When “The Editors” is finally in print, I’m giving serious thought to getting a new 3-piece suit (to replace my old existing one), donning my fedora, and dressing as one of The Editors for it’s debut event.
Which would mean getting anyone else at the table to do the same though.
Marvel website states Black Cat is 5ft 10 and 8 stone 5 pounds …
5ft 10… got
8 stone… REALLY my LEG weighs 8 stone alone…
That’s fucking bullshit, I’m 5ft5 and the LOWEST I should be about to be healthy is 8 stone. And you can tell by the way she is drawn that she wouldn’t weigh that, she’s too curvaceous and muscular. Seriously false shit like that can damn girls.
Was I with you when we were going through comic book women’s height/weight ratios and they were all worryingly off? Or was that someone else?
Either way, Marvel and DC need to fix this shit…
Honestly, those ratios are rather scary. I’m 5’6” and until I went to university my average weight was below 8 stone. I was practically skeletal. It really isn’t healthy at all. And it’s dangerous to think that some might see those stats and think “hey, I should weigh that much.”
Um… I just noticed that there are things missing from my case. Pretty much everything I bought at LSCC. Including my nephews birthday present. REALLY hope we just packed them in Pauls’ case and not left them in London.
It was a fun weekend, sandwiched between 8 hour, crowded, bus journeys. The latter I have to say “NEVER AGAIN!” but at some point in the future there will be a moment of weakness when I book transport for events and think - “you know, this bus thing is much cheaper I can’t remember why I don’t do that more often.”
Seriously, if you ever hear me utter that phrase, slap me and send me a link to a cheap train or flight booking site.
LSCC though, I certainly plan to do again. It was a good crowd, we met some really cool people and caught up with old friends. The new art prints, the preview for The Editors (planned for print in April), got a load of interest. Fantasy comics are a hard sell to a Capes audience but we got a few sales of Fera too.
Not as much cosplay as usual, but I think that’ll improve in future years, I did feel a little bad for the DC cosplayers at times. Not for any reason other than due to the presence of Stan Lee the Marvel cosplayers seemed to have a certain swagger to them whilst the DC guys seemed to be regretting their decision a little.
We had a brilliant moment when setting up, a staff member ran towards us and asked Paul (the writer for The Editors and a long time friend of mine), if he was Kevin Smith.
As always there were plenty of amazing comics and artwork on show, and some impressive guests (even discounting Stan Lee). I think there was an element of cheekiness from the organisers when they booked some of these names. Not in a bad way, certainly some of the more established events should learn from their example.
Overall the event was well organised, drew a good comic crowd and was good fun. It was a nice touch that the staff went around the creators asking us for opinions and possible things to add/improve on for next year. Certainly an event that seems to value more than just cash, and actually appears to care about the creators and attendees.
When discussing the representation of women in comics, one thing that I hear a lot is, “Well, girls drool over the men in comics in the same way that men drool over the women…they’re always going on about Dick Grayson’s tight butt!” Now, the ladies do like Dick Grayson’s bottom, but is this really true? Do women really objectify male characters in the same way that a lot of men objectify female characters?
Well, let’s do a little test, shall we? Let’s take two popular characters, one male and one female, and search deviantArt for fan and pro pictures of those characters. We’ll choose Captain America and Wonder Woman, as they’re both high profile, well known characters with a fairly similar theme to them. I think that will give us a good idea of the general trends here, the way that fans look at those characters.
So…let’s do a search for Captain America, and to save you time, just click the link here, scroll down the first page and then come back to me.
Now, I’m aware that the search results will change with time, but at the time of writing the only picture that in any way presents Captain America in a state of undress is this picture. I think it’s fair to say that given the reactions of the surrounding characters Cap is being presented as a sexy man to be ogled here. But it’s pretty tastefully done, it’s an in-character moment, Cap’s been injured and is receiving treatment. Every other picture on that first page of results presents Cap as a heroic figure, being a hero, flinging his shield, or just standing there being epic. Just Cap being Cap.
Next, let’s do a search for Wonder Woman, once again just click the link here, scroll down the page and then come back.
Again, the search results will change over time, but I count at least fifteen pictures where Wonder Woman is either not fully clothed (and let’s leave aside the scantiness of her regular costume anyway), naked or in a sexual situation. They range from pretty tasteful pics like this, to…this. I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves here, and the contrast with the results for Captain America are fairly stark.
Is there anything intrinsically wrong with this? I don’t know. People can draw what the hell they like as far as I’m concerned, and I’m definitely not an advocate of censorship. However, what I think it does do is show up the lie that women view male characters in the same way that men view female characters. I also think that we often see this representation of female characters cross over from fan art and into professional work…this out of character sexualisation of female characters. Take this Power Girl picture by Greg Horn, for example, or this Catwoman piece by the same artist.
You know, there are a lot of great representations of woman in comics. There are some amazing artists who draw women beautifully…who draw female heroes as powerful, strong, confident women…who can be sexy without being “objects.” And, you know, I honestly think that the vast majority of artists working in comics are not consciously drawing women in a sexualised way - that’s just the way women are drawn in comics. But…it doesn’t have to be.
I’m also aware that if you flicked through a copy of Hero: 9 to 5 you might find it a bit hypocritical of me to be saying any of this. In my defence I would simply encourage you to actually read the book.
Something I wrote quite a while ago, just thought it was worth bringing it back.
Kissed properly? My first girlfriend in secondary school (the first time we dated). She was hosting a party at her grans house. One of the more obnoxious lads announced that he’d heard a rumour that I liked her. At which point I was pounced on by all of her female friends demanding to know if it was true and if I would go out with her. And so I asked her out, and we started dating.
There was a game of spin the bottle. We kissed. Due to how nice the kiss was, and me being the least smooth quiet/nerdy kid ever - I said something stupid when she asked what the kiss was like. She cried. I comforted her, and then we dated for about two years.
A boring person with an interesting life… go on, ask you know you want to :P
Trying to update my gallery on the iPad for this weekend… iTunes decides to crash, and for some stupid reason also remove most of the apps from my iPad, and doesn’t transfer anything onto it.
its still benedict so i win
Pretty damn much.
erm…
