The concept of Star Sapphire is based on seduction.

Don’t be so freakin prude.

No. But it’s easier (and more straightforward) if she’s half naked.

Have you ever wondered why Playboy models are not wearing much?. Geez louise….

“Don’t be so freakin prude.”

Perhaps if you mastered simple grammar, you wouldn’t have to strip down to a g-string to seduce, Marybob…

Lisa here is a hint: Comics are not literature.

Especially not the spandex type. That essay is a bit embarassing.

Ms. Fortuner,

Thank you very much for this post. I agree completely with your sentiments. I have taken a lot of flak on Newsarama for pointing out that Star Sapphire, many Top Cow characters, etc., are depicted in costumes similar to those worn on the covers of some sexually explicit DVDs.

I am not opposed to such materials - note that I do not call sexually explicit materials “pornography” because I think that imparts a negative judgement.

I believe however that there is a negative impact from sexualized violence, and from the objectification that takes place when the focus is on 100 percent anatomically impossible poses featuring 100 percent anatomically body parts… with a bunch of passivity thrown in).

That JLA cover with Power Girl for instance - I mentioned that it looked like breast fetishist material, a Russ Meyer movie, Chesty Morgan, etc., rather than a mainstream comic book cover. Responses consisted of “shut up”, “you’re a prude”, etc. No one tried to make the argument that the JLA cover didn’t look like breast fetishist material. I guess I was harshing people’s mellow by pointing that out.

But hey, who cares about 51 percent of the population, as a potential audience, and as fellow freakin’ human beings, not objects.

Manstream really should not be taken as a serious place to discuss sexuality in comics.

I wish they spent more time getting things right then gnashing their teeth.

Thought a: I agree with every political point from the feminists posting here.

Thought b: If a person is over twelve years old and thinks “manstream” is a clever pun and a witty way to attack your opponents, or one of the dozen other examples like that, agreeing with your politics and thoughts about the future of comics is just not going to be enough to make most people not think you’re kind of a jackass.

What are some examples of good female costume design? Melaka Fray? Supergirl when her skirt is a realistic length? Somewhere in between these two?

Mary — Playboy models are naked for titillation, not seduction. There’s a whole world of difference between them. The big difference, to me, is that titillation is something that takes a second to get a reaction, while seduction takes time with many small reactions that builds to something even bigger.

And, yes, titillation is part, of many, of the seduction process, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most important part, and it’s certainly not the only part.

Byce,

I think talent actually matters quite a bit in these things. It’s the difference between the porny Mary Jane statue and the playful Adam Hughes art it was based on.

There was no talk of racism/homophobia in your post. Not at all. If you have examples of racism/homophobia, please present them as I would love to see them, but you either intentionally or unintentionally used these concepts to sell your argument that Star Sapphire should wear more clothes. If that’s your position, and it’s not a bad one, please go ahead and blog about it. But don’t compare that offense to something like racism or homophobia without offering up reasons why.

Sexism is important to address. But because sexism is an entirely different concept than racism, it’s not on equal footing. Both might, at times, be equally important, but Black Canary wearing impractical high heels into battle is not nearly at the level of blatant racism or homophobia. It can be addressed and maybe should be addressed, but let’s leave the hyperbole out of it for once.

“I find Michael Turner’s art disgusting myself, but is what he’s doing with Power Girl really that much more offensive than what Wally Wood originally did with her? Other than a lack of subtlety and Wood being a better artist? Even before that, we had characters like the Phantom Lady, who was basically Golden Age equivalent of Lady Death or any other Boob War* comic.”

Except that’s not completely right… Phantom Lady was never more than a C-cup, though usually in the b-range…. Wally Wood’s Power Girl even with the belief that he upped her breasts every issue, were never as big as they are today - Bart Sears was the first person to give PG a hugely pronounced front chest. I think it was the circle cut out that got axed in her second appearance that made people uncomfortable at the time… but she was very modestly sized back then.

Oh and Lisa… keep shouting the sexism, racism, and homophobia of the modern market is hand in hand. I’m not going to argue it, no one wants to listen to it… but honestly, if you really love this genre and have a brain you should be able to see the three sin glaring there. I love my superheroes, and am not easily offended but I see offensive stuff a lot, and more shocked by how people will defend it to no end.

My current beefs are how the women of comics are being dumbed down at an alarming rate - Jodi P.’s wonder woman did serious damage to her once strong and independent character (though I don’t think Heinberg’s story helped at all), the once super tough women of Heroes for Hire are now all T&A and giggle fits, Storm, Black Canary, you name it there has been a definite slide in how women are protrayed recently.

I also would like to take a moment to say LET THE COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS LIVE! NO MORE SENSELESS DEATH IN MY WEEKLY SERIALS!

