Comic Genesis Forums

Being fond to the voluptuous beauties fetaured on nearly every paperback cover ever painted by Frank Frazetta I have to say, give me tits and ass by the truckload or give me death. If anything, zaftig women are as underrepresented in comics as skinny ones.

As to comics' obligation to future generations - - meh. I think comics are capable of tackling weightier issues that body image insecurities - - if they want to. I like entertainment - - guns, monsters, aliens, boobs. I read comics to escape from the day to day world, not to be slapped in the face with politically correct casting calls.

Also, Rocknjosie, it seems you are trying to say the unrealistic body images foisted on boys aren't as bad because boys were never beaten, raped, or killed because someone thought of them as an object? Tell that to the families of John Wayne Gacy's victims. People that do that sort of thing do it because, regardless of the gender of their victims, they perceive people as objects. It certainly wasn't because of something they saw in a comic.

Well, to be fair, it's far more common for women to be objectified by men than the other way around. You're correct, though, that gender doesn't matter when determining whether it's right to objectify someone or not. It never is.

Maybe that's the thing. Maybe it's better to throw some cheesecake when people, and not sex objects, are being portrayed. With all things, balance, I suppose.

wishmaster wrote:Also, Rocknjosie, it seems you are trying to say the unrealistic body images foisted on boys aren't as bad because boys were never beaten, raped, or killed because someone thought of them as an object? Tell that to the families of John Wayne Gacy's victims. People that do that sort of thing do it because, regardless of the gender of their victims, they perceive people as objects. It certainly wasn't because of something they saw in a comic.

No, I'm fully aware that the boxes boys are put in by words (fag, sissy, queer) are just as bad as the boxes girls are put in by images. And I'm also aware that images box boys too and words box girls too.
But the US department of justice reports that a woman is raped every two minutes.
I'm not saying media, and specific to this arguement, comics are to blame. But habitually seeing these idealized versions of women and men surely doesn't help.
Also the way people keep talking about the need to escape throughout this thread really scares me, but this is more an issue with how I see the world versus how others do, way too subjective for me to base a discussion around.
Just remember the world is what you make of it. I'm glad you hit the comics instead of downing a six pack, but *i think* you shouldn't have to do either.

Rocknjosie wrote:But the US department of justice reports that a woman is raped every two minutes.

I'm not saying that boys get raped as often as girls, I also believe that girls are molested and raped much more often than boys are, but also keep in mind, boys are alot less likely to report it...

Everytime I read a statistic like that though, it makes me 1. hate my gender just a little bit more, and 2. reminds me about how I think it might be a good idea to nuke this whole damn piece of rock out of existence.

yeahduff wrote:Well, to be fair, it's far more common for women to be objectified by men than the other way around. You're correct, though, that gender doesn't matter when determining whether it's right to objectify someone or not. It never is.

Perhaps it is that men are more usually the "objectifiers" (for lack of a better word) because their arousal triggers are more visually oriented. That's what you do when you look at something, you just see the object, the packaging. It's part of the hardwiring.

yeahduff wrote: Maybe that's the thing. Maybe it's better to throw some cheesecake when people, and not sex objects, are being portrayed. With all things, balance, I suppose.

For my own part, when it comes to entertainment I sometimes like to have my baser appetites appealed to. Not necessarily wallowed in, but a little titilation, just to add some spice. In keeping with my love of Frazetta covered paperbacks, I like Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's pretty straight forward, romanticized stuff, but he's also one of the most widely published authors in the world because it's entertaining; men are heroic, women are beautiful, evil subhuman things are... evil, lurid sexual subtexts abound. Tarzan (in spite of being British) is as American as apple pie, but there's some pretty kinky stuff going on in between the pages. A lot of this was written over 80 years ago, but it's still an accurate reflection of the culture that spawned it.

Granted, we were talking about comics not books, but I think what we're discussing touches on all aspects of entertainment to one degree or another.

