In the "1000 Words" Dept.

[bellatrys]

So (via WFA) the cover art for upcoming Uncanny X-Men issue is brought to my attention by Heidi Meeley of Comics Fairplay, and since it was in the regular feature "Is It Gratuitous?" and since there was some snide glibbery to the effect that any depiction of female bodies must be obscene, rather than addressing whether or not this was Yet Another

Comments

That's her left breast. (VEG)

[bellatrys]

The top of her smushed-under-her breast, peeking out over her bustier, to be exact.

I see I need to post the analytical tracing I did of it, to figure out WTF was going on (so far as I could) with the anatomy of the original...

I *couldn't* draw him *as* wrong,

[bellatrys]

I found, because to give him some muscles automatically made it less a travesty, it filled in some of the Wrong - check out her *left* elbow, too: that's a doll arm, not a human arm, it's not drawn by someone who ever grabbed a mirror and looked at their own bent elbow to try to get a pose right, as I have done for drawing both female *and* male characters on the fly.

tammy212 pointed out that her whole bum looks like a doll bum, and when I started tracing it that became even clearer, all it needs is some joint break lines and you have the exact swivel setup of a naked Barbie that someone posed on his desk and drew. Which explains the elbows wierdness, the wiggly spine, and the ribcage mess some too.

This is one weird perspective setup, isn't it. Left arm and head seem over-large, which could be a wide-angle-lens effect, but there's no sense of that apparent distortion elsewhere in the image, and besides, the alignment of the distortion is wrong. It's like looking at a forced-perspective model from off-axis.And where are her lower legs and

[fjm]

Your icon so describes my day on Thursday.

good for you!

[bellatrys]

(what did you do?)

Re: good for you!

[fjm]

Screw up massively from a position which could be described as "best of intentions".

A passion for natural justice will only substitute for natural empathy so far... after that it's blinkers.

Mm, no, that sounds like *Lawful* to me

[bellatrys]

without knowing the details, that sounds like classic Paladin's Problem, the kind of mess that Lawful Good gets into, applying rules too closely, or "letter" but not "spirit", which is why Lawful Good is too often too harsh (altho' paradoxically it is often ineffectual against serious Evil, Lawful *or* Chaotic.)

I made my icon (several, in fact) in response to (RL as well as online) accusations of Ebolness for dishing out gandersauce and snark and giving ijits enough rope to hang themselves and not being willing to be the stereotypical Good Guy handicapped by having to Be Nice when the Villain doesn't, generally - it's my acknowledgement of my anarchic Trickster tendencies, and my refusal to disown them as something Bad (same with all the Monkey icons); Chaotic Good is disreputable, disorganized, and doesn't have any dignity to stand on, and thus gets to gloat, to go Neener-Neener-Neener, and to lure the Evil Overlord into giving chase right over a well-planted banana peel...

[bright_lilim]

"I couldn't come up with a single non-monstrous mainstream superhero whose costume reveals as much skin"

Namor?

Okay

[bellatrys]

And he's wearing a swimsuit, because he's an aquatic being, and he's hardly up there with Storm, Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Black Canary or Power Girl* just to name a few well-known and scantily-clad herones - and ironically right after the Heroes for Hire situation there was a cover with him held prisoner by Venom's tentacles, and it was striking how non-passive and non-sexual they had made his pose, for comparison. I mean, how many visible sternums on superheros are there? let alone upper thighs? let alone on ones who are major players in either universe multiverse?

(Or even Painkiller Jane, who got a TV show recently, even if one so wretched that viewers campaigned for it to end.)

Re: Okay

[skalja]

Totally agreed.

Plus, aside from that one cover, he's been put back in pants for the last few years. DIRTY POOL, MARVEL, DIRTY POOL!

P.S. I knew this cover was bizarre, but I didn't realize it was so ... bizarre. Well played!

Robin's butt cheeks need more exposure

[voxwoman]

to get the same level of revealing. Maybe he should switch to wearing a thong?

I don't read enough comics, obviously. But all I can think about right now is "Den". I think pretty much everybody was naked in that. The Evil Priestess(TM) wore a mask and a cape that never closed (it's been literally decades since I've read that series, so I'm going on memory here).

Re: Robin's butt cheeks need more exposure

[bellatrys]

I know! Why aren't there Superheros in BattleThongs™? I mean, they're *superpowered*, so they don't need protection from scrapes and bruises and SuperWedgies, according to the justifications we hear all the time!

I'm also handicapped trying to draw Strategic Battle Damage™, because I've done way too much sewing, and I look at what they do to expose the gals, and I think "But Cloth Doesn't Work That Way!" (Paper napkins, OTOH, do.) Trying to draw rips that could actually happen, even with high-tech handwavy microfiber, is really problematic.

Looking online, I see that "Den" was not just obscure, it was indy. So no, that's not equivalent (nor any other self-published R-rated/X-rated comics with nudity).

Re: Robin's butt cheeks need more exposure

[voxwoman]

Ah. I read "Den" in the first year of publication of "Heavy Metal" (the English version of "Metal Hurant") - I figured it was released in France, first, like the rest of the GNs in there (on the plus side, it introduced me to Moebius' artwork - because they ran Harzak and the "Airtight Garage"?)

Den's plotline wasn't progressive or anything - it had its share of helpless damsels in distress - but it was unique in my world because it was the only comic that had the male hero completely naked without even Barsoomian jewelery to help matters. Of course, he was hung to his knees, but the women were similarly overendowed.

You may want to try to dig up some issues to see how the artist/writer handled the naked fight scenes (of which there were many). It seemed rather intelligent to me, but I was about 18 when I read it at the time, so it may not hold up, 30 years later :)

[shininghalf]

I love how the shadows indicate that her shoulders, head, and left hand are actually levitating a couple of inches above the ground. ^_~