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Started by LunarSage, February 29, 2012, 02:57:36 PM

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Somnifera

Don't get me wrong, boobs are hot, but this:  is so annoying. I agree about the new outfit. What is that, a bib? It's like they got pissed about the schism over the boob window and went ''FINE! We'll just cover up her cleavage!" Where's the painted-on spandex middle-ground? It feels like they're making us pay for complaining about it. :/ I like that it's a catsuit, though.

Anywho, I'd have to agree with 'Seed of Destruction'. For the most part, the story arcs are... short and don't necessarily need to be read in order of publish because they address specific supernatural phenomena, however there are some connections to be had. Of course, if you end up liking the comics, you can also pick up the BPRD series, which further elaborates on the adventures of Hellboy and the other members of the Bureau.

I'm a bit of a lazy comic reader, and if the plots start turning into spiderwebs, I lose interest. This and my age making me late to the game is the prime reason why I don't follow the X-Men series closely. Also retcons.

I think the movies were great, because there was a campiness to them, and I really love Ron Perlman's Hellboy. But I also just love Ron Perlman.
I'm what was meant, not what was written. Right on the tip of the tongue and just out of focus.

~Ons,Offs, and some characters~
~Plots~
{Not interested in new RPs at this time}

VoluptuousVixen



DC has produced two great books recently. Worlds finest featureing PowerGirl/Huntress.
Which im glad to see is Helena Wayne as Huntress.

And the sister book Earth 2. Which I found so very shocking (but in a good way)]
i carnt reveal too much but I finally think DC has found a book which anything goes...in terms of character moratality.
You need  to read it to see what im talking about.

Also im going to be picking up Ravengers to see what this new team is all about, Hell I want an experlnation why Beast Boy is now Orange Dammit, my guess is mabye its not Garth.

I really miss Secret Six too, that was by far DCS best book before the reboot. Although Suicide Squad is filling the void.
But its not really that shocking, for example you now both Harley Quinn and Deadshot are never going to die.

As for Marvel, I only can afford to buy the Ultimate graphic novels.
But I  picked up a few issues of DC to see what the fuss was about.
Personally I dont see why everyone hates the reboot as DC did it way back in 1985, I think every 25 years ore so they will reboot the franchise ore so to keep it intresting AND to get new readers. Comics arnt selling like they used to back in the 60s and 70s.

Callie Del Noire

I confess I like the Huntress outfit much better than the Powergirl one.

ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

Once they got rid of the belly window, Huntress' costume has been class. I love her more than words can say. But I miss Helena Bertinelli.
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

rick957

#279
QuoteSo maybe you need to look a bit harder, Rick.

Hm.  ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut, I can't tell if your responses to my posts are angry or not.  Normally I would assume they weren't, but if they maybe are, please let me know.  I don't mean to anger anyone, and if I have, it's best that I stop responding to your posts, because I don't want to anger you even further.  I hope I'm just being paranoid and you aren't angry about anything.

QuoteSeveral things that are wrong about that one. Wonder Woman. Aimed at women. Featuring a main woman. Not successful? Are you kidding me!? Despite the alarming amount of bondage symbology that proliferates her early stories, she's not a victim.

As I mentioned before, there are rare exceptions to the generalization that female-focused comics always fail.  Wonder Woman is the most obvious exception, because she's been published by DC almost continuously since her creation -- a feat that only two or three other superheroes can claim.  Whether she's aimed at women is debatable. 

I remember reading an interview with artist Kyle Baker in which he mentioned that he would very much like to let his young daughter read female-starring comics like Wonder Woman, but he won't, because the gratuitous T&A is something he doesn't want her to see, at least until she's older and more mature.  I can sympathize very strongly with that perspective, and it reinforces my assumption that most Wonder Woman comics nowadays are bought by horny dudes like me, because we love T&A.  I don't think I'd want a young child of either gender to see that stuff either.  I'm not a parent, though, and I respect you if you feel differently.

Also:  Wonder Woman has been a publishing failure throughout most of her history, meaning that her comic books have often sold so poorly that they didn't make enough profit to justify doing the book.  She has, however, always been a huge merchandising success for DC and Warners, and that's the only reason they've continued to publish the comic all these years; it helps them to maintain the trademark or copyright or some other legal claim to the character's name and image. 