Well, I am definitely upset about the supermodel mold that has been inforced to society through films, TV, supermodel cults etc. It doesn't go just for the body line and breasts, frankly, how many lead actresses can you name, that are not pretty as if they just came out of plastic surgeon? It's not only grating, it's a creation of one plastic, fake world and it takes just a bit of thinking clearly to see through that mask.
Escapism has nothing to do with it, it is supposed to let you project to a characters and then live through the story together with them. But when a character looks like a doll more than like human, you can't project to her, and it's not supposed to let you do that. Instead, it puts the character to a pedestal where you're supposed to worship him/her. That's the purpose of pop culture nowadays, to produce objects of worshiping.

But that doesn't neccesarity have to do with comics. For one, proportions are a bit skewed in comics as a standard, even in realistically drawn comics, heads are a bit larger than in nature. I think that breast size usually follows head-size so breasts are somewhat larger compared to the body too.
It depends on a kind of the comic, art is closely related to the story, so if you're making a realistic story, then putting a large number of big-breasted women is ridiculous. I'm not talking just of real-life comics, I am talking of any comic where you intend to make us believe in characters, convince us that they are real people. I'm talking about everything that is not intentionally campy, parody or a throwback to some early work of pop culture. Wherever you are actually trying to make reader emotionally involved, unrealistic proportions get in a way, grate and attract a kind of audience that doesn't give a damn what the comic is about.
See, original Marvel comics. Nowadays, we see them as silly and campy, but back when they were created little of their creators realised that what they were working on was kitsch. In fact, with titles like X-man and such, they were proudly thinking that they were adding a new dose of realism through deeper characterisation and dynamic relationships among characters. 'Course, none of those goals were achieved because writer sucked. But it didn't help that they were drawing characters as such that no reader would believe in them.
Of course, there are those other cases where disproportionate bodies go with the script, those cases where there's a certain self-awareness of that, often satirical nature, implemented in the story. There is a good reason why females with huge knockers are best for playing heroines in spoofs and farces. I for one love Tex Avory's 40ies cartoons that were pushing limits of 'naughtiness' at that time. I mean, they had a Red Riding Hood, properly equipped, doing a striptease, it was all so exagerated that you'd hardly miss why it was important that her body proportions are such.
But that's a different thing. Very often I see in a comic that the artist doesn't actually seem to be aware that not all women have cup size four. Perhaps it comes from studying anatomy from porno magazines, or perhaps they never had a girlfriend, or maybe they don't give a hack about realistically portraying the world around it, not as much as to give a little plausibility to what they draw.

yeahduff wrote: Maybe that's the thing. Maybe it's better to throw some cheesecake when people, and not sex objects, are being portrayed. With all things, balance, I suppose.

Yep. I like to see nicely rendered sex scene as much as the next guy. The problem is, if the author didn't put enough effort in making them characters before that scene, and if the sex scene is leaveing stronger impression than the rest of the comic, then we get the feeling that the sex scene was the whole purpose. It might be a nice read but it doesn't make particulary good comic.

When we look at someone, what the brain focusses on are the deviations from a "normal" human template. That is to say, what you see if how people are different.

However, lines on paper aren't people to to make them recognisable and distinct, you exagerate those deviations. Characature uses the same principle.

As long as it isn't actually photo-realistic, an accurate drawing of, say, Prince Charles is much harder to recognise than a characature for this reason.

- Joel Fagin

Rocknjosie wrote:But the US department of justice reports that a woman is raped every two minutes.

If this is your main concern wouldn't a protest against violence be more appropriate? Rape is generally considered an act of violence. The objectification process necessary to sexually assault someone is the same kind required to kill someone. I'm not trying to diminish the tragedy of something like rape, but where there is life, there is hope. You can pick up the pieces. When you're dead, you're dead.

Rocknjosie wrote: I'm not saying media, and specific to this arguement, comics are to blame. But habitually seeing these idealized versions of women and men surely doesn't help.

But I don't see how it hurts either. Ultimately, people are responsible for their own actions. I saw a movie about arsonists, but I never set a house on fire. I've seen crime movies by the score, but I've never robbed a bank. Why should others be denied the entertainment they enjoy best because someone else has a behavior control problem?

Rocknjosie wrote: Also the way people keep talking about the need to escape throughout this thread really scares me, but this is more an issue with how I see the world versus how others do, way too subjective for me to base a discussion around.

