My approach to reading the Marvel and DC solicitations this month was a little different than previous months. This time around, it wasn’t the overhyping text or vague promises of importance that I focused on, it was the covers that really had my attention … after the MJ zombie and Heroes for Hire hentai bruhahas over the last few weeks, I looked at all the images and wondered, “So what cover’s going to drive people nuts this time?”
Apparently I’m not the only person thinking about this, as I had several people point out to me some covers that are possible contenders for “Internet controversy of the moment.” I’ll let you guys decide which one we should freak out over, if any. Place your bets and let’s spin the wheel …
Cover #1: Shanna loves dinosaurs … and their tongues
Squashua, who writes for Ain’t It Cool News’ comics section, dropped me a note about the cover for Shanna the She-Devil #2:
You can read his comments on it here. I found this cover a little odd myself. Not because Shanna looks like she’s chewing tobacco, even though she does, but because she’s holding a decapitated dinosaur head whose tongue still has a little life left in it.
Cover #2: Namor loves Venom … and his tongue
Hmmm, lots of tongue action going on this month. Our own Michael May pointed me to this one:
When I ran it by the Blog@ crew, Lisa compared it to something you’d find in a museum. “Some picture of Hermes in Hades or something.” She added, “It’s got some of the aspects in it, but its not nearly lewd enough for massive outrage.” Lisa also blogged about it on her personal blog. Carla said they talked about it (and the Shanna cover) at the comic shop where she works, and the Shanna cover earned a lot more eye rolls than the Namor one.
I don’t think either of them are extreme enough to cause a stink about … so let’s take a look at one of DC’s covers.
Cover #3: Flash loves tentacles … or they love him, anyway
Our third contender is probably the one with the best odds to go the distance, as I’ve already seen several comments on it. Lea Hernandez even did a remix of it, and had this to say:
I did the illustrations for a middle/high school sex-ed curriculum last year, and I can say with complete confidence that is exactly what a vagina and labia look like. I am completely gobsmacked that DC editorial passed this. I eagerly await the first joke about how they got it right considering they’ve never seen a real woman.
Maybe it’s that they think the parts between a girl’s legs look like a yoyo in spandex.
So, what do you think? Are any of these enough to get worked up over, or should we wait to see what comes along next month?
June 21st, 2007 at 10:27 am
Well, maybe that Flash/Angry Vagina cover has a whole other subtext, you know with the Flash being the Fastest Man Alive. (argh, sorry)
And nobody’s commented on the Batman/Superman cover where Batman has his hand over some gal’s boobs yet?
Man, no wonder I get nostalgic looking at the covers of the upcoming One More Day arc in Spidey. I’m in controversy overload, I tell ya!
June 21st, 2007 at 10:29 am
I did the illustrations for a middle/high school sex-ed curriculum last year, and I can say with complete confidence that is exactly what a vagina and labia look like.
That’s how she knows, huh?
June 21st, 2007 at 10:30 am
It took me a second to realize that dinosaur head was decapitated. Or maybe it has a very, very tiny body behind Sheena. You never know.
That Flash cover is just bizarre. Both major companies should just do a big themed-cover month, where every character is attacked by alien genitalia-creatures. Then they’ll get it out of their system in one go, and we can get back to relatively normal covers.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:36 am
No chance of outcry on either the Namor or Flash covers, seeing as how neither of them actually feature women, so I guess Shanna wins by default.
Interestingly enough, I can safely say that none of the vaginas I’ve seen have teeth and tentacles coming out of them, but I guess I’ll have to defer to Ms. Hernandez’s expert judgement on this one as to this being “exactly” what a real vagina looks like.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:40 am
To be fair, it does look like a big ol’ killer hoohoo from outer space. But that’s pretty much a common motif in space monsters in pulp illos and has been for a while. Sure, we can read all sorts of interesting stuff into that and many have, but it’s not new.
June 21st, 2007 at 10:40 am
“I did the illustrations for a middle/high school sex-ed curriculum last year, and I can say with complete confidence that is exactly what a vagina and labia look like.”
I’ve seen a fair share… but never one with teeth. Are you sure you drew the picture right for your sex ed class?
June 21st, 2007 at 10:46 am
A little vagina dentata never hurt nobody
June 21st, 2007 at 11:40 am
To be fair, the vagina’s with tentacles and teeth are put into sex-ed books for Catholic schools to scare the boys away from them.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:40 am
To be fair, the vaginas with tentacles and teeth are put into sex-ed books for Catholic schools to scare the boys away from them.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:46 am
It’s Squash*U*a, JK.
