Paul Jenkins' Sidekick #5

[history79]

8 pages of 24

Comments

[lordultimus]

Oh, look, slut shaming.

[beyondthefringe]

To be fair to this apallingly universally offensive bit of comedy, I wouldn't necessarily call it slut-shaming so much as hypocrisy-shaming. Wonder Princess or whatever bills herself as this eternally young, virginal paragon of femininity who takes on an "ugly sidekick" to extend her career... and Superior Doucheboy calls her out on being so much of what she claims not to be. The implication is that he doesn't care that she sleeps around, only that she presents herself in another light.

Not that anyone in this series except the Hobo seems to come off as remotely honest or decent. The humor deriving from cliches and stereotypes is lazy and borderline offensive much of the time--blackface, crossdressing, gay jokes, domestic abuse, and so on... and while it might have passed muster in 2006, it's certainly not improved with age.

[strejdaking]

Still don't really get the superhero parodies being Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and.... A stereotypical black guy. Huh?

[silicondream]

I know. Like, I'd love to live in a society where a black dude was included in the top tier of superheroes by default, but we don't. We really, really don't.

[beyondthefringe]

Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and... a jab at pretend images in gangsta rap.

Because Jenkins couldn't find anything good to work with speedsters, archers, fish-people, hawk-people, power rings, or any Black heroes? *shrug*

[thezmage]

In all fairness, that was necessary for him to portray blackface.

That's sarcasm, in case it needed to be said

[repto]

It's like a book from some alternate reality where gangsta rap-based superheroes were really big in the 90's, and are therefore ripe for parody 10 years later.

[reveen]

The entire book is a parody of superhero sidekicks years after the concept has been discredited and deconstructed to hell and back. It's just really dated parody all the way down.

[lego_joker]

I... guess he's supposed to be a potshot at Luke Cage? Wasn't this around the time Bendis' Avengers was raising his profile?

[donnblake]

Not particularly incisive parodies, either. The Night Judge came the closest to saying something interesting about Batman with his need to make sure criminals feared him interfering with any attempts to actually gather intelligence or interrogate them (it still didn't come *very* close) before veering off into tired gay jokes.

Meh

[longboxingwhileblack]

I'm a Black Guy From a midsize Midwestern city, grew up in a Mid-Classish Black Neighborhood that was on the early part of the migration of LA street gangs to the Midwest in the 80s, and had some collateral BS from the Crack Era. I graduated with a full-ride academic scholarship and was never directly involved with any gang stuff. Before the age of 19, I've come within inches of being executed, been caught in two gang crossfires, and was standing a foot away from a guy who got shot mid-sentence and didn't make it home that night.

A LOT of Black folks who I grew up with and met as an adult had similar Black Middleclass upbringings and weird harrowing ass stories of survival. Black life in America is just different. Snide little stuff like the way the Black character is being written in this comic shows me that Jenkins never really interacted with any actual Black Folks when he wrote this.

[thezmage]

It's a little thing, but I still find the "no ice picks in southern California" thing to be the one I'm hung up on

[lego_joker]

Funnily enough, I've just finished Chandler's The Little Sister, which (1) Revolves around LA like all Marlowe stories, and (2) Features so many icepick murders that the first-edition cover flaunts it like a main character.

[donnblake]

Yeah, there's fewer icepicks around these days in general (because ice cube trays) but I don't think fewer in California than anywhere else.