we’ve been seeing female characters drawn with their nipples pointing out of their clothes, with cameltoe poppin’ out of leather pants somehow, with thong leotards with their butt cheeks flapping in the wind. is about time we saw some super men dick if u ask me
Honestly I read the bleeding cool article when the news broke and laughed my ass off.
“Many retailers were okay with a butt crack…. But a Batpenis on full display in many areas of the United States of America is a different story entirely. There are calls to make the comic returnable. Or maybe reprinted with the original shadow.”
I have to ask, where is this energy when Supergirl, a 16 year old character, has dozens of panty shots with her skirt just so? Are these people who are upset and demanding returnable orders over a rated M comic book with a penis inside it also upset when a RHATO 32, a rated T comic book, had Starfire wearing what is essentially lingerie lounging seductively on a sports car with her perfectly round magic breasts?
Bruce Wayne has an anatomically sized penis that was drawn without sexualization in a book meant to be purchased and read by adults and comic stores are freaking out and want their money back. They’re weak as hell. Bruce’s nude body was drawn with more respect than the clothed bodies of teenage girls.
Where’s the outrage over that?
Got a lot of people messaging me saying that there is no penis in Batman Damned. DC wound up censoring it. I honestly don’t care about that. I do care they said they removed it because “It doesn’t add to the story.”
DC continues to reprint & profit off of mid 2000s Supergirl books filled with butt/boob poses, nipples poking out of fabric, skirts so low the artist can draw the pelvic bone, and panty shots of a 16 year old girl (XXX). They have sold statues of Supergirl with clothes that look like bodypaint and panty shots with her butt sticking out (XXXXX X)
Again, I don’t care that the penis is gone. I care that DC thinks they can have it both ways. A non-sexualized penis doesn’t add to their story. Evidently sexualizing teenage girls does add to their stories. Hyper-sexualizing women in general adds to their stories. Why is that?
this one’s a few days late due to having a lot of doctors appointments sorry it’s just 9 pages, and about some rats… it’s more symbolic than anything really
(it’s completely unrelated to any of my songs that have to do with “puzzleboy”)
The thing about how women in comics used to be drawn and sometimes are still drawn, you can only really understand the difference between an action girl being forced into unrealistic sexual, sensual positions, and an actual strong and well posed, empowering but still sexy female character, when you see what it looks like to have male characters depicted in overtly sensual poses
And I’m not talking about the Hawkeye Initiative or any given parody
I actually want to draw a comparison using art by Kevin Wada
Kevin Wada is a proud part of the LGBTQ+ community and he has this unique ability to sexualize mainstream male heroes without it looking like a parody. He draws covers for multiple big comic companies and his style reminiscent of old fashion magazines, drawn largely in traditional watercolor, has made him a stalwart of the industry.
He also draws a lot of naked Bucky Barnes.
Anyway, I want to talk about how interesting his art is, the difference between his power poses and his sexy poses for male and female characters.
A typical power pose for a male comics character would look like this
Whereas every so often with female heroes you get something like this
Not all the time, of course, but it happens and it happens in the wrong places. You wouldn’t be posing like a cover model in the middle of a battle, you really wouldn’t.
But when it comes to Wada and male and female characters, the difference is pretty clear.
When he draws male characters, they more often look like this
Sensual, in a pose you wouldn’t usually see a big, muscular hero doing. If not that, then playful, sexy, for looking at, but nothing about their anatomy overly exaggerated
How he draws women is also very clearly different from many other artists, from sexy pose to power pose.
Still posing for the camera, still to be looked at, but very, very different from how we’ve seen female characters portrayed in mainstream comics in the past.
And I guess it’s really just a matter of variety? Objectification in art is a long time debate and appears everywhere always, but for all that we can argue about its impact on popular media, there are a few things I know for sure:
1) having a female character pose like a playboy cover girl in the middle of a battle scene is just Bad Art and y’all need to find better references
2) female power poses will never look quite as right as when they’re drawn by people who know the value of expressing personality through pose (it’s basic animation principles and some artists still need to learn it) and who actually know what a female character’s personality beyond “sexy”
3) Iron Man or Batman posing like they’re about to beat somebody up is 100% not the same as a fashion drawing by Kevin Wada where a Typical Beefy Action Guy gets to pose like a flirty pretty boy
4) the MCU films have figured out the value of pandering to female audiences by sexually objectifying all their male action heroes while simultaneously appealing to the male demographic’s action movie power fantasy. Quoting Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waititi: “I’m not a piece of meat” “Uh, yes you are.”
They definitely struck some kind of balance there.
Also, more important than this entire post: y’all should follow @kevinwada on Tumblr and give him love because his art is divine and his talent beyond words
We featured @kevinwada‘s Naked Snake last year and mentioned (as a couple times before) that if you really want to see the principles male gaze applied unironically to masculine characters, you gotta find pinup done by a male artist who’s into men. And Wada’s artwork is a great proof of that, without resorting to pandering exaggerations (which belong more to parody art).
~Ozzie
Some neckbeard was whining about “men are now women and women are now men” just because he saw a promo pic for ANT-MAN and WASP – the woman’s looking directly at the viewer and the man’s glancing over his shoulder. All the artist did was swap the traditional poses for male and female and All Gender Roles are Void It’s The Apocalypse OMG This is the Future Liberals Want.
i'll apple your turnover 