I don’t leave out the U in your name and refer to you as “JK Parkin” now, do I?
June 21st, 2007 at 11:49 am
Wait a sec…
June 21st, 2007 at 11:54 am
I addued theu youu bauck intuo youur naume, Squashua.
Sorry about that!
(Every time I type it, I want to type “Sasquatch”).
June 21st, 2007 at 11:57 am
“It took me a second to realize that dinosaur head was decapitated. Or maybe it has a very, very tiny body behind Sheena. You never know.”
That’s what I thought when I first saw it, that the dinosaur’s body was hidden behind Shanna and she was just giving it a hug. Then someone pointed out that you can see the bloody stump of its neck in between her legs.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:01 pm
So do many others, which is what lead to this: http://preview.tinyurl.com/2b67sk
June 21st, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Is it too late to be outraged about the vagina/anus monster in Watchmen?
June 21st, 2007 at 12:12 pm
The Sub-Mariner cover looks like some weird Disney film. “Oh, Mr. Venom, it’s my first time. Be gentle.”
June 21st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
“Is it too late to be outraged about the vagina/anus monster in Watchmen?”
Never stopped being outraged. Hell, I’m still outraged at the phallic head on the alien from Alien.
(note: not trying to belittle Lea, BTW. She isn’t wrong to see that beastie on the cover for what it obviously is.)
June 21st, 2007 at 12:31 pm
All right, wiseasses, I know you knew what I meant. HowEVER, I’ll clarify anyway:
I drew the art for a sex-ed curriculum last year, and I can say with authority that that is what the -spread labia- look like. (Lot of redraws from a lot of photos provded by a doctor who is also a Master of Public Health.)
The glowing clitoris is a little low, or perhaps that’s a horribly infected urethra. Seen that, too. (The horribly infected urethra.)
And if I’ve put any of you off sex, well, GOOD.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Oh, Lea. You could never put me off from sex.
Now that eel video that Warren Ellis had on his site back in the day…THAT put me off sex.
well…sex with eels anyway.
June 21st, 2007 at 12:43 pm
“eel video”
Links, pls. K, thx.
;^D
June 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Trust me. You. Don’t. Want. To. Look.
June 21st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Let. Me. Blind. Myself.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I’m glad this is all building up to a ridiculous extreme. Hopefully that means it will soon go away.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:28 pm
No way man. When it comes to blogging, bitching about covers is the new black.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I have been corrected: the glowy thing is more likely a cervix, in fact, a cervix that has already had a child passed through it.
Randy, if you mean, “Not letting up until covers don’t look like a stash of Playboys threw up on paper” or “Not letting up until Greg Horn stops drawing pornface” or “It’d be nice if adult covers were actually on adult books” then bitching will ALWAYS be the new black.
And I look good in black.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Thanks for showing these covers and giving people something to find to complain about.I can see the complaints about the Shanna cover now:”dinosaur head fetish”,”Why is Shanna demeaning herself in that bikini?She should dress more modestly.”The Sub-Mariner cover?”Symbiote rape”,perhaps?Hah,Namor’s a male so no one will care.Don’t even get me started on the tentacled vagina monster.Children read these books!Won’t somebody please think of the children??
June 21st, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Huh, I didn’t even catch the whole vagina/labia thing on the Flash cover, I just noticed the tentacles and thought someone was going to make a joke of that and then went and continued reading the article (words over sexualized pictures? WTF!?!). I’m thinking people are getting a little extreme on this matter though and forcing themselves to find something.
Of course, I did think when I first saw the Sub-Mariner cover that Venom was attacking a naked Peter Parker..
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:39 am
People are getting extreme about this kind of stuff and its the reason it will never be taken serious.
There is plenty of stuff to get riled out over comics. Look at the “Bad Girl” stuff that still gets put out. I’m sure there is stuff with actual offensive racial material, but the proverbial boy is crying wolf a little too much for my taste.
I might be more sympathetic to people offended by the Heroes For Hire cover if the stories by those close to the cover mirrored anything they were saying or more probable, if I didn’t hear whining about every little thing and people trying to pin the misogynist tag on 99 percent of the books that come out. Makes me automatically look for the reason those people are wrong.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:34 am
There’s also the single, lone phallic mushroom shooting right up between Shanna’s legs which doesn’t help matters…
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:23 am
Why no one complained about this cover a few months back?
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=273475&zoom=4
Looks even more like a vagina in the inside (of the comic, I mean).
Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:33 am
“you can see the bloody stump of its neck in between her legs.”
So wrong. So many ways.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
It’s very insulting to dinosaurs.