Considering the stereotypes of the general comic book fan (or creator) it’s always interesting when people share their own experiences and observations, even when they don’t always match up. Especially when they don’t match up.
Point:
Sean Kleefeld of Kleefeld on Comics shows with some pictorial examples his observations regarding male or female creators and fans.
Excerpt:
Notice anything different? Okay, obviously, there’s a noted gender disparity but, more significantly, the women are healthier-looking than the men. That’s not to say they necessarily are, mind you since we’re not privvy to what health issues might not visably apparent, and I’m sure some of the women wouldn’t mind shedding a few pounds. BUT, on balance, they look healthier, more vibrant, and more vital.
I mean, look at them. The men look like they’re tired and worn out and didn’t really get enough sleep last night in the first place. The women look like they’ve got energy and verve, even in the shots where it looks like they’ve actually been running around all day.
Counterpoint:
The Occasional Superheroine counters with a number of males within the comic industry that defy the stereotypes and addresses some of Mr. Kleefeld’s points.
Excerpt:
3. As way of a personal example: when I met David the G., I thought he did not fit the stereotypical fanboy profile. I thought he was a hottie, and nearly knocked down another comic fan at the convention to get to him & give him my phone number.
4. As I get to know more fans, I do not see the fanboy stereotype really bourne out in the numbers one would expect based on the way the media/entertainment industry typically portrays them.
5. When I worked with Silver Bullet Comics, one of the projects we discussed was having a “Mr. Fanboy” beauty pageant. Contestants would be judged on hotness and comic book knowledge.
6. It is far more common to see heavy dudes with skinny chicks than heavy chicks with skinny dudes. It’s a societal thing. It’s a “World According to Jim/King of Queens” thing. The pressure is on women to be teh sexy — but not just teh sexy, but society’s vision of teh sexy. It’s ok for men to gain a few pounds and wear one of those cool oversized shirts with the dice on it. I’ve just gained 15 pounds because I was 15-20 pounds underweight. I’ve gone from a size 0 to a size 4. This is a healthy step, and it is nice having an ass again. But such a process is accompanied with fear — fear of not being teh sexy. Why does there seem to be much more skinny women in the comics industry than men? Maybe women try harder because they are afraid of not being teh sexy.
What do you think?
July 13th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I agree with the Occasional Superheroine, and I think a Mr. Fanboy contest is a great idea that hopefully will happen somewhere.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I think fanboys/fandudes never realized that the CBG on The Simpsons was meant to be a cautionary tale, not someone to be emulated!
July 13th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
You know what I find sexy? People who can spell “the” correctly.
July 13th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
In Joe Quesada’s defense, he probably doesn’t sleep much around the time of year for conventions and publicity shots. That, and the picture looks like a video frame, so he may have been caught mid-blink. Even a picture of someone spiking a volleyball and half-blinking would make them look tired.
July 13th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
That first post is hilarious. It would just be easy to go around the net and reverse the process and say that indicates a trend.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
I’ve seen some female comics fans that looked like Quesada.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
I don’t know many men that care whether a woman is a size 0 or a size 4. In fact, most guys I know actually prefer a woman to actually have hips and an ass.
It could be why so many Latin actresses have emerged in Hollywood. They generally dominate the pictorials in Maxim. As Bill Mauer once stated, men don’t look at Cosmo and say “I want that!”
So, it’s not “society.” It’s just YOU. YOU have unrealistic expectations about your body. YOU need to get over it.
The idea that women are somehow controlled by societies whims should be insulting to people. Think about what that implies.
Are women mindless automatrons that are easily manipulated by society?
If so, then how come men are okay with gaining some weight? Being overweight is something to be made fun of. That what the characters on the King of Queens, the Honeymooners, and every other sitcom starring an overweight man does. Since every hero and sex symbol have fantastic bodies and since men with flab get laughed at, how come this societal pressure doesn’t effect them.
Are men’s minds so strong that they can just shrug off such manipulations?
Of course not. This “it’s because of society” excuse has got to go.
July 14th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
David — Hey, aren’t the fat guys in your examples (on King of Queens and Honeymooners) married to slender, beautiful, competent women who care for their every whims and love them unconditionally even as they offer a little bit of teasing?
How many fat women in media get to shrug off the mockery by bagging Brad Pitt?
July 15th, 2007 at 8:34 am
So guys think it’s okay to be fat because even though we suffer the prejudice of others because of it, we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking some hot, thin woman is going to fall for us eventually because of the media?
July 15th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Skinny men and fat women—Detroit specialty. I think it’s a hillbilly thing.
July 15th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
The samples are so small that the only true test would be to look at the lot of them. There are hundreds of men in the indutry and the number that are overwieght is probably not as big as we think.
However, when I go to cons and walk Artist’s Alley, the vast majority of women making comics are slim while the men tend to be heavier. There could be an intersting sociological(?) study here.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
This seems like kind of a rigged debate because everyone would be AFRAID to make the opposite case for fear of being labelled a jackass