Well they are, aren't they?
Alright, alright, calming down now.
The two largest comic book publishers in the world are Marvel and DC. If you think of a comic book character or team off the top of your head, chances are that they originated in a comic now published by the 'Big Two'. Superman and Batman? DC. Iron Man? Marvel. The Fantastic Four? Marvel. The Justice League of America? DC. In fact even some films you wouldn't normally associate with those publishers owe their existence to them. The new Bruce Willis film, Red, for instance, originated as a comic book published under DC's 'Vertigo' imprint. Of recent films, Hellboy (Dark Horse Entertainment) and Scott Pilgrim (Oni Press) are to my mind the two most prominent examples of non-Marvel/DC comic book-inspired movies.
There are some comic books out there that I believe rank as fine literature. I defy someone with even a basic background knowledge of the characters involved not to read and be impressed by Dwayne Cooke's Justice League: The New Frontier, a moving re-envisaging of DC's leading heroes that returns them to their original 1950's setting. On the other end of the scale Wayne Ellis's Nextwave (Marvel) is a gloriously fun over-the-top pastiche of comic book clichés. I'd heartily recommend Greg Ruckha's Queen and Country, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and his Watchmen (which made Time magazine's 'All-Time 100 Greatest Novels' list in 2005) and Frank Miller's Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. Personally I really enjoyed some of Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis' run on the early Ultimate Fantastic Four books, despite that title suffering to a degree from the problems that will be outlined below.
So there are some good comics out there. There are comic books (I dislike the term 'graphic novel') that can inspire, enlighten and genuinely move. However, let me draw your attention to this:
That was last-month's preview for Birds of Prey #3, one of DC comics monthly titles. As it's not a Superman or Batman book it's not one of DC's main publications. Birds of Prey nevertheless built up a good reputation during its initial run (1999-2009) as being a well-written, fun book. When it was announced that it was coming back, believe me people were excited. I was one of them.
As you can see from the title page, only one man is currently working on this book – Ed Benes. Now scroll down a couple of pages, and take a look at the female characters. With the exception of one other character these are the title's leads.
In fairness, the first few pages take place in the blood-loss inspired hallucination of The Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot, not a good nor entirely sane man). These are only the first six pages and by the time you get to page 5 it's made clear that the 'real' leads are disgusted by what they are (accurately) imaging he's dreaming. Scroll back up to page 3 though and take another look at the art. Specifically at the faces.
No, the faces. Third panel along, just as they start posing but before zips are lowered.
The three characters in the foreground are, from left to right, Lady Blackhawk (Zinda Blake – a 'time-displaced' crack fighter pilot from the 1940s), Black Canary (Dinah Lance – a former florist and now essentially professional super-hero) and Huntress (Helena Bertinelli – the daughter of a Gotham City mob boss and former schoolteacher). For a start, when have you ever seen people holding those professions that look like that? Admittedly being a superhero would probably be quite good on the figure: one can imagine it involves a lot of exercise. Even out of the dream sequence however, these are stunningly attractive women.
Alright, alright. I'll admit it – yes it probably does help sales.
Still there's another point to be considered. Take a look again at that panel; at Lady Blackhawk and Black Canary. Apart from their similar names these two characters have no common heritage. They are as unrelated as two women can possibly be, and yet they look like sisters. In fact, allowing for the differences in haircuts and costumes, all four women shown share remarkably similar body structure and face shapes.
Again, in fairness, Ed Benes is not alone here. http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-difficulty-of-drawing-womens-faces.html illustrates why some artists believe that it is honestly just more difficult to draw female faces than male ones. Nor is his art by any stretch of the imagination the worst out there. I give you the 40 worst Rob Liefeld drawings (http://progressiveboink.com/archive/robliefeld.html) to illustrate just how bad comic book art has been. Liefeld has gotten better at drawing, but while he was doing it like this he was one of Marvel Comics' most prominent artists. After all too, Benes is only drawing what Gail Simone has written as the story here.
Yet to my mind the Girls Read Comics blog (http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=42) has a point when it argues that the portrayal of female characters between the 'Big Two' is still fundamentally sexist. Let's compare and contrast. Susan Richards (the Invisible Woman) is one of the major female characters in the Marvel Comics universe. She is arguably the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four and supposedly a well-respected figure. In other words, she has come a long way from the original portrayal of her character (http://i31.tinypic.com/9thfea.png). Look at the art though here (http://marvel.wikia.com/Susan_Storm_(Earth-616)/Gallery). The breasts have become bigger and the waist thinner. Susan Richards is supposed to be a reasonably good looking woman, but not an atheistically outstanding one.
Well, it could be worse: this is what she wore for a period in the 1990s:
These meanwhile are the Star Sapphires (http://acomicbookblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/star-sapphire-corps.jpg). These women are supposed to be some of the most powerful characters in the DC universe. Stop giggling at the back there.
Some characters have such looks written into their back-stories (Mary Jane Watson, Wonder Woman). Nor is it an entirely male activity. This is from Amanda Conner's run as the artist for DC's Power Girl: http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1599705.html?#cutid1. To me this treads the line between acceptable and unacceptable. Yes it is silly and unbelievable, but Power Girl was deliberately written for the laughs. Nor are the physical attributes of the character unrealistic – Power Girl has always been drawn with generous, ah-hum, assets (I accept that I might be somewhat biased here. Sorry).
It's not just the physical attributes though:
These are two panels from Civil War, Marvel's main 'event' comic from 2006-2007. What on earth is the point of the layout in the lower panel? The three characters who are actually talking are in the background, and the plot point they're advancing is relatively minor (believe me – I've read Civil War). The entire purpose of that panel seems to be so that foreground is prominently taken up by the backside of the character She-Hulk. In the interests of balance, this is from Gotham City Sirens # 7 (http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1124149.html?#cutid1), a DC book. It's not a serious case, but just try and re-draw those pages in your head without showing the three women's breasts or behinds. I don't happen to think that it's that difficult an exercise.
Yes comic books are mindless trash, and yes they present an idealised version of the world in which people can have epic fights across half of Manhattan without the city being bankrupted by the damage and the entire of Wall Street decamping to Europe. They are mindless trash though from which a lot of contemporary entertainment draws ideas (apart from the movies I listed at the start of this entry, Fox's Human Target comes from a DC comics book; AMC's forthcoming series The Walking Dead from one of Robert Kirkman's titles). Is it not time that an industry that has been going for nearly eighty years odd to grow up a bit, allow it fictional heroes to appear human, in their physicality as well as psychology and, a private hope of mine, develop as characters? You never know, it might even boast sales.
PS: I am absolutely not saying that Robert Kirkman's books have the problem's I've been outlining. I was using The Walking Dead as an example of a comic book making the transition to TV and/or film
PPS: There is the argument that basic economics dictates that this wouldn't be going on if it didn't sell comics. Or does it? Marvel went bankrupt in the mid-1990s. Nowadays they operate, I believe, at a profit, but a buy-out was recently arranged by the Disney Corporation which suggests that the efforts to set up a Marvel film studios haven't worked out as well as were hoped. DC on the other hand have been a division of Warner Bros for years, potentially allowing any losses to be subsumed by their parent company. I don't think then that we can automatically make the assumption that gratuity = profit.
PPPS: I cannot emphasise how much better volumes 1 and 2 at least of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are than the ghastly film adaptation.
PPPPS: Avoid Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin like the plague.
In the interests of not screwing over the posters of Scans_Daily, I should mention that this post owes its existence to a rant found there:
ReplyDeletehttp://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2139315.html?#cutid1
(Plagiarism is bad kids)