Comments on: But the little girls understand

By: News and commentary about comics » What doomed the new Batwoman from the start

Sun, 27 May 2007 20:38:11 +0000

[...] But, there’s another fatal flaw discovered that dooms this new Batwoman too: seems the reason Kate Kane’s been out of the picture for a while was because…she’d been seriously wounded by a villain, and had to spend time in the hospital. There’s more of that mentioned in the comments on The Beat. [...]

By: The Four Color Media Monitor

The Four Color Media Monitor — Sun, 27 May 2007 18:13:18 +0000

What doomed the new Batwoman from the start…

A subject that went into obscurity for some time, DC’s unremarkable new Batwoman, Kate Kane, returned to memory after I stumbled over this thread on CBR’s board. She may have appeared in the first issue or two of 52, but since vanished up until the l…

By: The Four Color Media Monitor

The Four Color Media Monitor — Sun, 27 May 2007 18:12:56 +0000

What doomed the new Batwoman from the start…

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:48:47 +0000

I mentioned this in the linked blog about the Morgan picture, but I suppose I’ll pipe up here, too. I’m not entirely sure the cut of the dress is at issue here. If you compared this to Teen Titans Go!, for instance, there is a clear difference between how emotionally “there” the female characters are portrayed. This character is vacant-eyed and her dress does not hide the fact that the artist was trying to make her curvy first, and a dynamic character second. Starfire with far less clothes does not emanate an air of sexuality at all, and therefore there is no reason to try to conceal it like something dirty. The art is not hyper-conscious of the sexual gaze from the fourth wall, if it even is at all, and the first priority in a drawing of her is to portray her emotion as it relates to the story.

In other words, I wonder if this may be an issue of the art interrupting the narrative for no reason other than to titillate someone who is obviously not the young girl who was put off by it. I mean, if I was a girl not yet hitting puberty, I might also look at this art and read, “Oh by the way, you’re not the audience we’re talking to here,” like a “No Girlz!” sign on the clubhouse door.

Alternatively, I might be embarrassed or peeved if I reading the story, but someone saw the picture and got the wrong idea of what I was getting out of the comic.

By: John Green

John Green — Tue, 22 May 2007 14:17:38 +0000

Skipper Pickle, I find it interesting that you find such fault in your “more realistic” comment regarding the Morgan picture. I myself find the girl character’s costumes in Teen Titans Go! to be more revealing than Morgan’s. However, they are drawn in a more cartoony style. Could your daughter find Morgan less modest because she is drawn less cartoony? Is “less cartoony” synonymous with “more realistic?” I’m not trying to start anything or offend anyone, but I think the style of art is very relevent in this situation: a more revealing costume on a cartoon-style character can have a very different impact than a less revealing costume on a more realistically-proportioned character.

By: SF

SF — Mon, 21 May 2007 04:04:00 +0000

@BR: I didn’t follow 52 very closely, just kept up with what happened to a few characters via online reviews, so I really can’t comment on how well or how poorly DC handled the new Batwoman.

What did you or your class think about how they handled Renee Montoya, the (eventually) new Question? Admittedly, she didn’t receive the media hype Batwoman did, and she’s not a conventional superhero, but she might still be worth considering in the context of your class, and in relation to 52’s brief portrayal of the new Batwoman.

Just a thought.

By: Gary Chaloner

Gary Chaloner — Mon, 21 May 2007 00:13:23 +0000

I had to scroll ALL the way to the bottom of these responses before someone else mentioned the ‘crotch skull’? Of all things in the drawing, I found that to be the weirdest. What’s that saying about female anatomy (and that part of the female body the skull is covering)? As mentioned… it could easily have gone around the neck… or even higher on the waist.

By: Tom Spurgeon

Tom Spurgeon — Sun, 20 May 2007 03:53:09 +0000

I told my brother about Lesbian Batwoman today and he asked if her Bat-mobile was a converted Subaru Outback.

Maybe her heroic victory moment was not sucking and this could only be accomplished by no longer appearing in any of the comics.

By: trevor

trevor — Sat, 19 May 2007 22:18:13 +0000

Greg Horn is a hack.

