Posts Tagged Comics

There’s been a lot of discussion on costumes and armor of female characters lately, mostly relating to comics.  It’s a problem that has always been rampant in science fiction/action movies, comic books, video games, and pretty much anything that is marketed primarily toward a male audience. There seems to be a lot of confusion over what is a sexist costume and what is not, and a lot of getting down on just presenting characters as sexy as being sexist.

The thing is, as a feminist, I have no problem with a female (or male) character being presented as sexy. Hell, I’m bi, I like looking at the sexy ladies as much as any man does. I do love a badass fighting female who charges in with a sword and takes no prisoners.

I am so well protected by my tiny little scraps of metal!

However, when it comes to armor or costumes, form should follow function.  The purpose of a suit of armor is to protect the wearer in a combat situation where the person wearing it is going to be on the front lines, in the melee. In such a situation, a chainmail bikini, for instance, which protects the fighter’s breasts and maybe, just maybe, about a third of her butt while leaving her vital and most vulnerable areas exposed for a mortal blow is just, well, impractical.

I mean, would you go into a swordfight with your belly uncovered just waiting for disembowelment?  Honestly, a slice to the butt? Not the biggest thing to worry about when someone’s trying to kill you, really.

Hell, no, if I ever get caught in a fight I hope I’ve got my vitals covered, thanks. I could care less about my boobs except for the fact that they’re in the same general area of my heart and that’s a pretty important thing to protect… and say I want to be agile, to fight with speed instead of brute force – well, I want my leathers flexible, but I still want the same things covered.

Functional armor can still be sexy as hell, without leaving the fighter dangerously exposed or turning her into a ridiculous objectification.

If the woman doesn’t fight on the front lines, but is instead a caster or support class character? She’s much less likely to be in such danger from melee attacks and can pretty much wear whatever (as little or as much of it) as she wants without making the feminist in me sit up and go “grr.”  This would be the reason why I had no problem with Morrigan, for instance, in Dragon Age.  She was no fighter, so if she wanted to go about with a strategically draped scarf over her torso and not much else, well, that’s fine by me. The fighting characters that got up close in that game were very well armored, male or female, in armor that suited the function for which it was intended, be it full-on protection from heavy blows or a balance of protection and ease of movement.

Another problem tends to have to do with the way women are posed, in comics in particular.  I mean, how many of you out there, male or female, have ever posed for a photograph with your butts facing the camera, your head turned to glance coquettishly over your shoulder?  Or maybe with your back arched, boobs raised to point at the ceiling?  Now, how many of you out there have posed that way while in the middle of a fight?

This is what happens when the men pose like the ladies... (Picture by Kevin Bolk)

While turning around and showing your ass to the bad guy may be a valid distraction technique, it really doesn’t make sense in many contexts outside the bedroom. To stand with your butt poked so far out and pointed directly at whoever’s looking at you while climbing ladders, talking with your best girlfriend and walking down the street, dropping out of helicopters, fighting your archnemesis, or generally being a hero . . . well, it’s ridiculous.  I mean, could you see Tony Stark doing it? * Superman?  These women look like they’re posing and ready for action, but the action they’re ready for doesn’t involve taking down criminals. Going down on, maybe.

Again, it’s a matter of form following function, or in this case the form being made ridiculous based on the context of what the character is doing.  Because unless I were shooting bullets from my boobs and a torpedo from my ass, I really would have no reason to go out of my way to point (and absurdly push out, or arch my back, or do any of those usually sex-related contortions) those body parts toward anyone. Especially if I’m fighting them.

It might make sense to pose like that in the bedroom to tease a lover, or for a pinup picture.  In which case, if the artists want to draw these characters there, doing that, maybe these poses would make at least a little bit of sense.

* Maybe Tony Stark was a bad choice of example here….**
** Ironman avows that the whole mooning incident was entirely falsified.***
*** Captain America says it absolutely was not and he really wishes he could find some brain bleach because, damn….

I love my friends. And because I love my friends I will shamelessly and unapologetically advertise their wares wherever I can. Because I’m proud of them, and they deserve it. And besides, their stuff is good.

One of my best friends, Steph Sakurai (a.k.a Steph Cherrywell) has a new graphic novel out, a spoof of the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys teenage sleuth mystery genre, called Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake.

This author is one of the funniest people I know. For a sample of some of her work, you can visit the webcomic, Intragalactic. It has a space ship, an oversexed captains, disposable ensigns, grumpy androids. What more could a geek ask for?

