Hmmm.... The Mad Monk (subtitle of blog: Christians Read Comics Too), Avi Green, me, and several other prominent religious folks regularly get linked on WFA. And just because people aren't talking about God doesn't mean that they aren't deeply Christian. Case in point: me. I'm hella Christian. That doesn't mean that I'm going to muse on God or Jesus when I'm writing about comics or feminism. I wouldn't assume that you aren't reading the blogs of religious folks just because they're not thumping their bibles when talking about comics.
And if you would argue that a more accurate sample of America's public opinions would include more Christians... Well, how do you think your typical Christian would react to the HfH cover? ;) If anything, the typical comics blogger will probably have a much more liberal definition of porn, and be much less likely to take offense at violent imagery, than your typical American citizen.
As for exploring other communities, I lurk regularly at Newsarama, and like I said oh so many comments up, I'm basing my impressions on "public opinion" on what I see being said in and around Newsarama, too. Surely Newsarama provides a fairly accurate cross-section of comics fandom, right?
And who says that the "biased" (oh no, they share the same opinions!) corners of fandom don't count? scans_daily (over 4600 members) and the Girl Wonder forums (over 900 members) are pretty unanimous in their condemnation of the cover. That's a pretty significant chunk of comics fandom right there. I think my claim that "a lot" of people don't like the cover still stands. You may argue that more might not. Well, would you care to do a count?
Look, you're telling me to look "outside" my normal corners of fandom. Because I might find a theoretically large group of people who think that the cover is A-OKAY. (Which does not actually make the cover A-OKAY, but whatever.) Well, my corners of fandom are pretty damn large. You mentioned before that some burden of proof is on me. Well, I've shown you my numbers. They're here (http://girl-wonder.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=2), here (http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/tag/heroes+for+hire), here (http://forum.newsarama.com/search.php?searchid=700961), and here (http://womenincomics.blogspot.com/). If you want to argue that my assessment of public opinion is wrong, then by all means, do present some significant amount of public opinion to the contrary.
You asked me to prove that people don't like the cover. Well, here you go: Those people linked above? Most of them don't like the cover. I can only show you what I know people are saying. If there are a lot of other people who do like the cover, then show them to me. Don't just sit there and argue that they might, theoretically, exist. I think that I'm not the one with a burden of proof here.
You wanna prove me wrong? Please prove it.
Amara on a lab table, huh? If it wasn't buried under stacks of other stuff, I'd drag out the box with my older comics - because I don't remember anything like what you're describing at all. Wouldn't have figured Claremont or Simonson for it, either. Hm.
My comics are currently in storage in another continent, so I can't exactly go back and check. I remember that the blurb on the cover was "One of the New Mutants will be changed FOREVER!!!" Which totally didn't happen in the story, but meh, that's a cover blurb for you.
Deleted and reposted for borked HTML, sorry.
And if you would argue that a more accurate sample of America's public opinions would include more Christians... Well, how do you think your typical Christian would react to the HfH cover? ;) If anything, the typical comics blogger will probably have a much more liberal definition of porn, and be much less likely to take offense at violent imagery, than your typical American citizen.
As for exploring other communities, I lurk regularly at Newsarama, and like I said oh so many comments up, I'm basing my impressions on "public opinion" on what I see being said in and around Newsarama, too. Surely Newsarama provides a fairly accurate cross-section of comics fandom, right?
And who says that the "biased" (oh no, they share the same opinions!) corners of fandom don't count?
Look, you're telling me to look "outside" my normal corners of fandom. Because I might find a theoretically large group of people who think that the cover is A-OKAY. (Which does not actually make the cover A-OKAY, but whatever.) Well, my corners of fandom are pretty damn large. You mentioned before that some burden of proof is on me. Well, I've shown you my numbers. They're here (http://girl-wonder.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=2), here (http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/tag/heroes+for+hire), here (http://forum.newsarama.com/search.php?searchid=700961), and here (http://womenincomics.blogspot.com/). If you want to argue that my assessment of public opinion is wrong, then by all means, do present some significant amount of public opinion to the contrary.
You asked me to prove that people don't like the cover. Well, here you go: Those people linked above? Most of them don't like the cover. I can only show you what I know people are saying. If there are a lot of other people who do like the cover, then show them to me. Don't just sit there and argue that they might, theoretically, exist. I think that I'm not the one with a burden of proof here.
You wanna prove me wrong? Please prove it.
Amara on a lab table, huh? If it wasn't buried under stacks of other stuff, I'd drag out the box with my older comics - because I don't remember anything like what you're describing at all. Wouldn't have figured Claremont or Simonson for it, either. Hm.
My comics are currently in storage in another continent, so I can't exactly go back and check. I remember that the blurb on the cover was "One of the New Mutants will be changed FOREVER!!!" Which totally didn't happen in the story, but meh, that's a cover blurb for you.