By: Josh Elder

Josh Elder — Sat, 19 May 2007 16:29:03 +0000

I think this is an unwinnable argument, really. The concept of what’s “inappropriate” content varies from person to person, and for every young lady who had a problem with the Morgan Le Fay image, there’s probably one that really liked the design. She was definitely designed to be sexy, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s not like there were close-ups of her breasts or posterior or impossible body contortions so that both could be shown at once. So while I certainly won’t question Skipper Pickle’s daughter’s reading of that image, I don’t know if it’s necessarily indicative of the opinion of the audience as a whole.

I write an all-ages book and comic strip myself, so I’m certainly sensitive to these kinds of issues. And I tend to think my standards are rather stringent for this kind of thing. When in doubt, I run stuff by my churchgoing, small town, middle school librarian mother, and if it gets by her, then I know that I’m in the clear.

Though in all honesty my mom may have had some trouble with the crotch skull…

By: Josh Elder

Josh Elder — Sat, 19 May 2007 16:20:10 +0000

I think this is an unwinnable argument, really. The concept of what’s “inappropriate” content varies from person to person, and for every young lady who had a problem with the Morgan Le Fay image, there’s probably one that really liked the design. She was definitely designed to be sexy, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s not like there were close-ups of her breasts or posterior or impossible body contortions so that both could be show at once. So while I won’t question Skipper Pickle’s daughter’s reading of that image, I don’t know if it’s necessarily indicative of the opinion of the audience as a whole.

Though in all honesty my mom may have had some trouble with the crotch skull…

By: Skipper Pickle

Skipper Pickle — Sat, 19 May 2007 14:30:15 +0000

@ericshanower: i don’t know what H– particularly viewed as immodest. i didn’t drill down into the question because i thought it more important to teach her the value of her opinion by accepting it at face value. To hazard a guess (based on comparisons with the material she identifies with), i’d say you have hit on some of it: the high slit in the dress is a likely culprit (she’s starting to pay close attention to what she wears and what it says about her), the low neckline, the body definition. The skull at the crotch probably didn’t help either. Hang that skull around her neck and the sexual tension eases up a bit, no? ;)

You wrote: But I view the depiction of a female breast covered with fabric that looks like it’s been painted on as the artist not taking the work seriously on its own terms.

That mode of artwork (nude human figures with costumes painted on) is operating in this issue of MA Avengers. You can see it in the men–even Iron Man has well-defined pecs molded onto his chestpiece. It’s this approach to the human figure that perhaps most distinguishes the artwork here from other comics she enjoys.

i wonder if you have hit here on an element that Marvel Adventures could consider adding to its guidelines. It seems to me that taking pains to draw the clothing/uniforms would keep the art (as Parker says above) “on par with the regular MU books” and yet help to distinguish the line on its own terms.

But now i have stopped preaching and gone to meddling.

By: BR

BR — Sat, 19 May 2007 12:41:59 +0000

Ha — good point. That she recovered wasn’t my point, that she was portrayed as a) a sex object and b) a victim was. Not that a lesbian character can’t be either of those things, but that’s ALL we got with LB. Other than beat up some apes, she didn’t get that heroic moment that male heroes do to rise up above their own melodramatic tragedies/fantasies. Instead, her heroic moment was/is ostensibly recovering quietly and patiently in a hospital bed (ma’am may I have some more of that delicious green jello? No? Ok, I’m sorry). While certainly many, many people are incredibly heroic in facing injury or disease — LB is (supposedly) a super-heroine. According to the convention, she’s supposed to have some kind of victory. So what was hers, that she survived?!?!? That, to me, sends a different message to all kinds of audiences: girls, boys, gays, and everything in-between.

Brad

By: Tom Spurgeon

Tom Spurgeon — Sat, 19 May 2007 12:01:48 +0000

Who *hasn’t* taken a few extra days off after being stabbed in the heart?

By: Torsten Adair

Torsten Adair — Sat, 19 May 2007 06:54:13 +0000

Barely mentioned here, but DC has figured out it out with Minx. I’ve read the first two books as advance copies (!) and both are well written, well drawn, beautifully designed to look like regular books, and I cannot wait to handsell these books to everyone. Like all good young adult novels, they can be enjoyed by adults as well.
Oh, yeah, I work at Barnes & Noble. Our newsstand carries the kids comics, Ultimates, Dark Tower, and some Spidey, Jump, Beat, and the Archie digests. No complaints yet, but then I work near Lincoln Center, not Omaha, Nebraska.