In other words, I don't consider her a good example of a successful comic book; based on sales, she's a big dud, and has been for most of her existence.  Even the great George Perez, whose run on the character is considered essential by many (ex. Gail Simone), had to endure a big pay cut in order to take over the WW comic; and not long after doing so, he had to seek additional work on other projects in order to bolster his income.  Not even he could raise her crappy sales numbers much.  (Ever wonder why WW gets rebooted every thirty seconds or so?  It's because no one can find a way to get people to buy her comic, so they keep trying different approaches.)

QuoteBirds of Prey has last for quite a long while now and it's still doing well, despite the fact that female readership of DC completely plummeting. There's only a couple of comics that seem to still be catering to those readers and I really, sincerely hope they keep going.

I'm a fan of the book and hope it continues; it may be the only long-term-successful female-fronted comic that started in the last couple decades.  But again, it's an exception, not the rule.  Also, I may be wrong, but I assume most of its readers are men like me who dig the T&A artwork.  Apart from Gail Simone, most of the people working on the book have been male, haven't they?  I may be overlooking an artist or two.  Anyway, I would argue that Birds of Prey isn't necessarily or consistently aimed at women or written with a female audience in mind, even if many women enjoy reading it anyway. 

QuoteYou know what, I'm bowing out of this thread, as best I can.  Once people make assumptions about what I mean, it's best I do.

I enjoyed your posts and found them quite insightful.  I also noticed that the conversation got a little heated afterwards, perhaps.  It looked like you made some well-intentioned and even friendly remarks that were met with an unnecessary degree of hostility, although I suppose some moderator would have stepped in if anyone really went too far here.  Anyway, I wish you and everyone here would continue to participate in this thread, because it needs all the participation it can get to keep from dying out, like most threads do.  But you must do what you think is best for you, of course.

QuoteThank you for posting this. When he initially said the whole 'rescuable victim' thing I knew it was wrong, but you can't just say 'nu-uh' on the internet with no textual evidence, and I don't read enough mainstream comics to make the argument properly. My comic shelf is wee but my passion is nerdtastic. :looks fondly at a Hellboy poster...: However it also seemed possible that for the MOST part (and with the strange exclusion of Wonder Woman?) he was alluding to a 'decades ago' state of comics, since he said historically. I dunno. I'm not a psychic. xD

My statement about women usually being little more than victims in superhero comics is hard to refute in the sense that I meant it, which is that that's the role they've mostly played in a historical sense since Action Comics #1, and I think there are reasons for that having to do with the limited role of women in little boys' lives, and the fact that superheroes were (and are still) designed to target the sensibilities of male children.  (Unless you know many adults of either gender who take seriously stories about flying people in tights.  Adults who enjoy such stories do so from a child's perspective, I believe, because we were all children once, and it's a lot of fun to revisit that sensibility now and then.)

I've obviously given these topics a little thought and have some highly debatable but also well-founded opinions on these matters.  FWIW, although I am a straight guy with the same raging hormones all men have, I don't consider myself a sexist pig or chauvinist.  If there are sexist or ignorant assumptions in some opinion that I've expressed, by all means, share with me your insights, and give me the opportunity to learn better, because I am very often in the wrong.  But let's all be nice about it, right?, and let's be mindful that these are sensitive topics for many people, and with good reason.

ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

I think you've made the assumption that because you don't know of a book, it's not successful. That's the only thing I can think of anyway. Black Canary has driven several storylines and books successfully. As has Huntress, Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Oracle, Batgirl, Power Girl... Just because certain books don't seem important to you, that doesn't mean they're not important to others.

I've never responded angrily. Maybe with a little exasperation, but that's different. I didn't find Chris' posts friendly at all. In fact, I found them deeply insulting to females in general and completely misogynistic. Whether he meant that or not, that's how it came across.

And woah, woah, woah there. "limited role of women in little boys' lives"?? Mother, grandmothers, teachers from the ages of two +. As far as I can see, apart from fathers and brothers (who traditionally play a small part in the lives of small boys) little boys have far more interaction with women than men, at least for the first decade of their lives. This, however, is a different discussion.
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

Somnifera

You know, the 'failure of female-focused comics' gets me thinking, or rather, makes me want to point something out. Not necessarily to this crowd, but just in general.