I wouldn’t plug her work so heavily if she didn’t deserve it.  I do so because she’s just that good. Her characters are wonderful, and her artwork expressive. Her comics are always good for a laugh, but keep in mind, the artwork may be cartoony, but these comics aren’t for the kiddies!

Now go buy it!

Also, apparently I need to have some sort of disclosure policy on my blog, thanks to some things the FTC has put out, so if you’re looking for my general blog policies, I’ve finally written them out and you can find the links in my sidebar somewhere over there →

The first official day at DragonCon this year was fairly light for us, as far as Con events goes. I’m really glad that we decided to come up on Thursday this year instead of Friday, because we were able to start the Con out fresh and rested and without the hassle of waiting in line for registration, since that was all taken care of yesterday. It was a bit annoying, yesterday, though, to find that pre-registering no longer affords you a quick registration. It was the folks who were not pre-registered that got the short lines. Still, with attendance doubling since we’ve started coming, a few growing pains are to be expected.

As far as yesterday went, we got up here safely, despite almost being run over by a Marta bus, and got our badges after waiting in line for 3.5 hours at the Sheraton (with the Sheraton employees behaving in the same manner we have come to expect – rudely – but with the DragonCon staff themselves being phenomenal).  Since last year we had such a wonderful experience at Nikolai’s Roof, we decided to go eat there again this year, but it turned out to be the sort of disappointment that only a meal you look forward to for a whole year can be, when it turns out to not be as good. The service was poor, particularly in comparison with the animated and fun server we had last year, and while the lighter courses were still extremely good, the main course was over-cooked for both of us.

Today, we started the day off by eating breakfast at the table next to Larry Hagman (!), then we headed off to the Wikileaks panel, which didn’t turn out to be the objective discussion we were expecting. The host of the panel didn’t seem to have researched the matter beyond the bounds of what was necessary for his presentation. The Q&A after the presentation allowed for a more open discussion, however, where a lot of good points were put forth, including discussion of Wikileaks’ own editing of documents to support their cause and the fact that Wikileaks’ publishing their findings on the Great Firewall of China has allowed people in China to better be able to get around the firewall and access information outside, as well as provide uncensored information and news to those outside the borders.

Salvador Dali - image from Wikipedia

Since the High Museum was offering a discount to DragonCon attendees, we decided to go see the Salvador Dali exhibit there, which was absolutely wonderful. It was focused on Dali’s later work, which I knew very little about, being most familiar with his early surrealist art. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the paintings was the sense of dimension he was able to put into them, the way some of the images seemed to jump out of the canvas toward you and how some of the paintings were entirely different pictures depending on how far away you were standing from them.  B was particularly struck by the sheer size of some of the paintings. The exhibit really established Dali as one of the first true pop artists, who embraced his commercial popularity and didn’t understand the critics who would discount his work simply because it was popular to mass audiences.

We ate dinner tonight at Ray’s in the City, which turned out to be a much better experience than last night.  Now, we’re going to relax and watch some DragonCon*TV and get ready for tomorrow, which promises to be our busiest day at the Con. We’ll be attending the parade, so you can expect many, many more pictures (Saturday is always the biggest Picture Taking Day), and we’re heading to the James Randi panel, which is the main panel we’re both excited for.

This kind of goes along with my previous post concerning the way censorship and ratings in the US tends to be heavy-handed when it comes to nudity while allowing all sorts of violence to be branded “kid-friendly.”

There’s a phenomenon that I come across fairly regularly where people will ignore the ratings on a piece of media, buy the piece of media for their children, and then complain that “OH MY GOD, SUCHANDSUCH HAS NAKED PEOPLE/LOTS OF BLOOD AND GORE/HORRIFIC IMAGERY THAT MY PERFECT CHILD SHOULD NEVER SEE WITH THEIR INNOCENT EYES!”

At which point I tend to want to take the package, point at the rating (which inevitably is M, R, NC-17, etc.) and go “Yeah? That’s why it’s rated for ADULTS ONLY!”

At which point I get a blank look, and/or: “But it’s a cartoon/video game/comic book/etc. and cartoons/video games/comic books/etc. are meant for kids.”

Where did this come from, this automatic assumption that just because something drawn, either with traditional animation or art media or digitally, it therefore is intended primarily for children?  This is almost certainly a purely Western notion, because Japanese anime doesn’t seem to make that assumption (though I have seen Westerners assume thus in regards to Japanese anime).

