And the second penguin said, "Maybe I am."

[fakely_mctest]

Fellow nerdlingers with good memories for media quotations may recognize the above quote as the punchline to the joke Special Agent Dale Cooper tells to Annie Blackburn as part of his dorky seduction routine (hereafter known as mysterious and silly Twin Peaks hard right plot turn #1).Being first and foremost a Barbara Gordon fan, I have extremely

Comments

[fakely_mctest]

No, From Hell as a graphic novel is messy and Alan Moore has a good grasp on how horrible it most certainly was to be a person of a particular class & gender in the Victorian era. My main problem with the graphic novel was that the art? She was teeny. I felt like I didn't know what the heck was going on half the time.

What I took issue with most about the movie was Heather Graham's character and her no-sex-for-money school of prostitution. Because it's obvious that the filmmakers there didn't think she'd be sympathetic enough if she were a whore who actually, um, did any whoring. Barf.

Frank Miller is a demon spawn and if there were any justice in this world of ours he'd be peddling his misogyny in the form of screaming, incoherent rants that people just ignore the hell out of on their way to work:



Ahem.

What I meant to say is that I'd suggest Batman: Year One as an okay-for-Miller text. It's one of those Barbara Gordon type situations though -- he basically made Catwoman into a major, stable character (her identity/origins tended to shift around a bit) who has been, Balent and his penchant for drawing boobs the size of characters' heads aside, a force to be reckoned with in the Batfamily books, he just made her a hooker to do it. Miller's women, generally can be summed up thusly:

...as adroitly characterised by one friend, is it going to be: "Femme fatale" = "whores with lots of eyeliner." "Proto-feminist" = "whores with less eyeliner, and maybe they don't smoke."?

In terms of pretty awesome and funny feminist critiques of comics, I cannot recommend Girls Read Comics and They're Pissed enough. The Anti-Comics-Feminist Bingo Card is a particular favorite of mine.

[mercuryfading]

Heh.

I did flip through From Hell and yeah, it was kinda...hard to read! But I think if I can find it at the library/at a friend's I'll give it a try.

I like that blog. I think I am becoming a Comic Book Person (tm). Hrm.

[fakely_mctest]

Well if you do, I'll have someone else to talk to about these things.

I'm sure people will rec Craig Thompson's Blankets up and down (although as a young-arty-dude-coming-of-age story, you know my preference is always going to be Scott Pilgrim because of the snark and the fights and the evil ex-boyfriends and because book 3 was called Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness) but I prefer Thompson's earlier work, Good-bye Chunky Rice, which remains the only graphic novel I've ever read that made me cry at the end. It's about a turtle and a mouse who are friends.

In the superhero vein, A Superman for All Seasons is pretty good as are The Long Halloween and Dark Victory (both Batman stories) and, naturally, anything by Darwyn Cooke.

[dr_scroton]

great comic - I will be seeing Frank Miller (from afar) in person at the comicon next weekend. I will attempt to have a discussion with him about this... naw, I'd just get myself kicked out.

I think one of the reasons I like X-Men more (sorry, this is actually not a slam against DC. I'm very pro-DC comics) but although all of the retarded stereotypes are there (Psycloke is a whore, Jean is weak and emotional, Jubilee is a waste of time, many - many women are airheads with big boobs) is that at least there are a couple of female characters (Storm being predominant in my mind - and a black woman) who are more powerful than their male counterparts and not stupid to boot. X-Men had the first outed characters and were always fairly good at the racial thing, although I always argue that BLUE is not a race.

And the men at least all fit into horrible stereotypes as well. You can't complain it is just against the women.

oh, Frank Miller, you are MADE OF FAIL

[fakely_mctest]

And, ultimately, isn't it the quality of the writer who can or cannot transcend those stereotypes, y'know? I mean, the art is important too -- because what's the purpose of great writing if the art is, like, ferociously confusing?

From, Misfit Reads Your Mail (And Black Alice Totally Doesn't):

Dear Everyheroine,

These letters stuff the mailbag fuller than Black Alice’s bra. Oh yes, I DID say it! My socks with the purple kittens on the cuffs are missing and I don’t think that’s COINCIDENCE!

But that couldn’t be the reason for this many letters all about impossible stick-out boobs, because I don’t have that many socks. So I’m going to say, yeah, aliens? Invisible aliens with a gross-tesque interest in bizarrely altering women’s bodies?

The only thing I can say that might make you feel better is that I know sometimes it goes away. Cos I used to look like this (which isn’t totally awful or anything, but still, like, no wonder I managed to get into clubs six years underage):



And now I look like this:



See! There’s hope!

Love and totally boundless sympathy,
Misfit

PS) WASH THEM AND GIVE THEM BACK.

Because, having suffered through the pages of XTreme X-Men hoping that someone would take Claremont aside and whisper that exposition DOES NOT EQUAL plot, I know that even interesting characters can be written in such a way as to become hopelessly boring stereotypes.

(in summary: Damn you, Salvador Larroca and your totally alluring artwork for which I subscribed to a pointless book for more than a year. And also, it happened to be the only place to read anything about Rogue and Gambit. I'm such a sucker. [SADSIGH])