I'm sure you've already noticed, but it's pretty scary out there. Of course people want to escape. If it weren't for that fact a lot of creative folks would be out of business. My eyes are wide open to what's going on in the world. I think we can all be forgiven for not thinking about it every waking hour of the day.

Rocknjosie wrote: Just remember the world is what you make of it. I'm glad you hit the comics instead of downing a six pack, but *i think* you shouldn't have to do either.

I do both and love it.

Um... it's a nice, art-related subject... let's not make it an arguement about big legal and moral issues again...

Well for the record i usually enjoy being "objectified" and i'm sure a lot of people do. Or they wouldn't work so much on their image, they wouldn't dress the way they do, talk, gesture the way they do.
Just take a look around this forum and the threads (well most communities are the same to be fair) again, k? Because artist-types are very visual they're more likely to do it i think, they're just a bit more original in what they like sometimes.. Nothing REALLY wrong with it as long as you can keep a fair view at the back of your mind.

And just because your hero dosen't have big boobs it dosen't mean you don't do it. Is he/she sexy to you ? What you find attractive in others even if that means skinny depressed and brooding or round outgoing and lovable ? You're doing it too you just have different tastes..

---

Right back to topic... i think style should work with the theme and the story. I like realistic comics personally, but it wouldn't fit with a gag comic.
Fantasy or superhero comics also often work better with idealised/exagerated version of the body, nothing wrong with that because their theme is not that realistic either, and are more geared towards an "escapist" crowd. They're stereotype-heavy so having problems with this is rather silly.

I'm with those that think there's a little too much of a good thing in most of this stuff. Bouncing Swedish Funbags are all well and good, but let's be honest, any more than a handful is a waste, eh?

As for the body image, I'm in agreeance with Josie. They're getting younger and younger, these minds that are being washed into believing (intended or not, it's still happening) that they're body image is all wrong. Just this week on the news Down Here there was a report of two kindergarten aged kids, that's right, not yet four years old, being officially labelled in documentation as being obese. If these two kids walked down the street, you'd think they looked quite healthy. In fact, one of them if anything looked like there was a chance she'd disappear if she turned sideways. Bloody ridiculous putting something like that on a kid before she's finished her fourth year.

I know Australia's got the second largest obesity problem in the Western World, but there is a limit, and it's not labelling the healthy kids, it's getting the real ones out there exercising a bit more and away from the telly that needs to be focused on.

I have a fairly major female adult character, and she's proportionate as far as the style of the strip goes. Everything is about the right general size, as I try to achieve in all of my characters, the ears of the children excluded. While she may look proportionately perfect though (well, as close as can really be, eh?), it's not fanservice of any sort. She's never been drawn without her long jacket. Dunno why, but it's probably because that's not what the character's about, and the jacket is part of the character.

All in all then...um...yeah, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing. We may all like a bit of Bouncing Swedish Funbags, but for a healthier diet we need a lot more of the Good Old Fibre of the trim, average sort of sheila.

There. I said the word sheila. You can tell I'm an ocker Aussie, eh?

*Shrug*...comics are fantasy. The physiques of a lot of comic characters are no more realistic than the notion of a man who can fly and leap tall buildings in a single bound, and that's fine with me.

I likes to draw the legs long and the boobies perky and may god have mercy on anyone who'd tell me to do otherwise.

Although on the subject of breasts, small breasts are a lot more challenging to draw than big bubble breasts.

Joel Fagin wrote:However, lines on paper aren't people to to make them recognisable and distinct, you exagerate those deviations. Characature uses the same principle.

I agree with Joel. Unless a comic is photo-realistic, it has to use artistic shortcuts, and characature is one of those shortcuts. Instead of drawing a photo-realistically sexy woman, you draw her with exaggerated proportions and the readers will immediately understand a facet of the character.

Yes, that's objectification -- boiling down people into a shorthand representation of their physical attributes. But it's a common and necessary artistic trick.

