A pinup image. This is more typical of the comic book’s contents:
http://www.basementcomics.com/gallery/budd/BR39.jpg
Other images in the gallery may be NSFW, so browse at your peril, but here’s a safe llink to the gallery, which mostly consists of pinup images designed to promote the comics.
Eh. I think most guys have an idea there’s a difference between the real world and what you read in comics. They’re aware that most of the women they meet won’t look like Powergirl, just as they’re aware that they don’t look like Superman.
I didn’t say they were seekng them out as a full-time substitute for the real world, just that they remembered it as a haven from adult concerns. Gray-scale morality, women who might be sexually interested in you but might not, that sort of thing. And msot of the activities you list do serve as an escape from the real world, for those who enjoy them, for the duration that they enjoy them. That’s the way most people enjoy them, and I’m sure that’s the way people enjoy comics. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We get our noses rubbed in the fact that bad guys win a lot of the time every time we go to work or listen to/read/watch the news. Nothing wrong with taking a break from it every so often.
Yes, those guys who are interested in sexy women. There’s a name for them. What is it? Ummm … heterosexuals, that’s what they call them. Pathetic heterosexual bastards! What’s wrong with them? Liking sexy women and all! They should be ashamed!
Turn in your man card, now.
Unless maybe she’s supposed to be a pickpocket who relies on “distractions.”
Sailboat
If you want to keep the comics in the realm of young males who probably have no significant romantic contact with females then your arguments have merit. If we focus only on sexual based comics than your arguments would have merit.
However, there are plenty of female (myself included) and enlightened male readers who desire to see women in non-sexually based comics portrayed less as sex objects and more as women. I find overly fantastical sexualized female characters distracting and obnoxious and I know I am not the only one.
Oh, and for why manga has such a heavy female readership, there are several factors. A lot of this comes from the fact that some of the most popular manga are written by women.
More realistically drawn females. While there are some bad exaggerations even in brands which are made for and by women, it is difficult to find the dramatic exaggerations so prevalent in American comics unless you stick to certain genres.
Strong female characters. In American comics, female characters are often limited or restricted by their femaleness in subtle ways. It is difficult to find a female character in American comics that doesn’t also come across as a sex object. I have several female character favorites within American comics yet it still pisses me off the way they are portrayed sometimes. I notice less of this in manga. A female can be strong and equal with her male counterparts without also being a sex object.
More interpersonal development. In general (I know a lot of women who go against this) women prefer a higher level of personal development of the characters. There are many manga which feature absolutely no fighting and are all about relationships and the conflicts within them. It’s been a while since I worked in a comic book shop and was able to see the master lists of comics published in the states, but since most of the comic book stores I go in still have comics mostly focused on Fighters, I assume that that still makes up a disproportional amount of the total comics published.
I’m not so sure this is the case since kids haven’t been the main demographic for comic book buyers for a while Comics are expensive, difficult to follow, and they can only be found in specialist stores (for the most part), though recently comic book companies have found some success with graphic novels being sold at more maintream stores like Barnes & Noble. What I’m getting at is that comics haven’t been “innocent” for quite a while now and comics have not been the realm of the preadolescent for quite a while now.
Curse me for thinking women deserve to be treated with respect. What kind of a crappy man does that make me?
Marc
Sorry, hit the wrong button.
This appeal to women doesn’t have to alienate men. I used to lend out my manga and anime to friends and family members back when I was really into it and there were actually more men that were interested in the comics than women at that time although based on what I see at anime cons now, the numbers are now more equal.
The addition of manga to comic book shops did wonders for us female readers. I’ve been into comics since about 1994 and I was usually the only female in a comic book store whenever I went into one. I took a job in one about the time that anime and manga started coming over and we began to get more and more female customers. When it was mostly male, I encountered a couple of problems. There would be the ones who refused to believe I could know anything about comics or actually be into comics because I was female. And then they were those who were interested in me because I was interested in comics and would follow me around or ask me out despite the fact that I had politely explained I wasn’t interested.
Furthermore, a lot of male comic book readers can be kinda hostile about their favorite comics. For example, a lot of my comic book friends also play DnD. I play it with a very relaxed group mostly composed of women who favor character development and critical thinking over fighting skills and a strict followance of rules. I mentioned to one of my comic friends that I was building a Rogue/Bard at level 3 and he went off on how I shouldn’t be able to do that until level 8. He also was upset when he saw a guy dressed as Flash who knew little about the character.
Finally, as a bisexual I enjoy looking at attractive women in scanty clothes. However, I find grotesque proportions incredibly unattractive and women fighting in movement restricting clothing just makes me laugh at the writers.
It seems like a lot of these complaints are about the “in your face” nature of the sexiness. If I want to notice that the characters are sexy, I can do that without a giant ass shot in the foreground of the panel. (Cho!)
That is, they’re not asking for comics to lack sex, but for the sex not to get in the way of their enjoyment of the rest of the comic. Sexiness doesn’t have to be distracting or obviously put-on. And if sexiness is the only appealing quality of the comic, they’re not interested.
