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Post by Brainstem on Sept 10, 2012 15:31:58 GMT -5
I know there have to be some out there... any examples that come to mind? I was wearing my Marvel shirt today when a friend pointed out Spider Woman and how porny she looks on the shirt. The only person that comes to mind is Shadowcat.
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 15:34:57 GMT -5
I would argue that they've all been fanservice at some point, including Shadowcat.
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Post by takewithfood on Sept 10, 2012 16:07:58 GMT -5
Gertrude Yorkes, though I think one or two artists did skinny her up a little. I'm willing to wager that this was mostly because they have zero experience in drawing anything other than tits-on-a-stick figures.
So much love for Adrian Alphona for making Gert. I got to meet him once, and he's the nicest guy.
~TWF
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Post by Beacon on Sept 10, 2012 16:21:59 GMT -5
Gert from Runaways is a rare case where she didn’t live long enough for later creative teams to forget that she’s a teenage girl and not a supermodel or porn star. The only person that comes to mind is Shadowcat. You know Greg Land draws Kitty all the time, right? You don’t get much more “porny” than an artist who uses it for photo reference.
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Post by Ushima911 on Sept 10, 2012 16:35:39 GMT -5
Big Bertha? Edit: wait, no..some people are super into that. Never mind then..
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Post by Beacon on Sept 10, 2012 16:44:53 GMT -5
Most of the X-Women fall into that trap. Officially characters like Rogue are supposed to barely be out of their teens but she’s developed very well for someone who spent most of her youth living as a fugitive. Fans called Jubilee “Boobilee” when she was in New Warriors because she went from a realistically proportioned Asian girl to someone who looks like she overdid it with her first set of implants. A lot of newer generation X-Men like Hope and Pixie are supposed to be 13-15 but you’d never know it from looking at the way they’re drawn now.
Shortly before the DC reboot the Dodsons were doing smoking hot versions of Etta Candy. For those that don’t know, she was Wonder Woman’s morbidly obese friend from the Golden Age.
And don’t get me started on Amanda Waller.
Edit: Big Bertha is a supermodel in her civilian ID. You DO NOT want to know how she loses the extra mass.
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 17:01:26 GMT -5
The problem with this entire discussion, IMO, is that it completely ignores the fact that ALL comic book characters are visually idealized. Aunt May has been changed many times over the years to match the then-current vision of what a kindly old lady looks like.
"But Tedd, that's not sexual."
Not the point. Most heroes are healthy young people, and they're drawn as idealized healthy young people. I would argue that there have been periods when characters like Wanda Van Dyne/Pym (for instance) have been drawn as more matronly, just as there have been periods when their male counterparts like Reed Richards and Hank Pym have been drawn as equally middle aged and imperfect.
Even characters who are supposed to be "ugly" are drawn in an idealized fashion, with very particular proportions, etc.
The only reason this ever comes up is because the fanbase of comics is traditionally young males. Nobody talks about "fanservice" when discussing soap operas, but look at the guys in those shows. It's a double standard.
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Post by Brainstem on Sept 10, 2012 17:29:42 GMT -5
I do agree with you, WK; the characters are meant to be healthy, athletic, young people, so they're naturally going to be slim and muscular. But when you have costumes like this running around, you kind of skirt past the "athletic young people" issue. Thinking about it, X-Men Evolution seemed to do a good job of not making any of the characters appeal to fanservice. But, the gist I'm getting is that, the longer a character exists, the closer the probability of her not becoming fanservice (in an official print, mind you, not through fan art) gets to be about zero?
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 17:31:55 GMT -5
I don't find that costume any more revealing than what the men wear. *shrugs*
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Post by Brainstem on Sept 10, 2012 17:41:07 GMT -5
The way the breasts are highlighted, the inclusion of a belly-button as though the costume isn't actually there, the way the shading also implies that there isn't actually a costume... the whole thing is based around implying there aren't any clothes to get around the fact that there are. It's comparable to a male costume that had shading all around the crotch to, not only show a bulge, but the shape and size of the hero's... sidekick. If you compare it to this image of Spider-Man, the difference in sexualization is pretty present. Additionally, this picture of a torn Spider-Man; how do you think it would differ if it were a picture of Spider-Woman or any other super heroine? Granted, I just picked images to demonstrate my case, so by all means present something that's more sympathetic to your perspective. The bias is pretty evident from my side and I didn't do a very thorough image search.
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Post by Brainstem on Sept 10, 2012 17:43:34 GMT -5
And note that I'm not faulting the comic books for what they're doing; they know their demographic and they're targeting it pretty directly and pretty well. It's just a matter of observation.
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 10, 2012 17:47:09 GMT -5
See, you look at that and see fanservice... I look at that and wonder what kind of magical cloth can be made to perfectly sit around a breast like that.
Think about it.
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Post by Brainstem on Sept 10, 2012 17:49:50 GMT -5
WK, are you coming out?
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Post by roxolid on Sept 10, 2012 17:53:37 GMT -5
Wasn't the stand in Captain Britain (Kelsey Leigh?) reasonably proportioned, and scarred under her mask? Saying that, she's more or less a 'forgotten character' now who'll turn up in the occasional yearly crossover thing and die, then be resurrected when everything gets ret-conned, so it probably doesn't count.
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Post by takewithfood on Sept 10, 2012 18:07:53 GMT -5
Men and women are both drawn in ridiculous fashion in comics. I love picking on the way Magneto is drawn as a bodybuilder. Dude is like 200 years old and has a body that would send Conan the Barbarian into a Haagen Dazs-fueled depression. If there's inequality here, large parts of it have to do with the fact that muscles are often helpful to superheroes.. for the most part, enormous breasts are not. And I find that the success of a female character, financially speaking, is much more dependent on her sex appeal than her powers or her story or whatever, as compared to guys. I think people are more likely to react positively to a character like Thing than his theoretical distaff counterpart (does he have one?). Oh, and least fanservicey female comic character ever?: ~TWF
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