Making a female-focused comic to 'balance' male-focused comics is still perpetuating a problem of equality with separation. It still enforces a 'boys on this side, girls on the other' mentality. The answer is merely to make women in comics (and movies, and books, for that matter) just as varied in personality and relevance to the plot as men. There's no point in pointing out sales trends- I'm a long-term thinker and I'm aware that just up and changing to this proposal in a day is a recipe for disaster. Society as a whole would have to change, but this is a discussion, after all. I've discussed this matter with a few friends, and we agreed that -some- of the issue has to do with the creative process- most writers start their character off with a gender, and mold their purpose in the story and their personality -after- it. While sex and gender do obviously influence a person's personality and what they may do.. to certain extents.. in a story, there are by no means the core of their being.

Unfortunately, this is the way -people- work, but not the way people work when they are created in most imaginations. So we end up with archetypical characters. Women end up being side characters, plot devices, or rescued. Women as heroes ends up being a concession made either on behalf of trying to even out the male-dominated playing field, or just being fap fodder for the writers and readers....and often plot devices and love interest/second-in-commands to male heroes. This is fine, but everything in moderation.

And sorry, I'm going to (non-angrily as well) agree with The Callous Confection... From being called 'tiger' to some of the things that were said, it all came off a little unnecessarily cocky. That could be due to text but even objectively some of what was said was rather misogynistic; even if he 'meant well' and that was well-meaning ignorance.

Quote from: ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut on May 08, 2012, 02:37:24 PM
And woah, woah, woah there. "limited role of women in little boys' lives"?? Mother, grandmothers, teachers from the ages of two +. As far as I can see, apart from fathers and brothers (who traditionally play a small part in the lives of small boys) little boys have far more interaction with women than men, at least for the first decade of their lives. This, however, is a different discussion.

This is an interesting thing to point out, as I myself was a bit confused as to which 'limited role' was being referenced, and how men seeking an archetypical mother would relate to the subjugation and irrelevance of female characters. Were you referring to the roles as being generally under a 'maternal' umbrella?  Or do you perhaps mean that because of .. a limited or unenlightened interaction, the readers and writers of the comics grow up with a skewed idea of what a woman is and should be?

This is a helpful discussion, if anything, because it may be unearthing some seemingly innocuous archetypes and stereotypes we're still subconsciously holding on to.
I'm what was meant, not what was written. Right on the tip of the tongue and just out of focus.

~Ons,Offs, and some characters~
~Plots~
{Not interested in new RPs at this time}

ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

Oh! I just realised that I was the Callous Confection! Although I don't think of myself as callous :P

I totally agree with the balance thing too. There seemed to be some before the retcon in JLA. Black Canary was the  leader and Vixen was the most powerful person on the team. I loved how Vixen finally got some characterisation attention. Dark Justice League seems to have a good balance too, although I hate Zatanna's costume.
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

rick957

#283
QuoteThis is a helpful discussion, if anything, because it may be unearthing some seemingly innocuous archetypes and stereotypes we're still subconsciously holding on to.

I hope so too.  :)  And I'm not immune to making foolish assumptions and having misconceptions.

QuoteI've never responded angrily. Maybe with a little exasperation, but that's different.

Okay, good then.  I mean, I'm glad you're not mad at me.  I have strong opinions about some controversial topics, so its natural for people to find them hard to swallow sometimes.  I just hope I don't cross the line into disrespecting anyone who disagrees with me, even strongly disagrees with me.

As to Chris Brady and his posts, I think it would be inappropriate for me to try to speak for him, but as an observer who has followed the recent exchange, I thought the tone of his comments was obviously quite friendly and should have been taken that way.  I didn't agree with certain opinions he expressed, but I also didn't think he was being disrespectful or offensive in the way he expressed his opinions; and I think that's a hugely important distinction to make, especially with people whose opinions one disagrees with.  I thought it was obvious that he was trying to share in a friendly discussion, not attack anyone personally. 

Others may see it differently.  Anyway I should shut up about it and let him speak for himself if he chooses to.

QuoteI think you've made the assumption that because you don't know of a book, it's not successful. That's the only thing I can think of anyway. Black Canary has driven several storylines and books successfully. As has Huntress, Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Oracle, Batgirl, Power Girl... Just because certain books don't seem important to you, that doesn't mean they're not important to others.

I know of all those books and actually own many of them.  I don't think a comic has to be successful in any financial sense in order to be important to many people.  You may still disagree with lots of things I said, and that's okay, but any mistakes in my thinking were not caused by those particular things, I don't think.

