There has certainly been a lot of controversy surrounding Marvel Divas, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and drawn by Tonci Zonjic. It’s been tagged as Sex and the City meets superheroines, but a lot of people took issue with the sexualized cover, drawn by J. Scott Campbell.
Well, late last week Tom Brevoort over at his Blah Blah Blog showed an image of the series (presumably titled Marvel Vixens during that stage in the game), showcasing the designs for Firestar:
Now, this art isn’t credited, but based on what I’ve seen on Zonjic’s blog, I’m willing to wager that this is definitely Tonci’s work. But if you’re still curious about what the art might look like, well, this link is an exerpt from Tonci’s blog, called Orange — and unless my eyes are deceiving me, it’s looking like Photon is in full force.
I know there was a lot of concern about cheesecake, about exploitation, about women being seen as romantic objects rather than heroines in their own right — but at the same time, Aguirre-Sacasa actually came to Marvel early in his career looking to write strong female characters, and this work by Zonjic seems to be sensible and semi-realistic, in a vein not terribly unlike Amanda Conner. Are readers simply judging a book by its cover — and if so, is it warranted? What say you, Rama readers?
May 14th, 2009 at 11:22 am
The cover obvously had a lot to do with the preconceptions, but I’d say the accomapanying description went a long way to confirming those suspicions.
Marvel have a long way to go in marketing their books to the demographic they are trying to attract; this is neither fish nor fowl - those who might actually be interested in the book, for the content as it is portrayed now, have already been turned off, and those who are looking for big tits, no waist, ’sudsy’ fun are going to have a shock when they crack open that wank fodder cover.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:44 am
One word that keeps being thrown around is “sudsy” which I think is a reference to it being “soap opera-esque” not to it having naked girls lathering themselves up in soap suds. Which was a mistake on Marvel’s part, but I don’t get why I’m the only one that gets the pun. SOAP opera… SUDS. Yeah, and the Campbell cover doesn’t help that people took it literally.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I’m still looking forward to this. Aguirre-Sacasa is one of my favorite writers.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
If you don’t want people to judge your book by it’s cover, don’t release a cheesecake cover… It’s pretty simple, really.
And the people who are defending the move and saying that the people who dislike the marketing because it’s sexist (whatever the inside contents may be) are overreacting are only part of a much bigger problem–that they don’t even realize, apparently.
The cheesecake preview is indefensible.
It was a bonehead move.
Short term, it might have made sense for a company wanting to sell books but there’s only so much you can sell to the same audience and I wonder how seriously Marvel’s marketing people (or editors for green-lighting that cover) even take the long term or entertainment ethics (that could also serve to grow the fan base).
By releasing that cover, all Marvel did was perpetuate stereotypes that keep industry mentality incestuous, closed and inaccessible to new demographics.
May 14th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
That is really cute art! I, like Jeremiah, don’t know why they would put that cover on a book if the interior art is like this. Why does Marvel do that? It’s like Pride and Prejudice — cute cover art by Sonny Liew only to find that the interior art depicts the Bennet sisters as early-21st-century strippers.
I liked the covers of Runaways. They were really pretty, attracted my attention, and the tone and style of the interiors matched them. If the cover of Divas matched this style of interior art, I might have thought it was at least interesting. Now I’m just confused.
May 14th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Also, hey, when you guys write blogs like this, a little inter-community acknowledgment would be nice.
There’s already a topic about this in the forums with dozens of posts and it seems weird that one part of Newsarama isn’t aware of another. Another reason why these blogs and front page articles need to have links to the forum instead of individual comments sections.
Here’s the thread:
http://www.newsarama.com/common/forums/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7503
May 14th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
“The cheesecake preview is indefensible. ”
What’s funny is that the first link on the page has Joe explaining why he did what he did. ‘Cause otherwise, the book wouldn’t come out at all, ’cause people would see the cover everyone else thinks is “proper”, have no interest, and preorder #s would come back probably at like, 4-5k.
Plus, I’m sorry, but having glanced at the cover, I’m not seeing the cheesecake-ness. Well, I DO, but compared to all the covers of guys with bulging muscles in skintight outfits displayed prominently on cover after cover after cover…its really about the same, all around.
*cue people coming in telling me how “But but, that’s different!”* -_-
May 14th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Matt, I’m the opposite. Seeing Aguirre-Sacasa’s name on the project killed any potential interest from me.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Has no one read the text at the bottom:
“She can feel and discover the lump then, for the most obvious example.” I really really really hope that Anjelica Jones isn’t getting dusted off to get Cancer from her radiation powers, although I suppose Samantha got breast cancer in Sex and the City.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
“which I think is a reference to it being “soap opera-esque” not to it having naked girls lathering themselves up in soap suds.”
