplay as NOT REAL NERDS, THEY’RE PREYING ON US POOR WIDDLE MENZ! And when they’re not as attractive as you’d like, you slam them for not meeting your standards. Or you slam them for daring not to give you the time of day when you grope and harass and hit on them. And if you look like me while doing it, that’s even more hilariously hypocritical and out of touch with reality. She’s not there for YOU, bro.

She’s not there for you.

She’s not there for you.

Let that sink in, guys.

She’s not there for you.

She’s not dressing up for you.

She’s not interested in comics for you.

She’s not playing games for you.

She’s. Not. There. For. You.

You are not the center of the universe, you never were and you never SHOULD be. It’s time to share your toys, guys. It’s time to be more mature. It’s time to drop the entitled attitude that insists our standards and our standards alone should be met. You do not hold the keys to the kingdom, for the kingdom has no lock.

My friend Kat - a geek with a cool job making awesome videogames like NFS The Run and mad cosplay skills - said something on Twitter earlier that summed the whole Fake Geek Girl BS up perfectly;

“That’s just it- “fake geek girls” DO NOT EXIST. There are only WOMEN WITH VARYING LEVELS OF INTEREST IN DIFFERENT HOBBIES.”

Many of the women cosplaying at these conventions probably know more about the current state of comics than I do, but I’ll never be asked to prove my nerd cred if I roll up in a Superman tee - and I haven’t bought an issue since the New 52 launched.

Fucking afford them the same courtesy. Don’t be a douchebag.

She’s not dressing up for you.

She’s not interested in comics for you.

She’s not playing games for you.

She’s. Not. There. For. You.

“That’s just it- “fake geek girls” DO NOT EXIST. There are only WOMEN WITH VARYING LEVELS OF INTEREST IN DIFFERENT HOBBIES.”

(via staticraining)

Librarian Karen Green holds a stack of science fiction magazines donated to the science fiction collection in the reading room at Columbia University.

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/09/17/graphic-novels-comics-get-scholarly-treatment-at-columbia/

By Lam Thuy Vo

For decades, “X-Men” author Chris Claremont kept handwritten notes about characters such as Wolverine and Magneto in dozens of boxes in the closet and basement of his Brooklyn apartment – as well as his mother-in-law’s house.

Perhaps not many outside of the comics fanboy community would consider this ephemera worthy of preservation, since even Mr. Claremont’s wife wanted to “get the crap out of the house,” he said. But Columbia University’s libraries deemed the journals, fan mail and correspondence important enough to be part of its archives.

Mr. Claremont’s 2011 donation is a game-changing addition to the university’s collection of graphic novels and related materials, which grew out of a pet project of librarian Karen Green.

“I think that our buying of comics and science fiction shows that we understand the value of things we used to see as perishable or less scholarly,” said Ms Green. It’s “not something we went after systematically before.” But now they are, she added.

The “X-Men” collection represents a core “around which we hope to build a collection of rich, comic-related material,” said Erik Wakin, Curator of Manuscripts at Columbia University during a symposium in March.

Graphic novels and the comic form — or what Ms. Green called “marginalized literature” — have crept into the mainstream in the form of television shows, young adult novels and Hollywood blockbusters. Preserving their history and documenting their rise from fringe to pop culture shows a further elevation of comic books as an art form.

Read more …

So far I’ve liked all of the #0 issues that I’ve read. I haven’t ~loved~ any of them, but I liked them well enough. I think it helped that I changed my mindset before reading. I knew things were gonna be different, and in accepting that, I prepared myself to be open to what the writers/artists had to offer. And you know what? It wasn’t terrible. In fact, alot of it was interesting and can lead to more interesting characterization/stories.

Still missing the old continuity, but I can see good things coming from what’s happening now. Anyway, there isn’t anything I can change about there being a reboot, so I’m just going to make the best of what’s being offered now.