QuoteAnd woah, woah, woah there. "limited role of women in little boys' lives"?? Mother, grandmothers, teachers from the ages of two +. As far as I can see, apart from fathers and brothers (who traditionally play a small part in the lives of small boys) little boys have far more interaction with women than men, at least for the first decade of their lives. This, however, is a different discussion.

It is kind of a different discussion, but as long as it relates to comics, it's okay to have some of the discussion here, right?  I wasn't in any way trying to suggest that women aren't hugely important; I was only saying that boys don't think much about women until after puberty, whereas after puberty, women are just about all that straight boys can think about.  You're right, maternal figures like Mom or grandmothers or female teachers are very important, and perhaps I underplayed that fact in order to make my point.  I certainly hope that fathers are at least as important as mothers in little boys' lives, although I know that all too often they aren't, because the children often get taken care of by one parent more than the other, and if so, it's usually the mother, not the father.  As to brothers, an older brother can often be the focus of a younger brother's life, because the older sibling can be both a playmate and role model, but only if the age difference is not too large; such was the case in my family. 

Anyway, I guess you're right, maybe we're veering away too much from comics, but those are some of my thoughts.  :)

LunarSage

Personally?  I think the word "misogynist" is thrown around too much online, just as much as the word "feminazi" is.  They're both often used to lash out in an unproductive way against those who the writer doesn't agree with.  Neither are words that I ever like to see come up in arguments.  I really doubt that Chris Brady hates women, which is what the implication of that word is. 

The topic had gotten heated and things may have been said that weren't meant to be taken personally.  Maybe this would be a better debate for the politics and religion section of the forum.

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ColdBloodedJellyDoughnut

I don't think he meant to come off as women hating, but I was insulted by what he said, even if he didn't intend that. I think it's silly to think that any topic slightly controversial should be immediately put into the politics forum. It was a purely comics based discussion before he veered off into something about how women resent other women. I think we're back onto comics now.
“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.”
Ernest Hemingway
O/Os**A/As

Sabby

I guess I'm the only non-super hero comic reader here ^^'

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Sabby on May 08, 2012, 04:30:33 PM
I guess I'm the only non-super hero comic reader here ^^'

Depends on if you class Atomic Robo or Gold Digger as super hero or not.  Used to read Shanda the Panda and other such titles as well. 

Sabby

Okay, guess I'm the only ADAPTION reader then ^^

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Sabby on May 08, 2012, 05:10:43 PM
Okay, guess I'm the only ADAPTION reader then ^^

Does it count if your read the novel adaption of a comic? (Girl Genius)

rick957

I like adaptations and non-superhero stuff and undergrounds and newspaper strips and webcomics and pretty much anything with cool-lookin' art.  :)  Also I likes the superheros tho.

Hey, WTF, didn't we just have FCBD?  And I missed it as usual?  Somebody tell me what I missed!!!  Pleez.  Give me stories.  Or just tell me the coolest comics you got, or somethin'.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: rick957 on May 08, 2012, 05:34:04 PM
I like adaptations and non-superhero stuff and undergrounds and newspaper strips and webcomics and pretty much anything with cool-lookin' art.  :)  Also I likes the superheros tho.

Hey, WTF, didn't we just have FCBD?  And I missed it as usual?  Somebody tell me what I missed!!!  Pleez.  Give me stories.  Or just tell me the coolest comics you got, or somethin'.

Well it looks like I missed another round of Atomic Robo vs Dr. Dinosaur.


http://www.atomic-robo.com/free-comics/
Check there later in the month.

Sasquatch421

Webcomics wise I always liked reading Sandra and Woo, Nodwick and Alien Loves Predator...

Chris Brady

Before I forget, there was one thing I wanted to say before I leave this thread for as long as possible.  I've not read any post since my last one, to keep this thought in my head clear.

What I disliked about Chris Claremont as a writer (and this showed up in his novels as well) is how he kept men and women apart.  The power disparity or the spunky personality were simply his methods of enforcing it.  I believe that men and women (removing gender issues for the moment) are stronger together, rather than apart, and Mr. Claremont seemed to be determined to keep them apart.  The whole point of the X-Men series was to have a group of individuals who were stronger together, rather than apart.  In fact, I seem to recall in at least one issue a villain (not sure if it was Magneto or someone else) muse that individually the X-Men were strong individually, but when together they were stronger than five people, as if their strength grew exponentially.