I know that no one is going to read Vapor Lock and think "Man! I wish I had a body like (Insert Character of Choice)! I'm so ugly..." anymore than they'll think "I wish I had hair like (ICCoC)!" I have to believe that people will be able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy and what works in both (plus, not even my wife reads my comic ).

I have had characters who do not fall into that perfect body style, though my main characters are in generally good shape (Cal, the one who most closely represents my point of view, and Elise are both short, though, so they aren't all tall!). For me, the characters are based on people I know (amalgamations of my perceptions of them) and for some of the characterizations to work (though I'm sure I miss the mark on separating them from a generic often) they need to be somewhat attractive because most of the people they've come from were and that shaped their attitudes (for better or worse).

I don't know that we can entirely shirk responsibility, though I think ours is less than that of people who make tv shows and movies and magazines, but eventually it comes down to whether the reader is able to accept what they are versus what they're being shown. I'd like to be buff and have great hair and maybe some telekinesis or somthing, but instead I'm average height, out of shape and I'm barely kinetic in the normal sense.

Hmmm....
I do a lot of photo-referencing in my comic these days, mainly because my early comics looked like primitive crap, and it's one way to improve....

Originally, Lorelei, the alter ego for my character, was a little dowdier looking. Many mentally retarded people are often overweight or skinny, and I originally pictured Lorelei looking a little skinny, a llot like the younger Cissy Spacek, say around Coal Miner's Daughter or so....although that was more in my mind's eye than the drawing...and part of the time she's Mindmistress. Mindmistress I've ALWAYS pictured as someone along the lines of Jennifer Connoley(sp?) or Liv Tyler. (Currently, Liv Tyler is my main "model" for MM, just as Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was the artistic model for Superman in Shuster's mind's eye, or the young Fred McMurray was the artistic model for the original Captain Marvel)...

But of course, Liv Tyler is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful women on Earth. So sometimes THAT bugs me. But oddly enough, though MM is not really sexually interested in anyone, I have the feeling that she likes to look good, out of self-respect of her own image. (Her mythic model, Athena, despite her wisdom, was vain enough to compete with Hera and Aphrodite herself as "the fairest of them all" in the Judgement of Paris, which led to the Trojan War.) That MM works out, both for self-defense reasons and bodyshaping reasons, and since Lorelei and MM share a body, that Lorelei would in turn get better looking.

And of course, MY competition is the mainstream superhero comic more than other webcomics. I do flatter myself that my proportions, at least laterly, are closer to normal than most superhero comics, where Storm or Wonder Woman or Catwoman can have breasts bigger than their heads, or Colossus or Superman can have biceps the size of most men's chests....

(Other photoreferencing I do: I use Winona Rider as Vicki's model, the older Sean Connery for Lorelei's father, albeit with red hair, Kenneth Branagh (sp?) for Tidal Wave in the current storyline, Danny Glover for Ulysses Shore, and the character Sharktooth I've just introduced is artistically modeled on Annie Lennox.)

Still, I feel compared to a lot of superhero comics, the proportions are not as exagerrated as most---which is doubtless why I get less visits than I might. *Grin*---Al

i intentionally made all the characters in my comic beautiful (well in my opinion) just for the fact that they're so damn ugly on the inside.
it's better to use realistic proportions i tend to see in realistic storytelling
say like comics like "optic nerve" or works of daniel clowes.
it's most likely a vain thing where comics are used as escapism where
things seem much better but there are tons of comics that are marvelous and feature unflattering characters, but beautiful artwork and fantastic writing.
I enjoy both types, yes, but i wouldn't want to promote negative body image projection. Once i got a complaint from a girl who said a lot of your girls have
huge breasts, and i was like, well as unbelievable as it sound there are girls out there with breasts, and i would like to say it wasn't for exploitation,
but that's one of the draws in my comic. so to balance it, one of my characters who has a nicely shaped chest has a sister who wears and a-cup.
but she's still beautiful, ah well . . .

i like big butts anyways.

I draw what I want, when I want, how I want. If I want to make the characters with big boobs I will. I don't really care to make it different from everything else, or conform to anything else. I draw it because I want to draw it, I don't give a damn if you think otherwise.

Hi I am K-Dawg and that was my response. *bows*