dcwomenkickingass:

You can go over to the Mary Sue and read more but here’s the short version. Over the last 24 hours a post the James Gunn, the director helming the next Marvel movie “Guardians of the Galaxy” created about “The 50 Superheroes You want to have sex with” was dug up.

And what a post it is! Filled with the kind of language I am sure the management of Disney who own Marvel will be thrilled to see!

Beware this is pretty awful slut shaming language with a extra dose of disgusting homophobia.

It goes on. 

And on.

And like many of these polls (such as one run by a “humor” site whose name I will not repeat as to not have their followers come back and harass me after I called them out and ended their fun.) it’s not funny. 

Of course, when the word starting spreading and the shit hit the fan the writer, director James Gunn, did what many people do when caught doing something that perhaps they regret - he deleted it.

Sadly, as smart a dude as he may be, he wasn’t aware of Google Cache.

So what to do? 

Well you could plan on boycotting the movie. But that won’t be out until 2014.

So in the short term perhaps a note to Disney and let them know your concerns. I would think this gentleman might be a good person to send a polite letter:

http://waltdisneystudios.com/corp/unit/6/bio/1015

c/o The Walt Disney Studios500 South Buena Vista St.Burbank, CA 91521-7376

“Dear Disney…”

lushious:

Thank you for being a friend
Travelled down the road and back again

Super Golden Friends

dcwomenkickingass:

In case you haven’t read it (although clearly a number of you have given the notes I’ve received) Heidi MacDonald at the Beat posted an interested story the other day titled “Why DC and Marvel will never truly target female readers.” In it MacDonald states:

While I enjoy the heroic efforts on the part of DCWKA’s Sue, Kyrax2, Geek Momand the squadron of superhero suffragettes out there, and support most of their points, I feel their efforts are pre-doomed. Sure it’s obvious that a character like Stephanie Brown—a character with a younger,more vocal following—deserves to be featured in her own book. Sure it’s obvious from the licensing alone that a Wonder Woman book aimed at young girls would find an audience.

And yet despite the money left on the table, embarrassing publicity, and public fist shaking, DC’s treatment of the Girl-Wonder.org faction over the years has ranged from tone-deafness to active pigtail pulling. And it’s systemic. In last fall’s reader survey, DC went out of its way to choose the lower of two figures for the female readership. This isn’t an accident. It’s a program.

Why? Well, all conspiracy theories, corporate DNA and the WB’s own woman problems aside, the simple fact is that on a meta level, DC Entertainment produces entertainment for boys. That’s its place within Warners, its demographic slot and I’m sure at some point Diane Nelson has overtly been tasked with keeping the boy audience engaged for films starring Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern.

We may think this kind of pigeonholing is stupid, but in a world run by branding, the message matters. By addressing female readers (and also younger readers), DC risks alienating its core audience of teenaged boys and men 25-35.

You know I respect Heidi a lot, but I just think she’s wrong. And I’ll tell you why. 

And let me say first, I don’t mind being pegged as quixotic dreamer fighting off the windmalls of broke back and giant boobs while sprouting sound business strategy. That’s much kinder actually than the crap I get in comics forums where it is suggested there be a kickstater to get me psychiatric treatment. 

But I think what I take the most issue with in Heidi’s article that it’s not speculation that Warner Bros. and DC think they might alienate audiences. That it is a fact it will dilute the brand when the thesis for that boils down to essentially the contagion of “girl cooties” I can certainly spend hours going discussing why that doesn’t make sense. (And, hey, I will spend the next few graphs doing that.). It’s the assertion that it will. 

Given my day job I’m pretty familiar with the concept of branding and marketing. And really how the two aren’t the same thing (although certainly interconnected). And I’m pretty familiar with marketing being done with out impacting a brand. And that’s why the idea that DC (and I’m going to focus on them as Marvel has other issues at play) “risks” alienating boys by addressing or marketing to women flies in the face of brands that were more testorone filled that DC Comics will ever be, more focused on “entertainment for boys” the NFL and NASCAR, doing pretty damn good expanding their marketing and not alienating their core audiences and not diluting their brand. Is their risk, of course, there is risk in any business. But the reward could be much larger than the questionable risk.

