The new Nomad

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Some previews of the upcoming Nomad: Girl Without A World miniseries. I thought Rikki's brief appearance in Captain America #600 was interesting, and the art looks very good.

The full preview at Newsarama.




"Listen, little girl, there's only room for one readhead sidekick around here, and it's me."

One hopes that Sean McKeever can recover some his mojo now that he's back at Marvel Comics. Before he strayed over to DC and Teen Titans, he was generally very well-regarded in these parts; I guess we'll find out how much of that was him and how much was the Titans, a property that can't find a good writer to save its life these days.

Comments

[espanolbot.insanejournal.com]

Nice ars... I mean art. :)

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

Armed palamilitary thugs with high tech toys at the Flight of the Conchords?!


But of course!!!!

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

I liked parts of McKeever's writing. Then there were other parts I didn't like. =/

[taggerung301.insanejournal.com]

your icon is fantastic
XD

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

I wish I could be surprised at the blatant ass shot in a comic starring a teenage girl. *sigh*

I am looking forward to this series, though. I never read Heroes Reborn, but Rikki seems neat! I'm not sure Black Widow would appreciate being called a sidekick, though. ;)

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Except the only ass shot is that of the Black Widow, who is anything BUT a teenage girl.

[(Anonymous)]

True, dude, but it's still a useless, unneeded ass shot put in there because apparently men can't be interested in comics unless there's some titillation.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

The way I look at it, there's going to be some titillation regardless in just about any mainstream comic book you could name. That's plainly and simply the way comics are these days - you don't have to like it, but that's the way it is. The point at which one should start getting outraged is when there's EXCESSIVE titillation - like, for example, if the Widow were in a skimpy bathing suit 'catching some moonbeams', that would count.

[khamelea.insanejournal.com]

Then you'd just say:

"The way I look at it, there's going to be some EXCESSIVE titillation regardless in just about any mainstream comic book you could name. That's plainly and simply the way comics are these days - you don't have to like it, but that's the way it is."

I'm on to you.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Er... no. What I was saying is that there's titillation in pretty much every mainstream comic, but it's not always excessive. It's when it DOES get excessive that one should start getting outraged.

[khamelea.insanejournal.com]

I think it's already excessive.

However, my response was meant to be read as that idea delivered as kind of a joke, so I'm not really "on to you" or anything.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

No, I got that - I just wasn't sure what the joke WAS, exactly. I thought if I clarified my position, maybe I'd be less confused.

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

Ooooor we could point out that it's a sexist double standard endemic to the industry, and that sexism is wrong?

Just saying.

Less sarcastically, I'm not certain if you're aware of the degree to which people outside comics already do think that comic books are excessively titillating. Note, I'm actually not against the occasional well-integrated, all-preferences included fanservice. Meaning, we're not all heterosexual boys, here! And fanservice should never interrupt the flow of the story -- correcting for changing times, John Romita Sr. probably counts as a fanservice artist of his time, and can you imagine him just randomly plonking in an ass shot? No, because he knew how to tell a damn story!

But I think a lot of comics people -- creators and readers -- have really normalized fanservice into their worldview of what's publically acceptable. Lately there have been a ton of covers for Big Two superhero comics that have had male fans commenting that they don't want to buy the issue because they couldn't take it onto the bus or subway without being looked at like a freaky pervert. And this is basically what the Mary Jane Statue kerfuffle was about: very few of the many people started complaining loudly that the MJ statue was sexist were heavily in comics fandom; most of us who were embedded in fandom and felt that way had rolled our eyes at the status quo and moved on months ago. For these people (not all women!), it wasn't business as usual -- they weren't used to blatant and rather offensive fanservice on a daily basis, so they hadn't resigned themselves to a certain background level. Marvel and the statue company, meanwhile, deleted comments on the statue company's website, had a few oblivious interviews about how MJ wasn't just doing Peter's laundry, she was DISCOVERING HIS SECRET IDENTITY and so it totally wasn't sexist, right?! (I think people were more bothered about how she appeared to be doing his laundry while "presenting like a baboon," in the words of one witty commenter.) And now there are quiiiite a number of women out there who had a lot of fandom connections to comics, who liked Mary Jane and Spider-Man enough to get annoyed about this in the first place, and who now ... think of Marvel Comics as a hotbed of sexist troglodytes. "Oh, but women just don't want to read our comics, it's not our fault if we can't attract them!"

Cue mainstream media: "LOL AWESOME, basement-dwelling comics people versus screechy outraged feminists, best story ever!" Sigh.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I get all that, and I'm not saying that there isn't a huge amount of such stuff in comics today, or that it's not something that should be addressed - I'm just saying that one should keep a sense of proportion. If something is almost omnipresent, then getting outraged at every example of it does no good - one should save one's ire for the really bad stuff (and yes, the MJ statue definitely qualifies, although I confess that my reaction was largely 'good grief - who would WANT a thing like that?' Then again, I'm not female). If a comic looks to be otherwise well-written and well-drawn, as this looks to be, then the occasional ass-shot can be forgiven - if a comic is a badly-written, badly drawn piece of dreck whose only PURPOSE is to deliver such titillating details, then outrage should by all means be rained down upon it. (And then there are ones that are neither one nor the other - such as 'Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose', which is arguably the latter, but is so BLATANT about it that it's actually quite a lot of fun to read.) It's the same general reaction I have to racism in Golden Age comics - it's pretty much everywhere, so you have to either develop a sense of proportion in regards to it or not read Golden Age stuff at all.