Oh, I got the ‘pun’, but don’t believe for a moment Marvel weren’t playing on the other, more suggestive, meaning.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
“What’s funny is that the first link on the page has Joe explaining why he did what he did. ‘Cause otherwise, the book wouldn’t come out at all, ’cause people would see the cover everyone else thinks is “proper”, have no interest, and preorder #s would come back probably at like, 4-5k.”
Which means Marvel have no confdence in the actual concept, and why comic books fans have such a bad rep.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
@ SageShini
1.) People in the comics community who would “have no interest” because there was no cheesecake and the creators not treating these characters with reverence and maturity is indicative of a disturbing problem in the industry as a whole.
Don’t you think it’s a little messed up that Marvel can’t have a book with a female cast without marketing them this way? They’re not even in an action pose, or knocking someone’s teeth in. They’re not being portrayed as strong; they’re shown as sex objects. Period.
And it’s no wonder you can’t see it because the rest of the comic book industry apparently doesn’t see it, either.
2.) A cover with a bunch of dudes with bulging muscles IS different than this, no matter how much you try to satirize that fact with your “but, but.”
It goes back to comics being an adolescent male power fantasy and being unable to break out of that stereotype. Of course there are musclebound guys on the cover of comics because every little boy (or grown man, whether consciously or not) wants to be that big, powerful hero.
It’s not sexualized like the “Divas” cover, who only exist in this pin-up pose because Marvel doesn’t know how to sell their female characters as anything but whores (apparently), just waiting for some nerd fantasy to come along and undress them.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I was initially interested in the title, despite the bad cover/promo, because of Aguirre-Sacasa and Zonjic’s artwork just in general made me think there was going to be something to this title.
But I do think Marvel screwed this up — they should’ve made art like this public sooner. And I think that’s pretty unfortunate, because I think this title could be great. I don’t think the people who would love it the most — women — will be inclined to pick it up at this point.
I agree with the whole Pride & Prejudice thing, too. It’s like Marvel gets so close to making comics that women will love, and not just in a “we think women will love this because our marketers told us so” but in a genuine way. But they always do something to screw it up terribly.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
My annoyance wasn’t with the cover but with the way the books were being marketed. As if the only stories women are interested in reading are “sex and the city” stories. I don’t have a problem with women-oriented books still having sexy characters in them, but I do get annoyed when books with female leads are treated as if they have to appeal to a whole other species. Women comics readers like the same things male comics readers like–a good story, believable, interesting, compelling characters, and sometimes eye candy. We’d–or at least, I’d–just like to see more female characters that have more dimensions.
If I wanted a soap opera, I’d watch daytime TV.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
One of the main things that annoys me about this while situation is that for those of us who want to support Marvel books that feature interesting, three-dimensional female characters this is a no-win situation.
If we buy the book then they will think that their cheesecake, sexy advertising of the book works and that this is the proper way to market these books. If we don’t buy the book they will assume that nobody wants to buy a book featuring interesting, three-dimensional characters. It’s frustrating.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
This is getting ridiculous. Women love Sex and the City, so why not make a superhero book mixing those ideas?
May 15th, 2009 at 3:11 am
“If I wanted a soap opera, I’d watch daytime TV.”
But you could make that argument about virtually ANY genre other than superheroes.
May 15th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
This looks absolutely awful, and I don’t think anyone will actually buy this. So i would just give it a rest and let this book fade out like all the other unmemorable crap that has come out before. Don’t buy it and don’t talk about it if your not interested. Let people buy dumb comics because i don’t want everyone to be into the good ones. If they start buying good stuff then i probably won’t find an issue of Scalped i was a week or two late on buying. In other words your wasting your breathe talking about this. Actually I kind of take that back everyone should read scalped, and vertigo should print millions and millions of copies so everyone can read it. Did i mention i’m pissed about Young Liars being canceled. If you haven’t noticed i’m an comic book reader with ADD and i can’t focus on the subject i’m talking about. How in the world do i make good grades in college? Summer Whoooo!
May 19th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
wow, I might actually give this book a chance now. I’ll rip off the cover and give it to some lonesome looking slob at my local comic shop.
May 20th, 2009 at 12:43 am
You know what I’d love to read? A cross over even in marvel where the skrulls fire a breast cancer ray on earth.
Every one of these over-titted hookers have to get mastectomies.
On the one hand, Raises awareness of breast cancer, on the other hand, no more jizz fodder for the pigs. I dont have to feel like castrating evey fanboi in the comic shop when I see the racks (pun sort of intended) female chars will have to be more than empty sex objects, those that cant can be easilly wiped off the pages by the cancer … Im looking at you ’shulkie’)
How perfect would that be?
Ofcouse it’ll never happen, the scum wont let it, but its a nice thought.