But yeah, tired… it ain’t hyperbole, you just don’t want to face an ugly truth…

that’s not what I said… I’m just stating that the arguements that Power Girl and Phantom Lady have always been super endowed so that’s why the Uber endowments of today are acceptable are baseless arguements - as Power Girl and Phantom Lady were not hugely endowed at the times of their creation.

They were well-endowed for their time - look at the pointy headlights on Golden Age female characters. My main point was they were examples of sexism, and in the case of Phantom Lady, scantily-clad.

I don’t bring that up as a defense of current practices, but to illustrate that it’s nothing new. We’ve had scantily-clad, unrealistically-perfect women in suggestive bondage poses with lesbian overtones since at least the 1940s, a time before Madonna and Britney Spears.

fair point… I still see a marked difference in the pin-ups of old to the no holds barred of today, though…

I think size is relative. Powergirl was aways bigger then other superheroines, its just that now the average comic book woman is so much bigger that Powergirl has to be freakishly big in order to maintain the size Differential

“My current beefs are how the women of comics are being dumbed down at an alarming rate - Jodi P.’s wonder woman did serious damage to her once strong and independent character (though I don’t think Heinberg’s story helped at all), the once super tough women of Heroes for Hire are now all T&A and giggle fits, Storm, Black Canary, you name it there has been a definite slide in how women are protrayed recently.”

I’m still trying to get past the “Storm is dumbed down” part of this post. I’m baffled by that example.

“I’m still trying to get past the “Storm is dumbed down” part of this post. I’m baffled by that example. ”

I believe the poster was referring to Storm acting like a woman her age might act instead of some godlike warrior woman.

“so if a character has anything larger then a C cup it’s inappropriate?”
If EVERY character does it is inappropriate. Also, if there is no attempt to give the character a body or the clothing that would go with it, it is inappropriate. Lastly, when

Standing on the side once does not demeaning characterization make.

And as I recall, Panther would’ve been beaten or overwhelmed if Storm hadn’t forced him to retreat in that issue.

Tired — Wow, you’re getting tripped up by the clothes comment, aren’t you? I wasn’t using my post to specifically to support the concept Star Sapphire should wear more clothes, I was using as an example of the sort of argument I’m defending. Much like you citation of the Black Canary sensible shoes point. Your use of the same argument method makes me seriously doubt your sincerity when it comes to that mistake, but I will concede its possible you read through too hastily.

The mention of racism and homophobia is because my points are equally useful to answer the sorts of dismissive comments used to shut down conversations about race and sexuality in comics.

And in your comparisons (because you are the one doing the comparison by saying that concerns about sexism are not as important as concerns about racism — that is why I asked if that was what you felt) you also seem to be forgetting that there are degrees of racism as well as degrees of sexism. When Asian women only show up as the Dragonlady archetype, when the only character not getting a subplot is the black guy, it may not be Ebony White but its still racism and it needs to be called such.

Furthermore, the only person I see linking the examples of sexism found in my post to not being able to vote is you. You are the one who brought up the Civil Rights struggle, I was discussing complaints about offensive depictions in modern media. But you compared those complaints to violence, using three words that cover offensive stereotypes as well as motivations for violence for your springboard. So far, you have created an absurd comparison with a semantics loophole, used it to downplay the complaints and blamed it on me. If your goal is to shut down the conversation, that is a method of doing so, but not one that will be successful on one of my threads.

Now, would you like to try this again?

Your use of racism, homophobia, etc. was out of place in the post. You were doing it to bolster and I think that’s out of place and this is hardly the first time I’ve seen it done in the threads in the past few weeks. It’s a foul argument technique, much in the way it would be foul for Sean Hannity to say we need to defeat the forces of dictatorships, terrorism, and liberalism and then discuss his problems with liberalism. It’s a rhetorical cheat.

I mean, the whole point of your post is to address the “it’s a part of the genre” complaint. Are people saying RACISM is part of the genre? Homophobia? It’s something I’ve seen to address the critiques from the feminist perspective, but are people saying the black guys not having a subplot is part of superhero genre? If so, I would have loved to read about it, but it wasn’t there.

My problem was with the bolstering technique and I’ve made it pretty clear. The reason I used Star Sapphire as an example of the hyperbole was because it was the example you used in your post and the first few arguments you made in the context. Don’t try to spin this around on ME and say I was the one shoehorning this in there, it’s right there in your posts. That’s pretty insulting to MY intelligence. And yes, there are varying degrees of racism/sexism/homophobia, etc., etc. That doesn’t mean they’re on equal playing fields and should be automatically linked in every debate without actually explaining the linkage.

But then again, I’m obviously too stupid to comprehend your deep writing and logic with my “absurd comparison” and “semantic loopholes”.