And I also have to side eye the theory that Diane Nelson, the Warner executive whose main claim to fame is to maximizing Harry Potter IP into a franchise successful with both male and female audiences, as being given direction to make the “boy audience” a focus. Particularly when both the Batman and Superman franchises, long before Nelson show up were successful at driving both males and females to the box office. 

I’d say the boy audience is engaged already as is the female audience. Why would they want to change that strategy or as my grandmother used to say, “cut off your nose to spite your face?” (Not that they aren’t capable of it and don’t do it but WB shows much more savvy then the comic publishing side).

Now on to the other assertion I disagree with; that DC and Marvel will NEVER change.

Never, as someone pointed out in the comments on the Beat is a long, long time. And I can think of a lot of things we’d thought we’d never see from DC (and Marvel). I mean good gosh, if we trusted DC to stick to the concept of “never” we’d still have Barbara Gordon as Oracle (come on that was just toooo easy).

We’d never have seen the LCS develop (what comic books move to specialized stores? What people have to order their comics in advance?) or embracing digital (what make our content available digitally and see our market croak like the record industry) or even the DC reboot (what renumber Action and Detective  to #1 after 70 years?). Madness I tell you; change is madness!

Now certainly don’t think that change will happen overnight. But I don’t think it will “never” happen. If that were true we wouldn’t have seen DC blink after the efforts of Kyrax last year. We wouldn’t have seen DC and Marvel continue to put out books that feature female characters drawn so don’t have their tits and asses as the main focus (God bless you J.H. Williams III and Cliff Chiang). That those books sell well, kinda hits at some of the assertion of the Beat as well.

It also means you wouldn’t have DC bringing a new writer on Catwoman who said publicly its because the company wants a “female perspective.” And as far as DC Entertainment goes you wouldn’t have DC Nation featuring content with real, gosh doggone GIRLS like Super Best Friends Forever, Amethyst and the Black Lighting sisters. I’m sure you could try and make a case that this is simply an attempt at a Brony play where female friendly content creates a male fanbase rather than emanating cooties, but really I think that’s unlikely.

Now none of those are particularly change agents. I’d say more they are cracks in the ice. Signs of a thaw. Signs that yes we do recognize that people who don’t identify as male are an audience and here’s content for them. But there’s another thing happening that I believe will lead to more change.

I’ve been throwing out the theory that digital was going to change things for the big two for a few years. My theory is that the right content combined with a distribution system that took that bricks and mortars out of the equation as the only source would lead to the realization there is opportunity outside the traditional audiences.

And earlier this week I read something that I believe points to that. When DC announced the digital spin-off of Smallville, I said that this was book that could have a big impact on realizing that female readers can bring incremental financial value (because if there is one thing the Beat and I do agree on is that money talks). The audience of television’s Smallville was made up up of about 1/3 women even slightly edging up closer to 50% at times. 

The site iCv2 put up an interview this week with Dan DiDio and Jim Lee and Lee mentioned something very interesting:

And one thing I’ll add, through comiXology we had some data from our sales on Smallville and about 40% of people buying or downloading that comic book were new consumers; they had opened up new accounts.  To me, that’s a staggering large number and I think it points to the way we’re going to see a lot of growth, especially in terms of new readers.

There’s not mention of who those “new readers” are but I don’t think it is too much to assume there are a lot of women in that 40%. Women drawn to a book that is a spin-off of a superhero show that had quite a large female viewership. I mean I’m sure there are males in that group. It could be males who don’t like the current Superman books (I’ve heard from those) or male Smallville fans who for some reason just didn’t think to pick up a Superman comic before or current Superman readers who can’t wait for the floppy to appear and need their digital fix of Superman.

All could be likely. But I’m going with my first guess; it’s a lot of women. 

I’d heard from a few different folks in and around DC that the Smallville numbers were “surprising” to New York editorial. Perhaps because the book was driven out of the California and was off their radar. Clearly as seen by the recent “Stephaniegate” debacle it’s not off their radar anymore. Maybe this can be a good thing?

And let’s face it, Jim Lee along with some other folks at DC are actually pretty smart. Those Smallville numbers are saying something. Why else talk about them? It’s got to better than talking about what the Atlantic said this week about their industry:

But the prominence of comic books in the mainstream belies the fact that the industry is largely stagnant. Licensing, in the form of toys, merchandise, and movies, is now the primary source of revenue. The Avengers alone made more money for Marvel than the total sale of print comic books, industry-wide, over the last two years. Alex Klein at the Daily Beastargues that many of DC’s recent headline-grabbing moves, like Green Lantern’s coming-out and the re-boot of their entire universe, are less creative decisions than they are (largely unsuccessful) attempts to revive the interest of a waning fan base that has turned its attention to smaller and more adventurous independent publishers.