First of all, as the first generation of at-home gamers (of which I am a proud member) grew up, video games grew up with them. Right now, the vast majority of gamers are ages 25 and up, both male and female. We’ve long ago outgrown shiny happy fairy-tale castles with a pretty pink princess inside, and most of us look for darker, grittier, more cynical, and yes, more realistically violent games.  For those of us who are parents, of which there are no small number, most of these games are such that we would never allow our children to play, though we may play them ourselves.

These video games are rated “M”, which is clearly marked on the video game package, along with the translation “For Mature Players.”  These are video games that are made for adults. Why, then, do some parents buy these games for their children, ignoring the rating, and then complain about the content?

The same seems to go for any animated cartoon, though shows like Beevis and Butthead, South Park, etc. have made a dent in it, I still see and hear of parents letting their children watch “cartoons” and then throwing a fit when they find out that it has some sort of inflammatory not-for-the-kiddos content in it.

Again, the ratings for these “cartoons” are clearly displayed on the television during the opening credits, are clearly available over the internet for anyone who wants to see them, and yet the parents are raising hell over these shows containing more mature content when they’re clearly marked as being not for kids.

But… but…. but… they’re cartoons.

Yeah? There’s been dirty pictures drawn all over the place since the first caveman picked up a stick of charcoal.

The same “but it’s made for kids” philosophy extends to comic books and any movies based on comic books too, as we all saw with release of Watchmen and the Legendary Blue Wang. I saw plenty of moms and dads leading their little kids into that movie, and then leading them right back out with hands over their eyes.  I had to wonder if they had completely failed to notice, on purchasing the ticket, that the movie had a great big “R” next to it?

No, because you see the thing is that these people who ignore the ratings on things and then end up burned inevitably turn on the distributors, the creators, the writers, the artists.  They are EVIL EVIL people for exposing their precious children to these things!

But it’s not the creators’ or the distributors’ fault. They made a product that was intended for adult consumption, and clearly marked as such on said product. This mark is a warning for parents, it says “This is not for kids.”  If the parent then chooses to ignore that warning, then it’s the parent’s own fault for what they have chosen to expose their child to.  You were warned. You chose not to heed that warning. It’s not our fault if you get burned.

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I read a lot. At any given time, I might be reading several books at once, and I average finishing somewhere around three books a week.  And since it seems to be time for such things, I decided I’d give a little list of the favorite books I read this year.

These books may not have been published this year. They might’ve been republished in a new edition, or won some awards that brought them to my attention, or they might’ve just been sitting on my waiting-to-read stack for a while, but each of these I read for the first time this year, and would recommend to anyone.

1. Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
   Winner of the Newberry and countless other awards and medals this year, and of course written by my favorite contemporary author, this is one of the best examples of what makes Neil Gaiman so great. His books may exist in the realm of the fantastic, but they are a prime example of just how much truth can exist in fiction.
2. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
   This is available on Doctorow’s website as a CC licensed e-book, for those with empty pockets, and it’s definitely worth the read, and the purchase. Cory Doctorow is one of the best emerging authors in the sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction genres. There’s nothing pulp about any of his work, and Little Brother, written for an adolescent audience, is just as pointed in its commentary as any of his others.
3. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
   This is written by the same woman who wrote The Time Traveller’s Wife, which I have not read.  This book is about the “life” of a young woman buried in Highgate Cemetary in London during the Victorian Era. (There did seem to be a lot of good ghost books lately…) Obsession is the major theme of the book, with each character seeming to have his or her own version of it, from obsessive love to obsessive hate and everything in between.
4. Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? by Neil Gaiman, art by Andy Kubert (Pencil), and Scott Williams (Ink)
   As usual, my favorite graphic novel of the year was written by Neil Gaiman,  though this is a departure from my usual Sandman love. I’m usually a Marvel fan, when it comes to comics, but this gorgeous hardcover edition of Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? was too beautiful to bypass, and proved to have a wonderful tale within. It answers the question of  what happens to the world, when a bat dies.
5. Serenity: Better Days by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, Art by Will Conrad, Ink by Jo Chen
   It’s unusual for me to have two graphic novels on my list, but these two were awesome enough for it. Of course, I’m a rather fervent Browncoat, but even putting fan-bias aside, this is an excellent comic.  Perhaps, with the television executives unwilling to give Joss Whedon the free reign he needs to produce truly great material, comics will provide a place for us to find the great writing that we all love him for.