(The segregation of sexes is also why I dislike Masamune Shirow's stories but I do enjoy his art style.)

And that should be the last thing I say on this topic, for a good long while I hope.  My apologies, I will be going now.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Callie Del Noire

This weeks storyline among the 'Bat' titles dealing with the Court of Owls.. I like a lot of it. Batman having to defend the cave..

"Get out of my home!"

LunarSage

Alright, just curious, my fellow Geeks!  Of the Marvel fans about, what is your favorite period of time (era if you will) for X-Men titles and what is your favorite era for Avengers and other non-X-Titles?

I'd have to say it's the late 80s and very early 90s for X-Men.  Claremont was doing a bangup job in his heyday, my favorite mutant Jubilee was introduced and the X-Men were scattered all over the world after going through the Siege Perilous.  Adventures in Genosha and Madripoor abounded and we had some stellar art and writing in my opinion.  Plus it had the X-Tinction Agenda, my favorite cross title arc bever.

For non mutant books, I'd have to say the mid 80s when the Avengers West Coast started running.  Those were some really great stories and I have some fond memories of laying on my bed reading those books over and over again.  It inspired some serious respect for Hawkeye and Tigra (even though some of the Tigra stories in those books were god awful, like her weak willed nature when it came to any man.  Blech.).

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Samnell

Having just reread the Claremont era last month, I have an opinion. :)

I think Uncanny was at its best between #100 and around #215 when the Morlock Massacre hit, with the high point probably being #150-#200. So this would be early to mid-80s. The team felt like a group of people who genuinely liked one another and had a definite place in the world. It's not without its faults, and I say that as a pretty diehard fan. For all the posturing, very little that went on in the book seemed to have much to do with the mutants as minority theme. (There are lots of great space stories, but I've never really understood why the X-Men would be in space to begin with except for Claremont wanting to write Fantastic Four or something.) The team's essentially a reactive group dedicated to fighting mutant criminals and occasionally taking in a wayward mutant. It's a well-written, soapy action-adventure title with some political gloss.

The general trend toward worsening human-mutant relations progressed well, without reaching the kind of hysterical and self-indulgent slouching towards Days of Future Past that is a recurring affliction on the title.

After the massacre, things seem to get out of hand very quickly and almost out of nowhere the X-Men are in hiding and on the run, discussing whether or not they should kill Havok to keep their existence secret. It's meant to show how desperate they are, but ultimately the worst that has happened to them personally is losing some fights and having some members seriously hurt. That's not fun, but they sound just completely out of their minds. I don't hate the whole fugitive phase that ran from the Massacre until Claremont left the book, and there are some great stories in there, but it feels like a letdown from the earlier high point. I got the sense that Claremont was tired of the Mansion setting and its stability wanted to turn the book into an anthology title, since single X-Man and small team stories seem to increase in frequency to the point where after the Siege Perilous there pretty much isn't a team anymore. But that came at the cost of the more warm and supportive soap opera of past years. Then of course the very hard reset to pretty much status quo, 1980 at the end.

I really don't know the non-mutant books well enough to have a favorite period. It's something I plan to rectify eventually.

LunarSage

#297
Quote from: Samnell on May 16, 2012, 07:48:10 PM
discussing whether or not they should kill Havok to keep their existence secret

Yeah, I never really got that either, although to be fair, Storm pretty quickly dismissed that idea with "we do not kill our own".

Incidentally, I am not usually a fan of non-killer characters being forced to kill, but the way they did it with Colossus in Mutant Massacre was -awesome-!



EDITED for better picture.

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Sabby

Just ordered the trade paper back of Alien vs Predator: Three World War ^^ Been looking forward to this. Apparently, it ties off the various plots that started from the first AvP comic, which I fucking loved. I just hope they don't screw it up... since I'm almost certain that-
Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
Machiko will die. Seriously, the amount of heat she's made for herself, I can't see her surviving.

Cold Heritage

Quote from: LunarSage on May 16, 2012, 06:58:02 PM
Alright, just curious, my fellow Geeks!  Of the Marvel fans about, what is your favorite period of time (era if you will) for X-Men titles and what is your favorite era for Avengers and other non-X-Titles?

Probably the '90s for the X-Men, because I was just young enough to understand the words and action but not yet old enough to really grasp - and thus loathe - the X-Men as I do today.

As for the Avengers and non-X-titles, probably now. The '00s.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.