My problem with comic books today...

[dajinx1]

Let me start off by saying I'm a fan of comic books. I loved the action-packed stories and art. It's one of the reasons why I produce my superheroine videos today. But, I am not a fan of the books today and I haven't really bought a current book in a year.

Right now, I feel the stories and style are trying to be too mainstream and they are alienating the fans that have stuck with the books for years. The artwork is heavily censored now and trying to look like the movies that it is really bland and uninteresting. If you look at the majority now of superheroines they don't even look like the superheroines we grew up with and not in their iconic costumes. They are in more like civilian type clothing. The stories are also not as fun as they used to be. They are either too cerebral or they are focusing on social messages. I just enjoy good guy vs bad guy battles and saving the city/world.

I feel the comic industry, especially marvel is just trying to appeal to those who wouldn't even read comics in the first place. I've seen articles where some have problems with the way superheroines are drawn or look and these are people who don't even read comics. Now, the comic industry especially marvel is bending backwards to make them happy. I think the comic book industry is on the decline although the movies has been doing well but right now it's popular but eventually wind down like others fads (westerns).

I just feel: superheroes physiques are supposed to be exaggerated, stories are supposed to be over the top and artists should be allowed to draw as they like because they are artists and they have their style. These are comics and not supposed to based in the real world.

This is why I rather use my money to produce my own content at Ultraheroix.com than to spend them on current comics.. at least I would buy paperbacks on the older comics when they were fun for me.

This article is what really got me mad https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... 7965716971

[Dazzle1]

I agree with a lot of your post

The recent change to Wonder Woman's costume in recent animation and Gal Gadot action comes to mind.

And the SJW influence is a real downer.

[sugarcoater]

I wholeheartedly agree. The industry is seeking to please critics and people who have little interest in comics, while alienating a large customer base. Comics, with a few exceptions, are not the medium for social reform. By all means, feel free to share values using the characters, but don't lose the essence of fantastical characters, implausible plots, over the top art, unrealistic physiques, etc.
Remember the whole Alpha Flight--Northstar is gay social issue? What did it lead to? Big deal. Okay, a character is gay, now what? What major change happened thanks to Marvel's decision? Sure, I get that the idea Marvel is trying to be involved in positive social change, but the social movement shouldn't come at the expense of what makes the characters and plot. In this case, it was a non-story and didn't really do anything. The comic was fine and the gesture was a fair effort at making one's sexuality no big deal.
But now the sexiness of heroines has been removed. The art is bland and the plots are dull. I used to spend 15-20 dollars a week on comics; I now spend 30 dollars a year on comics (if even that much). The industry has become trite and boring.

[Mr. X]

The problem is comic book sales are bad. They are better due to the movies but overall they are bad. So the producers will do any shock value thing they can to get people to buy them. Female Thor is a good example. Thor's sales were way down, they introduce her and the sales go up out of curiosity. But now they are back down. Same with the new Hulk etc.

And one of the issues is they writers don't want to get into deep stories with these characters cause they will be swapped back at some point anyway. Banner will no doubt come back as the Hulk.

We also know sex does not sell. If that were the case then Power Girl and Wonder Woman, all female comic lines, would be at the top ten which they are not and every comic would be full of sexy images.

But yeah there's a certain amount of entryism that creeps into everything and rots things from the inside out. I saw this when I worked for Microsoft with xbox. New producers who somehow got into power positions then declaring they didn't want "angry young men" as their audience and wanted more female audience members.

For people who claim to be about diversity they sure seem to smother it and replace it with their own view every chance they get.

[Dogfish]

The reason people complained about the image in the original article is because somebody commissioned this guy to do an alternate cover and the guy they commissioned, one among many, is noted for doing cheesecakey pinup style artwork. All well and good except that the character getting the cheesecake treatment in this case is meant to be fifteen. I think people have a right to be a tiny bit annoyed about that, especially as the artist basically took the face of the character and plonked it onto a stripper body.

So in short, you guys are getting the anti-SJW pitchforks and torches out because people objected to a sexualised depiction of an underage woman on the cover of a comic book. Not judging, if that's what floats your boat, whatever, but don't expect other people to be okay with it.