OK, I’ll admit my theory has a serious flaw. It’s the temporal thing that some of you have already brought up. Comic books switched to bookstore distribution in the mid-80s, and at that point they didn’t worry at all about appealing to kids, hence comics wouldn’t seem to be much of a haven from sexiness. Furthermore, back in the 70s comics started getting raunchier in response to the threat posed by the popularity of underground comics in the counterculture.
So for a guy to think of comics as a refuge from adult sexuality, he would probably have to have been reading them prior to 1985 at the latest, and more likely, prior to 1970. Assuming he was nine years old at the time he started reading (just a WAG at an average age for comics reading onset) that means he would have to have been born in 1976 at the earliest, making hm at LEAST 30 years old, and more likely 45 years old, or older.
Now while I am sure that guys that old are still interested in comics, I doubt if they constitute the majority of people posting online about comics. So my theory does not hold water, even if you grant the notion that some guys view comics as a refuge from adult sexuality, among other adult things.
There you have it – another beautiful theory done in by a gang of ugly facts. I hope you’re PROUD of yourselves!
I dont see that drawing women as sexy is necessarily disrespectful, therefore I don’t agree with your self-assessment.
I don’t either, but as I said earlier context is important.
Marc
Anyone else reminded of the scene in Spinal Tap where they try to explain to Nigel the difference between “sexy” and “sexist?”
Smell the glove, Miller. Smell the glove.
I agree with most of what you say here. Manga is in fact attracting female readership whereas traditional American comics are not. To compete successfully with manga, they’d have to do the things manga do that make them appealing. I see no reason why US comic publishers shouldn’t do those things, but clearly they do not. I think it’s stupid for them not to, they stand in danger of being completely eliminated by manga publishers or being further reduced to a niche market strictly for adolescent males. If it wasn’t for TV and movie rights to their established characters, and those ancillary sales, DC and Marvel would be sucking wind big time. They’ll probably have that income for a long time to come. But where are the new characters coming from? The new ones that seem to be popular with the kids over the last few years seem to have names like Naruto, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Sailor Moon. Doesn’t augur well for the big boys.
All that said, I see no reason why a publishing industry aimed at guys, which is to say, horny guys, shouldn’t feature sexy images of hot chicks in skimpy clothes. In fact, it seems very much the right thing to do. Really, that’s what guys like. The problem is the pandering to male tastes, it’s the retreat to a very narrow market niche.
I started a thread a while back that touched on the subject of manga vs. comics:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=360819&highlight=manga
Yeah, “sexy” is images of women that YOU find attractive. “Sexist” is images of women that other guys find attractive. Got it.
You overestimate the male libido (now there’s something rarely said in history). I don’t read comics to see nekkid chicks. In fact, gratuitous nudity and sex breaks my suspension of disbelief. Women aren’t shaped like that. They can’t fight dressed like that. Takes me right out of the story.
In fact, I *like *to see strong female characters. And that means women that are not defined solely by how sexy they are. When people complain about sexiness in comics, that’s (often) what they mean: that the sex replaces or overshadows the characterization and plot. Plus, you know, I may actually get some self-respecting women to read it too. Or at least not be embarrassed to read it in front of them.
And frankly, we comic book fans don’t want to see our hobby be increasingly marginalized. We want to see an increase in audience. This means attracting female readers. Now, this means rethinking distribution, making a wider selection of genres availiable, and experimenting with different distribution and publishing methods (and yes, they are, I cite the trend towards trade paperbacks and bolder moves like DC’s Minx imprint), but it also means giving something women want to read, or at least is not outright hostile to women, in the mainstream superhero comics.
Yes, if young horny men need sexual release, they will download porn, not read comics. Maybe the comics producers THINK that they need to have gratuitous sexuality in their comics to make money, but that’s not why the comics fans I know buy them.
I can assure you that my interest in Red Sonja as something sexual was incidental. I started reading her only after a bit of Conan and Kull. The stories, artwork, and times depicted were my primary motivating factors, as well as the Conan Universe tie in. If anything, Red Sonja was my first literary experience with feminism. The stories were actually better written and more exciting than the Conan storyline’s predictability. Actually a very good comic… and I was really preadolescent when I was into her.
DC’s Warlord was also a very sexy comic with smart stories… it had beefcake and cheesecake with overtones of Gor in one neat package.
Here’s a weird fact. I haven’t read a comic book in at least 10 years.
Just because young horny men like seeing sexy women in skimpy clothing in comics, it doesn’t follow that they are using them for maturbatory fodder. As you point out, there are images on the Web that very directly address simple horniness. It’s just that, given a choice, young guys like to see hot women half or more naked, rather than dressed in baggy jeans and a bulky sweater. That’s really all there is to it.
Amazing how nobody really likes half-naked hot chicks in comics but all those publishers do them anyway. I’ll grant you they haven’t been the smartest group in the world in terms of marketing comics, but I bet if sales of fully dressed superheroines did better than sales of skimpily dressed superheroines, the comics would be full of very conservatively dressed superheroines. That’s a no-brainer, and that describes a lot of comics publishers.