Millarworld follows on from its leader’s pronouncement that people hate beards (“Marvel has a lot of mytholigical characters lying around, but they never sell. You know why? And I’m not kidding– They’ve got beards. People HATE beards. No leading man can carry a movie with a beard. Even Disney shaved Hercules. Herc should look less like a gay S&M guy and more like a superhero,” if you don’t remember):
“i LOVE beards on superheroes but can’t actually think of any major hero right now sporting one, except for the dreadful Dr Strange and Stark goatees… is it really a gay thing?”
“Depends on how you draw it I guess. But Hercules won’t look rigth without a beard. I can’t imagine most ‘masked’ hereoes with beards..that would looks silly. But gay…no. I mean..remember Gi-joe with the Kung-fu grip..he had a rough beard…and I never figured him for gay.”
“But jesus had a beard. and if i remember correctly, he had a really strong fan following.”
“I think this has more to do with Millar’s pogonophobia than with anything else. He’s also got peladophobia (yes I’ve been on a ‘phobia list’ website!) but just cause Mark thinks bald people are creepy doesn’t mean that they can’t be successful super-heroes.”
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:13 am
Hey, has anyone ever seen Mark Millar and Mark Steyn in the same room together?
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
Who knew I was a gay S&M guy? I have realized that when I shave my face, I’m much more comfortable sitting down.
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:42 am
I think all superheroes should be blue-eyed white males. You know, for variety.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Doesn’t the new Spectre have a goatee?
Doesn’t it look ridiculous?
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:02 pm
There’s a bit from a Barenaked Ladies song that goes “I’ve heard them say a man with a beard may frighten children or dogs but a moustache scares me more.” And I agree moustaches are way scarier.
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Millar wrote Civil War AND he hates beards? Man, that guy is losing points all over the place.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:40 pm
What about Santa Claus?
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:00 am
Millar said something intelligent, and then everything everyone said after that is just confusing.
This is very simple. The kind of beard that Hercules has right now is out of fashion. That’s it, that’s all it is.
If you make a character today who has a beehive, that’s either an important part of the character’s identity (Retro Girl!) or it looks strange and out of place. If a comic character has a leather jacket then he looks outdated because that was overdone awhile back.
Full beards are an outdated look. That’s not a terribly philosophical thing, but it is a factor, and it is part of Millar’s job to consider those types of things.
August 3rd, 2007 at 7:25 am
Uh, doesn’t Green Arrow have a beard? Or was I hallucinating one on the much-discussed Wedding Cover?
There’s a long-running genre convention that facial hair a visual mark of villainy (see Dr. Fu-Manchu, Ming the Merciless, Snidely Whiplash), but there’s no reason that this couldn’t be made as passe amongst civilized fans as the notion that being Asian is a mark of villainy. I don’t think that most people regard real-life goatee wearers as potential supervillains, any more than they do your archetypal bearded college prof as one (well, maybe during finals!)
The real problem, about which Millar is not being fully honest, is that beards are a lot more work to draw. I speak as someone who took several terms of portrait drawing here: you have to draw the head first, fully delineating the jaw and lips, and then integrate the facial hair – otherwise you either get a “mushy” look to the lower half of the head, as if the jawbone were melting under the beard, or else it looks like it’s a fake that has been badly glued-on. Or – in the case of a stubble beard – like the character washed his face in coffee grounds.
Unlike with long flowing hair, you can’t use a beard to camouflage weak anatomy skills.
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 am
“Full beards are an outdated look.”
If we’re going to purge everything in comic books that’s outdated, beards aren’t the only thing that must be gone. If you write with trends in mind, then you probably aren’t a very strong writer and you will only date yourself and your material.