“I was reading some Alan Moore Marvelman for some reason today. I found one in the back there and I couldn’t believe. I pick it up and there are fucking two rapes in it and I suddenly think how many times has somebody been raped in an Alan Moore story? And I couldn’t find a single one where someone wasn’t raped except for Tom Strong, which I believe was a pastiche. We know Alan Moore isn’t a misogynist but fuck, he’s obsessed with rape. I managed to do thirty years in comics without any rape!”
We got a big response to my last piece on sexualization in superhero art, and I’m back today with another look at the same premise: that comics art tells a story, and on a certain level, you can judge it according to how well it tells the story it’s trying to tell. This week, we’re going to compare and contrast how a female character is depicted in cape comics, what stories are being told by the art, and how effective different artists and styles are at telling those stories. Specifically, we’re comparing Greg Land drawing Psylocke in Uncanny X-Men #5 from 2012 and Jerome Opeña drawing Psylocke in Uncanny X-Force #4, from early 2011.I chose two pages that shared several similarities. They both feature Betsy “Psylocke” Braddock, a character traditionally associated with out-of-control cheesecake, and show her using a sword, interacting with a teammate, and displaying some strong emotion. The specifics are a little different, but the overall point of both pages are clear: Psylocke is skilled with a sword and cares about things. Land’s page fails in its intent, while Opeña’s does not. Let’s talk about why.
Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/22/psylocke-art-greg-land-jerome-opena/#ixzz1nDHLsMj7
This! Greg Land is one of the worst artists in comics if not the worst. He’s a notorious swiper and considering his habit of phototracing porn (I wish I was joking), no series on the objectification of women in comics would be complete without taking him down a peg.
Brothers does a wonderful job showing how Land isn’t a just terrible artist for how he depicts women; he’s a terrible artist, period.
I’m no fan of Psylocke, X-Force in general (more of an X-Factor girl) or really any X-Men storyline about them fighting Apocalypse… again, but after seeing Jerome Opena’s artwork, I might just have to pick up the trade.
The line between sexy and over-sexualized in comics is a hard one to pin down. It’s different for everyone, of course, but for the purposes of this post, we should probably agree on a few ground rules, just for the sake of having one conversation, rather than many. Art in a comic is over-sexualized when the women are drawn as sex objects first and heroes (or people) second. Skimpy clothes, large breasts, arched backs, and exploitative camera angles all contribute to heroines being drawn as sex objects. For a good example, check out this image by Ed Benes, which was part of the promo push for Blackest Night:
There are five fully-dressed men on the page, but the two women have as much skin on display as possible, no matter how unlikely it would be. Star Sapphire, the one in the foreground, is a particularly terrible example of the depths superhero art can sink to, as there’s nothing reasonable about her costume, from her high collar to her cleverly-placed superhero emblem. Her breasts and butt are emphasized to the detriment of the story this image is trying to tell. The image is, at least theoretically, about a vicious war between several different factions. In practice, it’s about fully-clothed, over-muscled dudes growling at each other while a lady vamps with barely any clothes on nearby.
Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/16/superheroine-sex-art-story/#ixzz1mgcLoQQk
Debates over the “idealization” and objectification in the portrayal of women in comics are often met with a reflexive response: “Men are idealized in comics, too!” It’s true, they are. But there’s different sorts of idealization, as this series of gender-flipped illustrations from Megan Rosalarian shows.
Dudes, I want you to imagine a world where most of the portrayals of your gender in comics look like the above. Are you going to think “Well, I really like the stories so I’ll just suck it up and read this anyway”? Or are you going to be alienated from reading most comics? Be honest. Are you willing to stare at that much thrusting crotch just to find out if Spiderman is gonna win?
Lots of people in the comics business look at their demographic breakdown and think women don’t like superheroes. The creator of DC Women Kicking Ass made a very apt point when she said, “Let me put it this way, if you keep keeping putting food on a kid’s plate and they don’t eat you do you assume they don’t like to eat or they don’t like the food? Right.”
Women like comics. And not just flowery manga and autobio stuff. We like superheroes.
(Source: Boing Boing)
Here’s the Wikipedia article on DC Comics’ New 52. Notice how there’s nothing there about the widespread criticism of DC’s lack of female creators and sexist portrayals of female characters? Fix it. Good monkeys.
(I’d do it myself, but I’m too tired and full of pizza.)
Reblogging myself.