[Femina]

I don't see much of a problem tbh. For every costume change there is a revert to the 'classic' eventually. Powergirl still has a boob window, Wonderwoman occasionally dawns pants yes... but invariably reverts to her classic leotard or Xena skirt. There really aren't many superheroines in 'civillian' duds. There's Batgirl whose entire comic book was turned into something it should never have been in the first place, and I can think of spider woman maybe off the top of my head as characters I would place in 'stylistic but casual' As always it's about finding the books that YOU like. For every Spider-Woman there is still a Power Girl. But just as important as an individuals demands in their comic book, television, film preferences etc. are the demands of the person standing next to you. Some people don't want to read about a superheroine whose costume involves a boob window, sometimes they just want a Muslim girl in a relatively simple costume whose dealing with the sorts of things in her life that they are. Some people want a simple good vs evil tale. BOTH people are important, and both deserve marketing toward them.

My main point I guess is that I don't believe there is an actual issue, just the usual anxiety from watching things change that exists in every facet of our lives be they comic books or the presidential election. We as human beings tend to imagine the consequences of things to be greater than they actually are, and always have. I do occasionally feel the itch of annoyance when something occurs or is announced poorly like 'BLACK FEMALE is the NEW IRON MAN!!!!!' (Which of course she is NOT 'Iron Man' she has her own name... we'll all just not talk about female Thor, which just doesn't make sense, but at least 'man' isn't in Thor's name... I guess, it's stupid, no argument there) or groan when the producers change the old rather than create NEW... but they DO still occasionally make new for new people, and changes to the old eventually revert back to the old anyway so there usually isn't a good reason to get to upset over it for to long.

As for the change from Good Guys vs Bad Guys to more cerebral stuff... I can't actually disagree with you there except to say that I'd place it as more of a symptom and reflection of a vastly more cynical and depressed society and audience than authors and artists were dealing with twenty years ago. WE have grown bitter and resentful and distrusting of old fashioned heroism (Largely because in most instances it truly does NOT exist) and our entertainment consumption across every medium has changed to reflect this societal shift.

Edit: As I somehow missed the link there to the inciting article when I wrote my reply I'm editing this in. I say this as someone most people would probably accuse of being an 'SJW' as though the term were appropriately a curse word or a swear word and not merely and indicator of which side of the 'war' they stand on.

While the laws in place to protect underage human beings from adults are absolutely important and valid, adults of articles such as these need to remember two all important doctrines. The first is that teenagers also read comic books, MAYBE even more than adults do. The second is that teenagers are sexually aware. Pretending like teenagers can't be sexual because as an adult the author of the article is unsettled by the fact he/she finds the image sexual simply confuses teenagers (who are already societies most awkward and confused human beings to begin with and don't need our help confusing things further) and makes them consider that their sexual identities are somehow wrong when it makes all the sense in the world for a fifteen year old male or female to find another fifteen year old attractive.

[Visitor]

Don't forget the 90s where the comics industry decided to appeal to the collectibles market with issue #1 and variant covers as a way to sell more instead of trying to write good comics. Sales have been declining for years so fads are used to boost sales.

Looking at recent purchases, the ones I've bought the most of have been the James Bond and Dirk Gently comics because they have decent stories. The fact they do 5 issue story arcs means I won't see massive crossovers or retrocon in a few years.

[TIEnTEEZ]

I stopped reading comic book back in the early 90s. The final straw for me was when Doctor Octopus came back to life for like the 15th time and they didn't even bother TRYING to explain how. When death becomes meaningless, the stories do, too.

BTW... speaking of Doctor Octopus - is he not THE perfect villain for those of us into the whole superheroine peril thing? Why aren't there a thousand stories about him? I mean... I get why there are no videos - the special effects would be prohibitive, but damn!

[Mr. X]

The reason people complained about the image in the original article is because somebody commissioned this guy to do an alternate cover and the guy they commissioned, one among many, is noted for doing cheesecakey pinup style artwork. All well and good except that the character getting the cheesecake treatment in this case is meant to be fifteen. I think people have a right to be a tiny bit annoyed about that, especially as the artist basically took the face of the character and plonked it onto a stripper body.

So in short, you guys are getting the anti-SJW pitchforks and torches out because people objected to a sexualised depiction of an underage woman on the cover of a comic book. Not judging, if that's what floats your boat, whatever, but don't expect other people to be okay with it.

Eeeeehhhh so why was the spider woman cover, the Teen Titan cover, the batman/catwoman cover etc complained about. even the Mary jane cover with her doing laundry was complained about. I agree The Batgirl is for teen/pre teen audience and should have such a cover.

[shevek]

OK, as the person who actually inspired MightyHypnotic to create this Comics subforum and who has made the majority of the threads in it (and yes I do promise to create many more new threads..sorry for slacking off on that for a while), it's weird that I somehow missed this thread for two weeks.

