Cover for Batman Confidential #19Rule One: If two women are fighting, be sure to make it an adorable catfight with torn costumes and some skin showing.
Rule Two: Bonus points if Catwoman appears in your catfight.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
How To Draw Covers For Superheroine Books 101
Cover for Batman Confidential #19Rule One: If two women are fighting, be sure to make it an adorable catfight with torn costumes and some skin showing.
Rule Two: Bonus points if Catwoman appears in your catfight.
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You know, I have to say, I might be spoiled by Benes' JLA, but this is one of the less cheescake of the catfight kind of covers. Note the lack of boobs or butt jutting out. Also, they arent yet at the stage where they are biting each others lips. Also, the tears are all on fairly chaste places on their body. Also, they are all wearing fairly chaste versions of their costumes.
ReplyDeleteAlso, who knew kevlar/multi layered leather was so easy to rip? Batgirl doesn't even have claws for heavens sake!
ReplyDeleteTake out the tears and make the action a little more exaggeratedly pronounced and it could've been a pretty funny cover. Now, hopefully the story it's for is a comedy but hey, since when do covers need to match contents?
ReplyDeleteWhen male heroes costumes are torn, its because the artist wants to show that they've really been through the wringer. Perhaps that's what's going on here too. This doesn't raise any sexualized violence flags for me.
ReplyDeleteStill you make a valid point, as it apples to a good number of covers on display at my local comic shop.
If they are fighting that violently over a note pad, wouldn't a few pages have come out? Just asking.
ReplyDeleteI'm disturbed by how frequently I overlook stuff like this. Especially since I've been reading Empowered. Torn super suits ought to raise a red flag.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, this one doesn't look adorable at all to me. It looks like they've really put each other through the wringer.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the problem here. This cover could easily replace Batgirl with Tim Drake, and Catwoman with the Riddler, and the only thing that would look strange about it would be the Riddler being involved in an intense physical fight. There's nothing in their body positions or the ripping of their costumes that appears to be approached any differently from male characters.
ReplyDeleteJodi Picault tells a story about how, when she was assigned to write Wonder Woman, she suggested that WW's costume really didn't seem appropriate for any activity involving, you know, movement and that, in the real world, straps would be necessary to prevent any, uh, wardrobe malfunction.
ReplyDeleteThe word from above: Heh. Yeah. Sorry, ixnay on the apstrays.
So it goes.
Not to be flip, but this is a step forward, although granted it's a small one. There's no gratuitous cleavage and Maquire didn't go out of his way to get a derrière in the picture.
ReplyDeleteI'm just sayin is all.
If they've been through the wringer, why no black eyes or busted lips, loose teeth, broken noses, and so forth? Certainly not because that would make them less attractive to male comics readers - that would just be entirely unhelpful for a company trying to play down a poor reputation for the treatment of female characters.
ReplyDeleteI've not seen so many real-life catfights, but there tends to be the occaisional bit of clothes-ripping - it's just usually accompanied by knuckles to the jaw, shoes to the head, and fingernails to the face, and rarely do these fights take place on a rooftop or a swimming pool full of baby oil. They tend to be short, vicious, and not very titilating.
At least Jim Balent didn't draw that cover!
ReplyDeleteHow many times has Batman gotten his costume ripped to shreds? Very few, I think.
I'm sorry -- how is a rooftop like a swimming pool full of baby oil?
ReplyDeleteYeah really, nothing particularly erogenous is being exposed in the tears, I don't feel like the usual complaint really applies here.
ReplyDeleteHow come villians never just grab the hero's cape and choke them with it? If I was a supervillain that would be my go-to move in every fight. Serves you right for fighting crime with a long piece of fabric around your neck, dummy!
ReplyDeleteThey're not drawn in an overly sexual way, the costume tears are tastefully done, I don't have any real issue with this.
ReplyDeleteNot a textbook cover. The anatomy should be distorted, both in proportions (hourglass) and contortions (arched back; face showing vague, extreme emotion which could be pleasure or pain).
ReplyDeleteHair pulling (or in this case, cowl pulling) is encouraged (helps justify the contorted anatomy, as the back arches and thrusts the chest outward when the head is pulled back). A hand near the eyes raises the violence quotient.
Clothing should be torn strategically. Legs, arms, and bust add to the cheesecake quotient, while a torn mask or cowl adds to the violence quotient. Superheroines generally do not wear makeup, so smeared blood or scratches replace the smeared lipstick and eyeliner found in generic catfights.
Bonus points are given if the two compatants can be manipulated into a pseudo-sexual embrace, while maintaining the contorted anatomy of each. This plays into the lesbian fantasies of fanboys.
So: no hair pulling, no blood, normal anatomy, realistic damage = everyday fight scene. Good cover, but what happens when they fall off the roof?
I'm "torn" on this one ;)
ReplyDeleteI honestly have no problem with this cover. I pretty much echo the "non sexploitation" comments in that there is/are no "breasts-esses" revealed. No "wet" costumes. No alluded to sexual positions ... Maybe a little too much thigh on Batgirl's torn costume?
I remember the days of Catwoman's massive "bazoombaas" when she was drawn by some artist whose name escapes me (starts with a B and draws some sort of sexploitation book now) It always made me wonder how (1)she did all the gymnastics with 44 double double D's !?!and (2) she must had a pretty strong back!
ArrOOoo!
I'll agree with those who say that Batgirl and Catwoman are not "positioned" sexually. I'm more concerned with the tendency of women heroes getting their costumes torn more frequently than male heroes. A bit of skin is a bit of skin, even when their bodies are not twisted in such a way that, miraculously, both T and A are on display.
ReplyDeleteDecrease the tearing, and I would think this is a perfectly fine cover.
Consider the cover in sequence with the other two preceding. This is a rough-and-tumble rooftop chase, not a brawl, and there should be some damage from the terrain and falls. Agreed we don't see this with male heroes, making this a different standard for men and women. But we also don't see men involved in chases as much - they engage in manly bloodsport!
ReplyDeleteThis cover isn't worth outrage.
"If they've been through the wringer, why no black eyes or busted lips, loose teeth, broken noses, and so forth?"
ReplyDeleteBecause then we (and I do include myself here) would all be bitching about violence toward women in comics instead?
If they've been through the wringer, why no black eyes or busted lips, loose teeth, broken noses, and so forth?
ReplyDeleteSame reason you don't see any of those things on a cover featuring Batman or Hal Jordan or any other ostensibly non-invulnerable guy superhero.
You'll see Bats score a bruise inside the book from time to time, but on the cover? Perish the thought.