That 40% new readers that is probably made up of a lot of women suddenly seems, well, important? Meaningful? How about the potential of putting the concept of “never” to rest?

Change will come. It will come perhaps as slowly as the glaciers melt. But then again, the pace of that has been picking up dramatically as we saw recently.

And in the meantime the idea that one should simply pack it up and call it a day seems hasty and requires that you watch this.

And that I leave you with this:

dcwomenkickingass:

So last year you may remember that DC’s SDCC was somewhat put off-message by a woman, dressed as Batgirl, questioning how DC treated its female characters. It turned into a PR crisis.

Earlier today that same woman asked at the DC Superman panel about the rumor that Stephanie Brown was being removed from Smallville Season 11 and replaced by Barbara Gordon.

Here is how it went down according to CBR:

The next fan to the microphone, dressed as Stephanie Brown, asked if in “Smallville Season 11” Stephanie would be showing up officially or if the rumors she had been taken out were true.

“The first rumor wasn’t known by us and I have not heard of the second in the halls of DC, so I can’t comment,” moderator John Cunningham told her.

“But there was art!” the fan responded.

“Are you going to believe art or are you going to believe us?” Lobdell asked as the audience laughed and Cunningham gave her a Night of the Owls mask for her question. 

Hmm, an executive for DC responded to Stephanie Brown “showing up” as a “rumor”?

A rumor. Something not confirmed. Okay. So it is a “rumor” that TV Guide ran?

Secondly “not known by us”? I just did a search on the number of articles that were printed with this “rumor” on June 14 (almost a month ago surely enough time for a “rumor” to be refuted). I saw stories from CBR, Newsarama, Wired etc. etc. I must say I’m a little flabbergasted that a VP at DC Comics is saying this news “wasn’t known by us”?

Did they not wonder if this question would be asked? 

By the way CBR wasn’t the only one who wrote this up.  Here’s Comicvine’s reporter Mat ‘Inferiorego’ Elfring:

11:50: Question time. How much influence will World of Krypton from 86 have on these books. They says none really. They want to make Krypton feel alien. Oh no, my least favorite question person ever… Why isn’t Stephanie Brown isn’t in the new 52? They say they don’t know about anything like that. She gets snappy. She does this every year.

“My least favorite question person ever”? “Snappy”? when did “news reporters” start giving commentary on the audience? 

And I find “she does this every year” hysterical. As if two years out of 40 is “every year” and, here’s the point, as if she doesn’t have a fair question that many, many people would like answered. And one that doesn’t include as a snappy retort by creator. 

Oh well, maybe next year?

heyoscarwilde:

Miscellaneous background and development artwork from the Batman:The Brave and Bold cartoon. 

illustrations by William_Joseph_Dunn :: via william_joseph_dunn

dcwomenkickingass:

At an exhibition in Madrid about Christopher Nolan and The Dark Knight Rises they displayed the costumes worn in the movie.

Here’s a look at Catwoman’s boots:

I think those boots look ridiculous; we’ll see how I feel after I see the movie. Here’s a look at the belt and suit:

Those a bit more than thigh high.

wryyy

(Source: forums.superherohype.com)

wheelr:

For all the chaps who are so upset, furious, offended, affronted that people mocked the Catwoman #0 cover, I have a few words of counsel.

First, please understand that the critics are not complaining that the cover is “too sexy”. Perhaps someone somewhere has said that the cover is “too sexy”, but I can’t find that person, so it’s not a common view let alone the consensus. Most comic readers probably agree that a character like Catwoman can’t be “too sexy”. She’s sexy and you know it.

In fact, I think most critics would agree that the cover isn’t sexy enough; indeed it’s not sexy at all. Catwoman should be considerably sexier than this chew toy-shaped carbuncle. But that’s subjective. Some people may find this fleshy bow-tie immensely sexy, and to each their own. I’m not attracted to women myself; if I were I’d like to think I’d prefer ones who don’t look like they’ve had a close encounter with a car crusher, but I respect your choices, sir. Good for you for having the confidence to stand up for your fetish.