First thing I notice is that there are a lot of people on SHF who simply don't read comics anymore. They don't know how much the industry has changed, or they're not familiar with the thousands of new titles, or they're focused much more on video images, or they have a life and a wife (husband) and kids or whatever. That's probably why overall this Comics subforum is not getting a ton of created threads or tons of views. Fair enough.

I very well might be one of the most active comicbook readers on this forum, which was why I thought it was a good idea to start the comicbook subforum. But much like you, I foreswore buying comicbooks for two decades (in the late 80s, I made a clean break because I couldn't afford both comics and records). Only difference is, with some more extra income in the past three years or so, I've gotten back into it big time and now I voraciously purchase 8-10 TPBs a month and follow as many comics developments as I can by going to my local speciality store once a week.

And if you live near a speciality store, then you know that this is the Greatest Time to Be Alive as far as comics are concerned. Never have there been so many titles, so many indie and midsize companies, so much rampant creativity as there is today. And yes, because of Social Justice Warriors and a vastly increased female readership, the attitude about image depiction has changed. And to some extent, there is reason to be angry about that the way gamers were angry about feminists storming their castle a la Gamergate. I continue to sometimes react strongly when comics are overly preachy, such as the recent speech Ms Kamala Khan gave in an issue of Champions about how the heroines shouldn't be about "punching down" and they should be more about social justice than stopping supercriminals who rob banks and museums (Femina touched on this above). The same Kamala Khan who stands out in the scenes with her family as being the only female without a hijab, the only 'modernist' Muslim in her book. Even her creator wears a hijab all the time. Kamala conveniently never speaks up about how sexist her own religion is.

Not only that, but the art becomes shittier. These days there are a fair amount of comic books, even in mainstream DC and Marvel, where the artist
tends way too much towards the sloppy and abstract. It's like the opposite trend of the hyper-realism of the 80s and 90s. One of the best examples of this that I've seen is the recent Batgirl and Birds of Prey stuff. The art in those is sophomoric, slapdash and just plain second-rate. Pick up an issue of Birds of Prey from the late 90s/early 2000s and look how beautifully they were drawn. Then compare them to the current Rebirth run. There's no contest.

So sometimes you shouldn't buy a book because the art is so terrible...but there are still plenty of great artists around, even ones with unique styles. For example, I think the art in such Image books as Fatale, Sex Criminals and The Wicked and the Divine is topnotch, and when you combine that with some hot story topics, it's almost always a winner. The newest Image books that I have praise for are the likes of Snotgirl, Red One, and Discipline. Sexy art and story is out there.

But luckily the fact that there are so many different kinds of comics means that there a lot of niches. So the way I think about it is this: in previous generations (and even in the 90s) comics were indeed about stories and cheesecake. Today, they're more sophisticated and analytical (cerebral?) than ever, as befits an audience which has the ability to comment on the internet at their fingertips. So, what used to be a mainstream approach to comics is now just a *niche* - that is, if you want action stories and cheesecake, comics are still making that (and that's the kind of stuff I'll make threads about in this subforum) but there are also many other niches as well - one of them being the social justice niche, or the queer lit niche, etc.

What's interesting, though, is the way that these niches sometimes interact. Obviously even SJWs like sex - they need to fuck or they can't make more little precious snowflakes - and LGBTs do as well (part of the way they identify is via sexual orientation after all). I don't know if you've noticed, but the internet has allowed a vast increase in 'fetish' types being able to connect, and where I live, this has resulted in more public fetish events being announced. And I guarantee you a good amount of the fetish crowd has progressive or liberal views and or they are queer. So I think sometimes they are as "kinky" as any of us but just afraid to admit or reveal it. There's also such a thing as sex-positive porn or even feminist porn so there are ways to depict sexiness that progressives will swallow (ahem).

But what there might not be, is a way to reconcile the style of comic art we're used to with, say, Islam, which doesn't even normally allow pictures of people anyway. So then there's the negative overlap where Islamophilic SJWs share in this "burqa" mentality (how dare Spiderwoman show her butt! even though Spiderman shows his butt! Cover up right now!). There's the pressure to give the new Muslim Green Lantern, Simon Baz, a sister who wears a hijab and modest dress..and so on. Bob forbid you should offend any culture or dress up as an Indian chief for Halloween while the Standing Rock Sioux are protesting the Dakota Pipeline. Dark Jacket Disease! Nothing colorful or tight that makes you look gaudy or accentuates your form. Wear only 'practical' costumes that you can actually fight in! Because, you know, superheroes are "real".

