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After Mark Waid’s “Four Panels that Never Work” comic was seen just about everywhere yesterday, one might have been forgiven for thinking that given the fourth-panel poke at Geoff Johns penchant for mutilating heroes, Waid and Johns must be feuding or something. However, Waid showed up in the comments at Robot 6 to answer questions and revealed that it was merely a friendly rib:

Geoff and I are cool so far as I know. It’s a joke, and it’s nothing I’ve not given him good-natured grief about to his face in years past. (Though looking at the two stabbings just in this week’s DC comics alone, I wish I’d generalized that joke simple to “DC comic.”) I’ll make fun of my own shortcomings in the upcoming sequel, “4 More Panels That Don’t Work,” fair enough?


Waid had a couple of other quotables in that comment thread, including this one:

I’d like to point out that if it weren’t for vile, women-hating misogynist shitbags, we wouldn’t HAVE a mainstream comics industry.


Which is, sadly, true.

1 COMMENT

  1. If mainstream comics werent run by vile, misogynistic shit bags, I predict it would be like a hydra situation, where another awful thing will take its place.

    So let’s count our blessings, guys. Mainstream comics aren’t run by the Klan, Nazis, or Pol Pot. Yay?

  2. I’d like to point out that if it weren’t for vile, women-hating misogynist shitbags, we wouldn’t HAVE a mainstream comics industry.

    I think that Waid was referring to readers, not to creators. Waid isn’t the sort of guy who’d want to start a “Name that misogynistic shitbag of a pro!” game, is he?

    SRS

  3. @Synsidar: In context, Mark was responding to accusations another commenter was making against the artist, Ryan Sohmer. So it seems that he IS talking about creators — though it seems tongue-in-cheek enough and I don’t think he’s trying to start a “name that misogynistic shitbag of a pro” game.

  4. Stabbings are a fantastic way to add realism, modernity to a comic and also cover a lack of creativity with blood.

  5. I don’t think there are as many genuine misogynists in comics as there are dudes who genuinely don’t understand how to draw females. Like, this Internal dialogue doesn’t happen often enough:

    “Wait, boobs in a shirt aren’t supposed to look like individual ice cream scoops.”
    “Can spines physically do that? Hmm…maybe not.”
    “Would a chick wear a really wear midriff to a funeral/job interview/science research lab?”
    “No, seriously, can spines really do that?”
    “Is it plausible for my heroine to be doing that stupid hip pop pose when she’s talking to the president?”
    “Dammit, spines can’t do that.”

    At least that’s the impression I get from the artists’ end.

  6. Wait, I thought the 4 panels that never work were:

    Women in Comics
    So you want to self-publish
    Making money on the web
    Breaking into the big 2

    Oh, these aren’t about convention panels? Carry on, then.

  7. First off, I’m really getting tired of people equating comics with superhero comics. They are not the same thing. But since superhero comics do deal with the themes of power and domination, things that are disproportionately held by white men , I can see why people keep equating Marvel and DC with the comics medium; Change the power fantasies, change the industry, change society.

    I think one of the reasons female, or minority superheroes haven’t caught on is because many of them, with rare exceptions like Storm, don’t feel as powerful when compared to their white male counterparts. Luke Cage and Black Panther still feel like second rate superheroes. I never get the feeling that the Black Panther is as smart as Tony Stark. I know Luke Cage’s challenges aremore modest than Daredevil’s.* I think what I’m getting at is the suspension of disbelief isn’t happening as much as it should when it comes to marginalized members of society being imagined in positions of power and influence.

  8. “At least that’s the impression I get from the artists’ end.”

    Depends. Atists like John Romita Jr.,Walt Simonson, John Byrne,and many of the big name artists aren’t to blame for the brokeback poses and other flaws we see nowadays. The more early 90’s Image-esque inspired art is to blame. It’s amazing how Ed Benes and Guillem March as well as some of their contemporaries have given the superhero comic book artist a black eye.

  9. Saber Tooth said:

    “I never get the feeling that the Black Panther is as smart as Tony Stark.”

    You might look at the “Iron Man” guest issues of Priest’s BLACK PANTHER for a corrective to this attitude.

    I don’t think BP has been regarded as a second-string type (whatever his sales were) since Marvel raconteurs started regarding him as a full-time monarch rather than a guy who larked around superheroing in his spare time– which is pretty much how Lee and Kirby portrayed him!