The point is, “too sexy” is not the problem. I know that “this sex symbol is too sexy” is a nice easy position to pick a fight with, but it’s not what people are saying, and it’s simply not sporting to invent other people’s positions. The right to invent unlikely positions is strictly reserved for comic book artists.

Second, please recognise that no criticism of one piece of cheesecake is an attack on all cheesecake. Some people will and do attack all cheesecake, of course, but I will stand with you on the line against that assault, my friend, because I believe in cheesecake and I believe in your right to cheesecake. But most people are more nuanced than that; they may believe, for example, that women should sometimes be sexy femme fatales and sometimes be intelligent kick-ass lead heroes who never have to seduce anyone or endure sexual violence. We have names for these types of characters. We call them Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, et cetera.

You too can adopt a nuanced position. You too can acknowledge that a piece of work is bad without having to pack all your wank materials into black bags for the binmen. If you admit that this cover is bad - which it is, it really is - no-one is going to take your dog-eared Danger Girl collection to the local Sally Army for someone less enlightened to enjoy. Your freedom to enjoy visual representations of attractive women are not under threat. You will live to masturbate another day.

The point of criticising - or mocking - a cover like this is to flag bad art that embodies the comic industry’s tendency to reduce women to sexy sexy objects rather than elevate them as sexy sexy characters. That this cover was the work of Guillem March seems extraordinary, because he’s a skilled practitioner of the art of cheesecake. He’s built his reputation drawing glossily glamorous women. His ambition may have been his downfall here; he may have drawn Catwoman like this because he had a bold vision but couldn’t make it work on the page. The effort is laudable; the result is laughable. 

I don’t think that’s what happened. I think March drew this cover as a joke. I think he was seeing how far he could push the pursuit of T&A at the expense of anatomy; his blog and work both show that he finds that tension fascinating. I think he played a game of chicken with his editor, and I think he was surprised when the editor didn’t blink, and I think he decided not to blink either, and we all lost that game. I suspect he probably regrets letting this cover out into the world, because there’s a serious danger of it being the piece he’s most famous for, and he’s much better than this. But that’s just a theory. Maybe Guillem March stands behind this cover. Maybe this is serious work.

And yes, the cover to Catwoman #0 reduces the character to her sexual assets. But in a diverse and perfect world you can do that in an artful way; you can be sexy, elegant, playful. This is none of those things. This Catwoman is a knuckle of tit. She could have been grown in a pleasure lab for lonely men. She could change her name to Fleshlight Armstrong. This cover is insulting to women, not because it’s sexual, but because it’s bad. It’s also insulting to heterosexual men, but heterosexual men have apparently never minded an insult they can wank to.

Third; it is an impossible pose. Yes, I’ve seen the pictures that supposedly show real people in the same pose. I know you like to believe that everything you see in glamour photographs is real even though you know it isn’t true, but let’s go ahead and take those photos at face value. They still don’t show women in the same pose. The Catwoman cover shows a woman leaping through the air. The photos show women stretching against solid surfaces. Try flexing your fingers backwards. See if your fingers go any further back when you push them against a table. Right? Right. The photos also show a different angle. There’s a reason you can’t find an overhead shot with a woman in the Catwoman pose, with her boobs and her butt both sticking out; because it’s imposible. And you’ve looked at a lot of photos of women bending their spines. If that picture exists, it’s on your harddrive. You didn’t produce it, so I have to assume it doesn’t exist.

And you know what else is different about the Catwoman cover? Her head. I know you’re only looking at her boobs and her ass, but if you force your eyes to meet in the middle, you’ll see that her head is impossibly placed. Spines aren’t drain snakes. 

Fourth; you’re right, exaggerated anatomy is common in a lot of art. That does not place it beyond criticism. Art without response is just wallpaper, and even wallpaper sometimes merits criticism. Superhero art is especially ripe with anatomical implausibility. Sometimes it’s effective, but sometimes it isn’t, and when it isn’t we are allowed to call it out. You know how everyone mocked Rob Liefeld’s Heroes Reborn Captain America? You probably turned up to that party. Why didn’t you turn up to this one?

Fifth; I know you like to pretend that people only ever say that a thing is sexist because they want to be cool or popular or attractive to girls, but I think you know that’s not true. People talk about this stuff because it matters. It may stir up attention and it may increase circulation, but you have to understand that throwing bread to hungry people tends to cause a fuss.