But I might be getting off-topic. So let's get to the issue at hand, which is sexualized depiction of teenagers in the comics. Again, this is absolutely nothing new. This has been going on for generations. Don't tell you didn't think Betty and Veronica looked sexy. Don't tell me you didn't read 1980s TEEN Titans and pop a nut over the magnificently proportioned Starfire, Raven and Wonder Girl. Don't tell me you didn't make googly eyes at Phoenix and Rogue but at the same time you wished Kitty Pryde was your girlfriend. That was my bread and butter in middle school, son. Don't tell me you didn't go apeshit over the hypersexualized 90s Bad Girl art (I make it a point to collect those types of comics now) to which that Riri Williams cover is definitely a throwback. She looks like a member of Gen13, and my avatar is a still from Caitlin Fairchild's transformation. Don't tell me that the depiction of Cassie Sandsmark in the New 52 isn't incredibly hot (check out the revamped origin story where she finds the power armor in the cave) and you are loving every minute of it. Do I think Kate Bishop looks model-hot in those Young Avengers books? Why yes, I do.

(Femina please note: the Earth-2 Power Girl of as recently as five years ago [eg Amanda Conner vintage) does still have a boob window, but the new "Power Girl" of Earth Prime is, in fact, a young black teenager with her chest appropriately covered. When they made that transition, that was rather symbolic of the torch being passed to the millennial 'woke' generation and how everything they see has to conform to their sensitive worldview because 'empathy').

(Oh, and Mr X: You make a good point about how so many covers are endlessly complained about by the SJW segment of the comic audience, however small that really is. Mary Jane is a perfect example. Women are no longer supposed to be depicted as mere 'helpmeets'. And that's OK, because as a second-wave feminist I don't believe they should be. Mary Jane was truly one of the last bastions of the 'hot girlfriend hanger-on', and while a previous generation solved the problem by having them get married [in the alternate-universe Spider Girl/May Parker series from 16 years ago] now it's all about social parity at all times. Which I don't disagree with as long as it doesn't reduce their hotness..in the latest comicstore preview for Amazing Spider-Man, Mary Jane is now an equal to Spider-Man, where he's designed for her a suit that allows her to 'tap in' to his spider powers and fight alongside him in a shapely costume. So far, not a bad thing....)

The difference now is horny teenage straight dudes are a smaller proportion of the audience than they used to be. Femina is right - teenage boys should still have the right to ogle sexy teenage superheroines. But now they are competing for niche attention with at least three other groups that you can classify by orientation: 1) straight women, 2) gay men and 3) lesbians. And even though there have been "blerds" (black nerds) for generations (there were comics targeting black readers in the 70s) and unspoken legions of nonwhite comics fans in the past, now is the time when People of Color (a dumb term if I've ever heard one, but it's far too late to stop SJWs from using it) are looking for power in their representation. So you have additional niches for insecure millennial snowflakes who feel the emotional need to "see themselves" in a hero. In other words, comic books, which often play with the very idea of identity (secret or not), have created an entire niche that emphasizes identity politics. The other day I saw a clearly gay man walk into the comic shop and specifically ask for Alters because of identification with the trans main character in it. I'm not embarrassed to say I find that character (Chalice) pretty hot myself, and that character is definitely male by birth.

And with that kind of crossover sentiment, here's what I feel we need in our fight for niche sexiness: we need allies. And I think we can get some allies in some places. First, believe it or not, there are plenty of strong confident and powerful women who also look really hot (I have met plenty in person, but look no further than the Mystic Dragon/Cross The Line team for example) and are fine with depictions of themselves as such because they don't have hangups about it. You find a hot comic nerdette, she dresses up like Harley for Halloween, and then you marry her (or him, as the case may be) or least have lots of sweaty, glasses-removing nerd sex.

Then you have the sex-positive feminists - they also think that depiction of sex is great, and they also believe that teenagers should be able to be confident and adventurous in their sexuality. And although this might be a harder sell, you also have some lesbians (there are some on this forum) who are totally fine with kink and with depictions of hot women of whom they can be as desirous as any horny young dude. And also, People of Color don't like to be stereotyped or marginalized, but at the same time, they often represent cultures where sex is depicted in a certain way and there are some inherent truths behind such crass generalizations. What I mean to say is that any culture from around the world that celebrates sex to some extent and doesn't suppress it also has "skin" in this game. The exotic and the sensual then becomes a kind of power that elevates a culture rather than pigeonholing it. Let's encourage other cultures that are often seen as sexless, out of the politically correct fear that one might stereotype them, to be more open sexually. And don't let religious fundamentalism stop you.

