Paper Moon

Judging a Book by its Cover: How Women See Comic Books

Consider, for a moment, if a comic starring Nightwing were brought out and described by the writer as a "sexy, dirty book." Imagine if she talked about how sexy Nightwing would be, proudly emphasizing this as the single most important aspect of the character.

Hey, I would buy it. A lot of other women probably would too. However, try to imagine the reaction from male comic book fans. A lot of them would be angry. A lot of them would be offended. The writer and artist on the book would certainly be accused of pandering to the female audience. A lot of male fans would refuse to buy the book.

At San Diego Comic Con 2011, Judd Winick described the new Catwoman as a "sexy, dirty book." He stated -- proudly and with great enthusiasm -- that he'd used the word "sexy" over fifty times the last time he'd been interviewed about the upcoming comic.

A lot of female fans won't be picking up Catwoman. And when they say so, they are told that the comic isn't "for them" and that they are "too sensitive." They are told, "if you don't like it, don't buy it" -- sometimes in the same breath as, "if you want to see more female leads, you have to buy all the books with female leads."

[...] Female characters do not have to be hyper-sexualized to sell. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was one of the most popular television shows of all time and it starred a young woman who was, for all intents and purposes, a female superhero. The difference between her and the women between the covers of your average superhero comic was that she didn't fall into a Penthouse-esque pose every time she stopped moving, or wear clothing that could only have stayed on with the use of a lot of glue or an anti-gravity device.

Buffy was sexy. Buffy had sex. But neither of these defined her.

Much more at the link.

Avatar FAIL Bingo Cards and Links Roundup:
Uno!
Dos!
Tres!
Icons! (Warning: fail in comments.)

Avatar is one of those things that I fangirl hardcore - like, HARDCORE - but I never really write about it in this journal, or participate in the fandom. I'm not sure why. It's not that I don't like the fandom, or that I think it's scary, or anything. It's just... There are certain shows that may be dear to my heart, but that for some reason I never feel any desire to interact with, either in terms of fandom, or just in terms of writing out my thoughts/reactions to things in this LJ. The X-Files and the Buffyverse would fall into that category, too, I guess. X-Men and Marvel comics, too, although G-W has helped me start thinkifying and writing about them more than before. (But in general I have to restrain myself in that regard, because too much headdesking, it is not good for the brain. Latest headdesk-inducer: Magik and "Infernus." Oh goddammit, Marvel.)

But either way, in terms of Avatar and fandom involvement... This is one of the things that I think it's time to get *involved* with. I don't know and I don't care whether anything about the movie itself can or will be changed. The important thing is to get some voices out there, to counteract all of the stupidity and racism that's being shouted at an equally loud volume. That crap needs to be CHALLENGED.

Speaking of Avatar and challenges...

Anonymous Kid fangirl brings lulz, story at 11.

One of the things that I love about Avatar is the totally awesome and realistic military strategies that the writers have injected into their fictional, fantasty-world civil war. I AM a combat/military strategy buff. I have been since I started fangirling Star Wars when I was in middle school. It's also one of the reasons why I love to squee over the Mahabharata and KMHK. I love military history, fictional war epics, or just plain individual-level martial arts. But, you know, because my brain is so pickled in that stuff, it's kind of hard to turn off the "strategist" part of my fangirlism when I'm watching shows like Soul Eater. And yeah, I get frustrated when a character that Ohkubo has built up as "intelligent" and "a competent fighter" (i.e., Kid) keeps making stupid, stupid, STUPID combat mistakes. And it's not just the big mistakes, but all of his little mistakes as well. Like just standing around and letting Hiro take the high ground during his brief duel in episode 32, despite the fact that Kid had the ability to get airborne. Or letting the Fisher King outdraw him. This from a character who otherwise has shown moments of totally awesome brilliance during fight scenes? It doesn't really add up.

On the other hand, though, it is hella amusing to keep watching a character who's supposed to be smart consistently making stupid mistakes. Frustrating, of course, but also entertaining.

Which makes me thing that Ohkubo is being deliberate with reveling in Kid's stupidity. Most of the time, when fictional characters engage in bad combat strategy, I tend to chalk that up to the writer being stupid about things. But with Ohkubo, I think it's a different story. Ohkubo does seem to have a decent grasp on combat strategy, and he writes characters like Sid, Nygus, Stein, and Azusa beautifully in that regard. Heck, even Black Star and Tsubaki have developed kick-ass megastrategy at this point in both the anime and the manga. So when Ohkubo writes Kid doing stupid things in combat, I'm fairly certain that it's not because Ohkubo himself is being stupid about the combat situation, but because he's deliberately writing Kid as doing stupid things in combat.

Which is hilarious.

But also frustrating.

In other news, I'm sitting on several fics for 42_souls that are soon to be badly in need of a beta, and since I've been far removed from the anime fanfic scene for so many years, I'm... not sure how to really go about trawling for one. (*flails*)

Part one of Kosuke Fujishima's new Mini-Goddess strip, which is being published on the spine of montly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic and a lot more. )