The soft-porn treatment of women in comics is getting a little old for me.
Our superheroines are generally quite athletic, so why are their boobs so big? Women with low amounts of body fat, as a rule, have small breasts. Our heroines can’t all have implants, can they?
And If they have such big boobs, what are these women doing without any sportsbras?! With all the punching, running and jumping these women do, they’re lucky those girls even stay in their costumes. And speaking of costumes, that’s how I know that they aren’t wearing any support. Given how visible the nipples are through that fabric, you’d think we’d be able to see not jsut the sprotsbra thickness, but the implant scars as well.
And while we’re still on the subject, could someone please show these artists a picture of what tight-fitting stretch fabrics look like on a female torso? Hint: the fabric doesn’t magically recess into the cleavage, to create that painted-on look.
I understand all about the notion of artistic exaggeration for the sake of selling to the target market, and this post is a little tongue-in-cheek, anyway. I just keep hoping that the artists might occaisionally want to aspire for something beyond pure stimulation.
I realize this isn’t a topic which I imagine I’ll get a lot of support on. (no pun intended) This was just something I wanted to get off my chest. (pun fully intended).
Honestly, the oversized breasts aren’t the largest error in comic women–just the most obvious. Some women actually do have breasts that large. Waists are where the probelm really is; most of these women do not have room for intestines! How do they digest food? Why don’t they snap in half?
Unless…
…their intestines have been misplaced, and causing the previously noted breast enlargement!
This is one of the things which disgusted me about how Deodato and John Byrne drew Wonder Woman. In their runs which went from 89-135, both of them gave her HUGE tits, a tiny waist, and a wonder thong.
Well, the men are even more exaggerated. Your typical super hero looks like he grew up in Golds Gym on a steroid diet. Biceps bigger than the guys head, tiny little waists that a gymnast would envy, so much muscle definition that they look as if they`re ready to explode.
Even when a hero is asleep or unconscious, every muscle is taut to the breaking point, veins bulging like ropes, and every detail shows.
What bugs me most is that even sorcerors and mystics look like they spend four hours a day in the weight room.
And if they don`t stop clenching their teeth in every other panel, their jaws are going to lock up.
I’ve noticed that in comics women’s nipples aren’t just visible through the spandex they usually wear, but through almost any material, from cotton to metal chestplate. Wear a bar, you hippies.
There were some comic artists (Neal Adams, for instance) who knew how to draw sexy women so it didn’t look like someone with alien appendages attached to their chest. However, it was quickly found that a knowledge of anatomy didn’t matter, since the audience (teenage boys) had no real clue as to what a woman looked like (other than noticing their knockers).
Do you really think teenaged boys dont know what women look like? Come on, theres this thing called porn that has been around forever. The fact that adolescents enjoy looking at drawings that exaggerate womens bodies doesnt mean they dont know theyre exaggerated.
Its like saying the millions of women who gaze longingly at those trashy romance paperbacks with Fabio on the cover dont know what real men look like. People have imaginations, they like fantasy and it`s not going to change.
What irritates me is only hearing one side. Women have their Harlequin books with the super handsome suitor smirking at the perfect little heroine in her white nightgown, hair blowing in the wind.
Neal Adams drew the best picture of a woman ever seen in comics, at least to my hormone-crazed fifteen-year-old mind.
It was just a single panel in a Batman vs Two-Face comic, showing Two-Face menacing a parade queen riding on a float; no gravity-defying unreality, just a fairly realistic depiction of a (terrified) large-bosomed woman, leaning slightly to one side… But holy moley, the image is still with me today. What an artist.
The depictions of men are at least plausible, given that they’re superheroes. A hero is really strong, of course, so draw him as an exaggeration of a really strong man. Biceps the size of a normal man’s head would presumably come in handy in a fight.
But what the heck advantage is Wonder Woman supposed to get from having half her body mass in her mammaries? Is she supposed to use them like bolas or something?
Just once, it’d be nice to have a post-pubescent superheroine who isn’t a sex symbol.
Of all the mega-boobed babes in The New Teen Titans, the one Georges Perez always managed to make sexiest (to me) was Raven. She with the neck-to-the-floor coverage and (for comics) modest-sized chest.
I think it was the way he had to draw her eyes, given that they were in shadow.
the size and pointiness of the breasts in most comic books seem to suggest that they’re used for weapons. “hey, is it cold in here, or do you have peas–” “bam!” “my eye! my eye!”
i never really read comics though, so i don’t know if that’s the exact dialogue.
The exaggeration of male as well as female characteristics doesnt have anything to do with usefulness in a fight. Superman could be built like Pee Wee Herman and still be able to throw a car into orbit. The huge, over defined muscles on the men and the huge, over defined breasts on the women are part of the same concept. Its equally a fantasy.
Of course, there may be some underlying homo erotic context in all these sinewy giants in skintight suits. On the other, many female comic book artists (Coleen Doran, Wendy Pini, Trina Robbins) drew men as slender, narrow shouldered androgynous creatures with a wispy mustache or something to indicate they were male. There`s a lot of projection going on.
The exaggeration of male as well as female characteristics doesnt have anything to do with usefulness in a fight. Superman could be built like Pee Wee Herman and still be able to throw a car into orbit. The huge, over defined muscles on the men and the huge, over defined breasts on the women are part of the same concept. Its equally a fantasy.
Of course, there may be some underlying homo erotic context in all these sinewy giants in skintight suits. On the other, many female comic book artists (Coleen Doran, Wendy Pini, Trina Robbins) drew men as slender, narrow shouldered androgynous creatures with a wispy mustache or something to indicate they were male. There`s a lot of projection going on.
You know how, in the human brain, more areas are given over to certain parts of the body than their physical size would suggest? So the hands, eyes, tongue etc are huge, while the stomach is tiny. I suggest that something similar is going on with comic book drawings - the parts the artists look at most get enlarged in the drawing.
Actually, I’m not seriously suggesting that, I think it’s just that most men like big breasts, and who can blame them? So do I! Plus, of course, they are creating the perfect person, with exagerations of their gender (for either gender).
In practical terms, perhaps Wonderwoman et al have Superboobs™, which don’t need support. They can also use them to foil the bad guys, a la Felicity Shagwell in Austin Powers 2. Plus, huge boobs help in maintaining these superheroes’ secret identities, because no man would ever be able to say what their faces looked like.
You don’t need mammoth breasts to make a woman look sexy. Take a look at Black Canary’s entrance in GL/GA #84. It has never been surpassed as far as pure sexiness is concerned.