In conclusion, in my re-dedication to this subforum I hope in the next few months to bring you a world of comics where sexiness and power go hand in hand, and visual titillation is still allowed. That niche still exists and it even overlaps with editors' progressive viewpoints to a fair extent. I'll tease out those intricate connections for you. But if you want to post your own thread in the comics forum about a recent cool comicbook series, please do!

[shevek]

Here's some fodder in the ongoing war to eliminate sexiness from comics (or ghettoize it into certain books that a mainstream or feminist audience will never chance to read). Frank Cho quit Wonder Woman over his inability to show her panties peeking out on a variant cover he'd drawn for Greg Rucka. The text below is by Heidi McDonald (not me).

Frank Cho quits over his right to draw Wonder Woman’s panties

07/15/2016 BY HEIDI MACDONALD 61 COMMENTS

As reported at Bleeding Cool, Frank Cho has stepped down as variant cover artist on Wonder Woman only 6 issues in to a 24 issue run. The reason? WW writer Greg Rucka didn’t want Cho drawing sexy times covers:

All the problem lies with Greg Rucka.
EVERYONE loves my Wonder Woman covers and wants me to stay. Greg Rucka is the ONLY one who has any problem with covers. Greg Rucka has been trying to alter and censor my artwork since day one.

Greg Rucka thought my Wonder Woman #3 cover was vulgar and showed too much skin, and has been spearheading censorship, which is baffling since my Wonder Woman image is on model and shows the same amount of skin as the interior art, and it’s a VARIANT COVER and he should have no editorial control over it. (But he does. WTF?!!!)
I tried to play nice, not rock the boat and do my best on the covers, but Greg’s weird political agenda against me and my art has made that job impossible. Wonder Woman was the ONLY reason I came over to DC Comics.

To DC’s credit, especially [Art Director] Mark Chiarello, they have been very accommodating. But they are caught between a rock and a hard place.

I just wanted to be left alone and do my Wonder Woman variant covers in peace. But Greg Rucka is in a hostile power trip and causing unnecessary friction over variant covers.


Here’s an example of a pre and post-Rucka cover, and as you can see the difference is small…but significant.
Cho’s statement is pretty petulant even for an artist known for juvenile stunts and constant clowning. He had another slam at Rucka on his FB page before he thought better of it. (I forgot to screen cap or copy it because it’s a little hectic here. No matter.)

UPDATE: Oh someone did.



When I first read this my first thought was “And I would have gotten away from it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!”

Cho’s defenders on FB are invoking censorship, SJWs and “Feminazis” — a sure sign of the high moral ground.

Cho’s Wonder Woman covers are beautiful, no question, and he draws great women, no question. I’ve often thought that the outrage over Cho’s paid commissions was misplaced, as they are not controlled by Marvel or DC and it’s a free country. However, this is a PAID gig, one Rucka and his artists Nicola Scott and Liam Sharp already made a stand over, by demanding to move the book from Eddie Berganza’s office to Mark Doyle’s office. Cho’s covers obviously appeal to one faction of DC – the long standing admirers of mild, well-executed cheesecake as exemplified by DC Bombshell, Ame-Comi Girls and so on. However, Rucka seems to be aiming his Wonder Woman run at a more contemporary and diverse audience, and cheesecake is not necessarily the way to reach that audience.

And yes, yes these were variant covers. They still speak to the main purpose of the book and who it’s aimed at. Picking Cho for a variant run was a bold choice but one that was doomed to backfire almost from the git go.

Also of note, Cho quit, he was NOT fired. This was his choice to stand up for his artistic vision, and I doubt we’ll ever see any shortage of beautifully drawn cheesecake tits and ass shots from him. Those who want that material from him will be able to get it, no problem. And if you have the money you can commission a drawing of Wonder Woman doing whatever you want. He’ll never want for money, as he makes a fortune doing commissions, and I’m sure he’ll get some other, more appropriate work lined up. So please, don’t cry for Cho. Instead of trying to work within the author’s vision of the book, he insisted on doing it his own way, and stormed off when he wasn’t allowed to.