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

My response to that would be that it's really not your place or anyone's to tell someone how angry, or not angry, they should get about moral issues either in broad scope or one by one.

I'm not mad at you or anything, I'm just saying! Everyone has to make their own decisions about these things.

Also, argument to "concentrate on bigger problems than one ass shot," here's an alternate viewpoint: artists like Greg Land and Frank Cho clearly aren't going to change their style, well, ever. On the other hand, someone who just sticks in one ass shot may just be doing it because they were told to do it, or because it's the thing to do to get readers, or because it's practically a habit. If they, or their editors get told that there are readers who don't like ass shots, they might actually listen. And if the argument's put forth well enough, those artists and editors might keep that in mind for the next project they work on -- although that's probably a giant overdose of optimism, but you never know!

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I get all that, and I agree with you - and yes, of course I can't tell anyone how angry they should get or not get. I'm just saying that, as someone who reads comics, it's generally a good idea not to be TOO sensitive about these things, or you never STOP being outraged. One should, of course, protest against these things, but in the meantime, there's a lot of comics out there, and you should try and enjoy what you can of them, in my opinion, regardless of the things you find objectionable. If they're OVERWHELMINGLY objectionable, then by all means outrage is appropriate and action should be taken, but if they're only here and there, note them and move on to the stuff you enjoy. Life's too short to be outraged all the time.

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

The thing is, you don't really know what someone is noting or not noting, and you don't really know what someone's doing with the rest of their life, how they choose to channel their outrage, or anything like that. So it's really nobody's business but their own, point blank.

Besides which, not enough people get outraged out these things, and if more people did, things would change.

(I hope it's clear that I'm not mad at you or anything -- it's really hard to get tone of voice across on the internet.)

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Of course you don't, and I realize it's only their own business - I'm just talking in terms of general principle.
And that's another reason why one shouldn't be outraged too easily, by the way - the whole 'one man's meat is another man's poison' aspect. Almost everything is going to outrage SOMEbody, but in a lot of cases when the somebody in question gets up in arms about it, everyone else is like 'dude, what are you talking about? I didn't see anything wrong.' (I'm not saying that's the case here, incidentally - cheesecake outrage is pretty widespread - just, again, as general principle.)
And don't worry, I didn't think you were mad at me.

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

(I hope it's clear that I'm not mad at you or anything -- it's really hard to get tone of voice across on the internet.)

Also, upon rereading our thread, I am redundant! Heh.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Because you've already explained it, you mean?

[afewboltsloose.insanejournal.com]

Who also looks like Giganta in black leather to me, thanks to this artist's run on Blue Beetle.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Now I see it too!

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

My point isn't, "Eww, they're sexualizing a teenage girl," so much as, "Yet again, one of the Big Two self-sabotages an excellent opportunity to expand their market, doubtless while whining about how they can't get readers outside of a certain demographic."

I mean, it's a comic about a teenage girl from another world trying to find acceptance as a superhero in ours, which is a perfect, "Look, kids, it's sort of like magical girls, only it's superheroes, and with, uh, forty years of continuity..." opportunity if I ever heard one. And it's written by Sean McKeever, who wrote Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, which IIRC was quite successful in bookstores. Since manga fans follow creators around rather than characters, McKeever's work could be a potential hook for getting some of those SMLMJ readers to follow Marvel more closely - certainly worth a try.

Instead, butt shots. And then Marvel and DC continue to wring their hands over their aging, heavily-male reader base and wonder just how they can break into the manga market.

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

To be perfectly fair, magical girls have a heavy peripheral demographics of 19-30 males, and some magical girls anime were specifically aimed at that demographics (I only know of Nanoha, actually, but maybe there were others).

I'd say the issue with gendered readership and depiction of female characters in DC and Marvel may have more to do with the fact that comics regularly fail to treat their female characters as being as competent and/or interesting as their male counterpart, not to speak about page time, rather than ass shots. Where I live, fanservicey romantic shonen mangas such as Love Hina are often considered to be aimed at girls. I'm not sure how it evolved since then, but a few years back girls were the biggest readership of Love Hina.

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

True, that's a good point. But I think it also helps that in manga, if ass shots really, really bother you, there are quite a number of reading alternatives even in the same genre. Well, I don't know about "fanservicey romantic shonen manga," but say, if the fanservice in one shonen manga bothers you, there's lots of non-fanservice ones. That's ... much less true of American comics, and even some creators have spoken of how hard they have to work to get editorial and artists not to stick fanservice in everywhere when that's explicitly not what they want.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

That's a really good point. When Tamora Pierce, somebody who actually gets books sold, has to fight with an editor to not give a character heels and v-necks, something is wrong.

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

I don't even understand why they would hire Tamora Pierce and then try to give the character she's writing heels, v-necks, and a costume with cut-outs.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

That Black Widow has an ass you could split kindlingwood on...

[l_arlesienne.insanejournal.com]

Two things:

"Flight of the Conchords! =D"

and

"Ass. Shiny shiny ass."

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

That preview looks like interesting stuff. I can totally buy Rikki both as a real teenage girl and as a superhero - she obviously has to work hard at the basics of living in order to do what she does. I'll be interested in checking this out once it comes complete with lettering.

[lieut_kettch.insanejournal.com]

Mmmmmgooood.... Widowbutt. Yum.

Also, Jermaine and Brett are sooo writing a song about Cap fighting bad guys in front of the theater.

[menagerie.insanejournal.com]

Nice art. And I still adore the title. It's just awesome.