Objectification of Women in Comics

[ScroTim]

i began reading comic books in 1977 when my oldest brother was collecting the large conan books done by BWS and john buscema. the main draw of those books was not only the story of howard's conan the barbarian brought to vivid black and white gore-laden detail, but the half nakedness of every single female character in them. the same era that brought us heavy metal magazine and EPIC! what i would say was different was that the art then was more "classical."

the demographic of the comic book has always been nerdy teenage boys and one way to keep nerdy teenage boys buying your books every month is to draw women like pinups in them. you see this throughout the history of comic books. hell, look at what'shername from li'l abner.

something shifted in the 70s and the comic book industry felt released to do a lot more with both sex and violence, and so it got gratuitous in the 80s and 90s and still continues to this day. it's really what sells the books. look back on any drawing by john byrne in the 80s and the women are equally as disproportionate and the muscles on the men equally out of whack. while i agree with you that it's completely ridiculous, it's pretty much been standard industry practice since the beginning.

wertham's book always makes me laugh, jzn. i read it twice because the first time i thought it was someone making a joke freud book for the industry.

[Shinhakkaider]

More than the nudity and the sex I think that this is more worrisome.

[jenskot]

More than the nudity and the sex I think that this is more worrisome.

Yeah, that's pretty fucked!

That all being said, all these issues are very artist / writer specific. I collect plenty of mainstream comics where this is not an issue. But I know for a fact that this happens all the time. A lot of artists I've met are super horny guys.

[mumblethrax]

This is why I only read Groo.

[ScroTim]

that list is awesome Shinhakkaider. i like how jim shooter blames it on "lame writing."

i hypothesis that what's bothering James really is that superhero books are so simple and limited that they pander to that kind of soap opera drama that gets tedious after awhile. there are a lot of books out there these days, moreso now than i've ever seen before in fact, that are trying to end this kind of idiotic stereotype of the female archetype. of course, they aren't mainstream books and few of them are "hero books."

i still pick up things from time to time, but i haven't picked up a superhero story for a long time.

[Shinhakkaider]

More than the nudity and the sex I think that this is more worrisome.

Yeah, that's pretty fucked!

That all being said, all these issues are very artist / writer specific. I collect plenty of mainstream comics where this is not an issue. But I know for a fact that this happens all the time. A lot of artists I've met are super horny guys.

This is true. I mean I love Frank Cho's art, he has a talent for drawing the female figure but he's so obviously a horn dog.

[avocadosammich]

Stripping away the objectification term, the real complaint here is that the women are drawn too sexy.

Wow, thank god you are here to tell people what their real complaints are. God forbid something is actually sexist in nerd world.

[James]

I'm looking at the last few books that I bought, oh maybe less than a week ago. . . I'm looking at these two books and I'm thinking that someone looking at them would have to be REALLY reaching to say that this stuff offends thier senses. I won't begrudge them though, if you find something offensive about the women here then fine. I don't.

Shinhakkaider, I haven't seen those, and from what you're describing I'm not sure I would object either. Like I said, I think a bit of voluptuous women in skin-tight suits comes with the territory, and I don't object to that.

But about half a dozen of the DC comics of the 20 or so from last week have a a disconcertingly large number of female characters flashing nipple-less cleavage at every opportunity, as if the artist is incapable of, or unwilling to, depict women any other way. This includes a heavily promoted, prestige hardback reintroduction of Wonder Woman. "Hey, ladies, here's a character you may have really enjoyed growing up! Get ready, we're trying to make the character accessible to new readers by trimming her down to her essentials: breasts like you wouldn't believe."

[Adjamemnon]

I used to like comics.

Oh no you didn't. You looked down on mainstream stuff, putting up your nose, reading only Vertigo and thinking that was a little too normal for you.

[bar_sinister]

Not true! I loved X-Men! (Until Liefield got ahold of it).

Look, you guys can rake me over the coals if you want, but I find discussions of individual panels and whatever excuses you find for the hyper-sexualized depiction of the character pretty useless. I honestly don't read comics for the porn. I can look at porn for that. What I object to is the supposed purpose of the comics (a story about people with super-human powers) is not the true purpose of the comics (an excuse to ogle unrealistically-proportioned women). Maybe I'm naive, but that gets to the heart of why I don't like mainstream comics.