You’ve never had to worry about getting scraps from someone else’s table. The culture serves you, sir. You are, and always have been, and always will be, the primary audience. Yet there are little corners of the world that serve other people - sometimes with you in the room, and sometimes when you’re out of it. And every time you notice it happening, you complain. 

Every time.

Every.

Time.

Every time the culture serves someone who isn’t you, and every time someone who isn’t you comments on culture, you moan, you jostle, you threaten, you splutter with indignation. “What is this? People are mocking the ample bosoms that I so enjoy? Fetch my blunderbuss.” And because the culture is almost always about you - so much so that you’ve never even consciously acknowledged it - you see anything that isn’t about you as a threat. But it’s not a threat. It’s not a mob, or a gang, or even a bandwagon. It’s just the rest of the world. And you’re not excluded from it; you’re just choosing not to participate because you know you’ll have to share the spotlight.

You are never going to stop being the primary audience. So put down the blunderbuss and throw the rest of the world some scraps from your table.

Sixth; saying you’re revolted, disgusted, angry that people are criticising such-and-such, that is a rhetorical trick that doesn’t work any more. “You’re offended by this art? Well I am literally vomiting with outrage that you would criticise my right to enjoy it! I’m sure if you had your way I would be flayed alive in the street, and that makes you no better than Jeffrey Dahmer”.

I know you learned this trick from actual minorities, the actually maligned with actual reasons to be outraged, and I know you’ve got some good mileage out of it, but you can’t be the majority and claim to be oppressed. Real life is not Fox News. Breathe in, breathe out.

(“You did not tell me to breathe in again; clearly you want me to suffocate, which is so typical of you liberal elites, always pretending to be tolerant and then trying to suffocate people who disagree with you!”)

And seventh; you’re right that we should all take some responsibility for how our culture shapes us. But if you grew up watching cartoons and never became a Thundercat, that doesn’t merit much applause. If you grew up watching cartoons with largely male ensembles and only limited roles for women, you may want to consider if that experience has contributed to your attitudes in any way.

I hope these notes have helped you to contextualise your feelings. 

Yours sincerely, et cetera.

FLESHLIGHT ARMSTRONG

This piece makes life okay again. For a little while.

dcwomenkickingass:

Look who is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Summer Movie preview. Here’s what the article says about Catwoman

And then there’s Anne Hathaway as Selena Kyle, the latest incarnation of Batverse femme fatale Catwoman. Nolan’s take on the character is no campy sexpot or frazzled ghoul but a shifty cipher, calloused survivor, and world-class criminal. Says Nolan, “She has a very strong way of protecting herself and those she cares about, which implies an underlying darkness.” 

Hmm, “campy sexpot or frazzled ghoul”.

I assume that’s supposed to be Berry and Pfeiffer?

Non-“campy sexpot” stilettos is going to be a hard sell.

Just sayin’.

“I was reading some Alan Moore Marvelman for some reason today. I found one in the back there and I couldn’t believe. I pick it up and there are fucking two rapes in it and I suddenly think how many times has somebody been raped in an Alan Moore story? And I couldn’t find a single one where someone wasn’t raped except for Tom Strong, which I believe was a pastiche. We know Alan Moore isn’t a misogynist but fuck, he’s obsessed with rape. I managed to do thirty years in comics without any rape!”

- Grant Morrison

(via comicsareforgirls)

spx:

I thought Super Spy was the bee’s knees.

ryley-stbatman:

Matt Kindt Bibliography

• 2001 - Pistolwhip
• 2003 - Pistolwhip Yellow Menace
• 2004 - 2 Sisters
• 2004 - Michael Chabon Presents the Amazing Adventures of the Escapist Volume 2 (anthology)
• 2007 - Super Spy
• 2009 - Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers
• 2009 - 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man
• 2010 - Revolver
• 2010 - Myspace Dark Horse Presents Volume 5 (anthology)
• 2011 - The Tooth (With Cullen Bunn and Shawn Lee)

Currently he’s working on a Robot Man story in My Greatest Adventure, he just illustrated an arc on Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire, and he’s working with Jeff Lemire on the final issue of Men of War, as well as starting a run on Frankenstein starting with issue 10, which is kind of why I’m making this list for myself.

One of these is of very much interest and has merited checking out.