[Mr. X]

For me its just hypocritical that if someone says "ew yuk, do gay people have to do gay things in a comic book" that's called homophobia and they are yelled at but if someone says "ew yuk, wonder woman's panties, that's sexist and vulgar" then that is perfectly fine and they are making the world a better place by censoring it. Shouldn't ALL things be accepted? There is no zero sum game.

Folks there are two ways to make a tree and a bush the same height. You can do the honest thing and try to coax the bush to grow which it may never reach the same height or you do the dishonest thing and take all of 5 minutes and cut the tree down.

My guess is the reason there are less horny teen males reading comics is because they are being driven out and shamed and being attacked by posers who are hijacking a cause to use as an excuse to bully them. Think about it. ONLY straight males are being made to feel ashamed at what they like. Told their likes are perverted and trampy and slutty and sexual exploitation. Gee if gay men fantasize about Henry Cavil as superman isn't that also perverted and sexual exploitation? Nope, apparently not. Its empowerment and beautiful and you better god damned accept and STFU. if women read romance novels full of hunky men and rape fantasies is that perverted? is 50 shades of grey perverted? Nope. Its empowerment. STFU you misogynist pig. But show some wonder panties and its "you're a pig and perverted and sexually exploiting women and we're going to censor the hell out of you." So when straight men like something its sexual exploitation. When anyone else likes something its sexual preference. Yup that's some mighty fine tolerance and accepting right there. Make the tree equal to the bush by cutting the tree down.

[theScribbler]

Greg Rucka is not gonna like some panties shots in uncoming WW movie. Maybe he shouldn't see it.

[Dogfish]

For me its just hypocritical that if someone says "ew yuk, do gay people have to do gay things in a comic book" that's called homophobia and they are yelled at but if someone says "ew yuk, wonder woman's panties, that's sexist and vulgar" then that is perfectly fine and they are making the world a better place by censoring it. Shouldn't ALL things be accepted? There is no zero sum game.

Folks there are two ways to make a tree and a bush the same height. You can do the honest thing and try to coax the bush to grow which it may never reach the same height or you do the dishonest thing and take all of 5 minutes and cut the tree down.

My guess is the reason there are less horny teen males reading comics is because they are being driven out and shamed and being attacked by posers who are hijacking a cause to use as an excuse to bully them. Think about it. ONLY straight males are being made to feel ashamed at what they like. Told their likes are perverted and trampy and slutty and sexual exploitation. Gee if gay men fantasize about Henry Cavil as superman isn't that also perverted and sexual exploitation? Nope, apparently not. Its empowerment and beautiful and you better god damned accept and STFU. if women read romance novels full of hunky men and rape fantasies is that perverted? is 50 shades of grey perverted? Nope. Its empowerment. STFU you misogynist pig. But show some wonder panties and its "you're a pig and perverted and sexually exploiting women and we're going to censor the hell out of you." So when straight men like something its sexual exploitation. When anyone else likes something its sexual preference. Yup that's some mighty fine tolerance and accepting right there. Make the tree equal to the bush by cutting the tree down.

All things are excepted, but not always in the same places. The guy wants to draw cheesecake pictures, he can, but by that same rationale the person writing the comic doesn't have to use them if that's not the direction he wants to go with it. This issue has come up a lot in recent years and the problem seems to come down to people not understanding that just because somebody produces an alternative cover it doesn't have to be used. It should always be up to the person who is, ultimately, in charge of the comic.

As for why the market isn't supporting the comics as cheesecake business model the answer is The Internet. It's not about shame, it's about Pornhub, xhamster and so on. Why would somebody need a sneakily hot picture of Wonder Woman in a comic book to fap to when they can go online and All The Porn is there. Comic books are going to have to survive by being good, because they're done as wank-fodder for teenagers, that part of their history is over.

The whole being ashamed of sex and what we fap to business is a sad holdover from the Judeo-Christian roots of western civilisation. Sex is dirty, sex is wrong, stuff that's about sex is bad, we're all going to hell. Even atheists can't avoid it, the sex is bad stuff is rooted so deeply in our culture that even if you ditch the religion it's still there. It's something that's come up in British politics a lot lately, on the lefty side of things you get feminists thinking sex is evil because it involves willies, on the conservative side you get the god-squad thinking sex is evil because it involves women, and between them they sit in judgement upon what everybody else is allowed to do in the privacy of their own home.

[shevek]

Dogfish: add Islamic repression of sex and that is exactly the Red Green Brown alliance right there!

For a good statement about freedom of expression in comics, see my most recent post in the Vampblade thread in this Comics subforum.