Via Ace of Spades, via Instapundit.
I especially enjoyed the observation that comic book heroes, male and female, are continually drawn as if their costumes were nothing but body paint. It's essentially how they get away with drawing the characters naked. And it was very entertaining to see the picture of Spiderman in the position that they'd never put a male character in:
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32 comments:
wow, that was awesome.
This guy Maddox is great. MTP should have hired someone like him.
It's another example of how today's superheroes are the equivalent of the ancient Greek and Roman gods--who are frequently depicted semi-nude or even nude in art.
Aphrodite, for example:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/NAMA_Aphrodite_Syracuse.jpg
So today, skin-tight costumes simulate the nudity.
As a former comic book geek I found the claim that they would never pose Spider-man like that laughable.
Spider-man is posed like that all the time.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=spider-man+pic&qpvt=spider-man+pic&FORM=IGRE
I suspect the offended parties aren't actually familiar with comics. At all.
There is also a crusade to de-objectivy (is that a word?) women on the covers sci-fi and fantasy book covers and in the comics. The claim is that men, if dressed in the same outfits and posed the same, would look ridiculous. That may be true, but the male characters aren't exactly dressed for a day in a corporate cubicle themselves. And as for poses?
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Daredevil+and+Elektra&FORM=RESTAB
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=thor+pictures&qpvt=thor+pictures&FORM=IGREs
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=captain+america+pictures&qpvt=captain+america+pictures&FORM=IGRE
Maddox does an excellent job of filleting, breading, and frying; but why the heck are there so many fish in that barrel? There must be dozens of covers with Spiderman in that same pose. Is the blue bubble so tight that no editor can look a supposed feminist in the eye and say, "This is crap?" (Rhetorical question.)
I think this is more about the artist - Milano Manara - take a look at his typical genre:
Milano Manara Images - Lots of Ass!!
Looks like you give this guy the opportunity to draw something, and this treatment is exactly what you will get.
Nice ass.
I never understood superhero comics.
I understand cartoon conventions but not why anybody is interested in this particular one.
Mannn, I've been following Maddox for years. Used to own a few of his t-shirts and still own his book.
I remember hearing about him because my friend searched "Best website in the universe" and discovered his hilarious skewering of children's artwork (what he is most famous for). Back in 7th or 8th grade it was one of the funniest things I had ever read.
I'm 25 now and I still check in on his work periodically. He's good.
HA! If they really want to be offended, they should go look at old copies of Heavy Metal.
FemiNazis are neo-Puritan. And they want to make everyone as miserable as they are.
Sex as entertainment sort of is a war on women, and they so far they are winning it.
The power of shaming the opposition about human sex is an old political tool, but it has gone wild.
eh...
I don't know any women who give a shit about the feminist BS. Has no purpose or toehold in my life.
I don't read TOP precisely because of the obsession with identity politics in general, and with feminist BS in particular.
Who needs it?
"Feminists" exposed themselves as left wing hacks when Sarah Palin was introduced to the nation.
If they want to be offended they should look for European comics. Even those from 30-40 years ago.
That Manara fellow comes out of that world I think.
Conservative Catholic that I am, I have to call them prudes.
Feminist activists could spend all day drawing their own comics, sculpting their own statues to last over two thousand years, creating images of their own ideal beauty and representations of virtue to compete in the marketplace..
Or
This band of shrieking, outraged losers could keep trying to yell, silence and control everyone and everything in the 'culture', including the political process (baked in the ideology).
I think I know which option I'm betting on.
***And as long as Obama, and so many blow dried idiots and wannabe activists in the media keep a warm lamp on these cold fish...it'll be more of the same.
Three Stooges vs. Spiderman.
Bring it on.
ST, what's "TOP"? I thought this was "TOP".
Anyways, I don't generally travel in those parts of the blogosphere, but I have to say that this post brought the mirth:
You're not a nerd, geeks aren't sexy
and you don't "fucking love" science.
I'd like to know the back story on why Maddox chose an image of Bill O'Reilly to represent "vaginas" when he also had the options of "asses" or "penises" (dicks).
"Feminist activists could spend all day drawing their own comics"
The Amazing Burka-Woman! Thwarting Evildoers and the Male Gaze!
The argument Maddox makes is fatally flawed. It relies on reason. And evidence. So 20th century.
Make Maddox host of "Meet the Press," and people might actually watch.
You think they'd really be upset about that wannabe chorus girl the Scarlet Witch, but she's a mutant and they can't be mean to minorities.
As for the Spiderman/woman/whatever pose, you try climbing the side of a 30-story building and see how you stand. I suspect it would look something more like this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291YlL7AL1o
Leading candidate to play Spiderwoman in a movie.
Look, superheroes are puberty metaphors. You have ordinary people who suddenly gain powers and abilities they never had, and it changes the way they relate to the world. Their bodies and voices change, and they suddenly become interested in and visible to a large group of people who are undergoing similar changes.
Thinking you can take sex out of puberty is ridiculous.
Think of every time a feminist says "A man would never have to put up with this." Is it not usually something men put up with all day every day?
Shhh. If we go back and look at ancient Western art, we also find that men were depicted with darkened or--gasp--red skin while women were painted lighter.
Birth control squirrels to the fore!
I finally figured out the key to feminist writers and why they make no sense. You have to look at a case like this and realize that they aren't writing about comic books or art at all. They're writing about their one and only topic: Women are oppressed, and men are privileged.
That's the subject no matter what the touchpoint is. It hit home this week with that stupid, stupid Slate piece on "The tyranny of home-cooked meals," which argued that cooking is a terrible burden on women. Two years ago, the same writer, reacting to news that men cook a lot more now, wrote that of course men are taking over cooking so they can hog up all the fun.
It seems contradictory, but to her it's not, because in neither piece is she writing about cooking. In her mind, she is brutally consistent: Women are oppressed, men are privileged. Counterexamples, evidence, logical argument -- they mean nothing.
""Feminists" exposed themselves as left wing hacks when Sarah Palin was introduced to the nation."
True, but before that, they exposed themselves when the CEO of the USA had sex with his intern and they went down with that ship.
It's almost as if they're moving like spiders or something.
When the Superman TV show started, I thought it was great (I was 9), BUT the actor in the long johns didn't look at all as impressive as the hero in the comic book: the muscles hardly showed. A decade and a half later, I had the same reaction to the Batman TV show. It wasn't until the movies got the idea of putting Batman in a plastic muscleman suit that the hero in the movies matched the hero in the comics.
Later, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as Conan the Barbarian (loved his Cimmerian accent!) the movies presented a suitably muscled superhero just by having Arnold leave his shirt off. Today, they do the same thing with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.
I haven't read a comic book since I graduated from law school -- there's enough scary fantasy in the practice of law to satisfy me -- but there were a few female superheroes even then. If the comics today have some female superheroes with really good bods, I might check them out. Of course, I assume the female comic books will cost only 70% of what the male comics cost.
As to being adolescent sexuality -- yes it is. It is literally that. It is sold to adolescents, and it sells because it's sexy.
It's escapist literature. People who read escapist literature want to be strong and fast and really, really sexy. It's an 18 year old's idealized version of him- or herself.
The idea the superhero comic books are going to grow up is just ludicrous. A new group of people go through puberty every year. They want puberty metaphors and fantasies of unlimited power and sexiness because that's what they're going through at that time in their life. Sooner or later they will get older, and comics will stay the same age.
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