Is It Wrong To Think This Cover Is "Hot?"

I think it's his thigh that finally "sold" it to me. I dunno.

What I like about this Olivier Coipel cover is that it combines the "two Wolverines" that usually show up in depictions of the character -- the handsome one and the sort of trollish one. He's certainly not a pretty boy in this piece of art. He's not Hugh Jackman-handsome. But he's also sort of hot in his own way.

I know -- pretty deep commentary! :-D

Cover is a Wolverine: Weapon X #1 variant, btw

So Seriously, Is There Any Comic Artist Who HASN'T Done Fetish Art?

via

Turns out Shuster was drawing this stuff to support himself in the 1950s after fighting for the Superman copyright.

Not an uncommon option for some comic artists between gigs.

I wanted to do a graphic novel once about a mediocre comic book artist whose big epiphany at the end of the story was that he could support himself by drawing fetish porn. He went through all this adventure and intrigue and angst, but in the end he simply realized he could go to comic conventions and sell cheesecake pinups and make a fortune. So he becomes world-famous for his comic fetish porn, even getting one of those big Taschen coffee-table books devoted to his work. In the middle of this, of course, the world almost ends and he has to save the day.

...

My plots are starting to sound like Kilgore Trout novels.

What Image Is More Sexist? (NSFW)

And why?





















Images taken from interior pages of Witchblade & WildCATS/Grifter.

Grifter image via Shirtless Superheroes

Oh, and just wanted to zoom in on one part of the Grifter pic:









"Is that your gun or are you just happy to see me?"
"Uh...no actually, that's just my gun."

Beefcake Question

Do you ever think David Hasselhoff felt exploited for his body, back in the day?

I was doing a search on him for something completely unrelated to securing beefcake photos -- and like the very first picture of him is lying naked with a Shar-Pei over his weiner.

And there's tons of photos of him from his "Knight Rider" and "Baywatch" days like that -- shirtless, posing in a leather jacket and Speedos.

My God, the above picture is like the perfect counterpart to that classic "woman with snake" photo:


And what about the animals, how do they feel about being living loincloths?

Okay, I Take Back Everything I Said About Michael Turner's Covers

This cover to Ultimate Origins #1 features a naked Wolverine. Okay, he might not be naked, this might just be a thong. But he's quite...healthy. If we can have cheesecake covers, then we can have this. Please Marvel, do not erase one bit from this excellent cover. Do not use lens flares to reduce the bump, don't shave off millimeters. Leave it just the way it is. This is Logan in all his feral sweaty glory. Yeah, I know a few guys complained about those Alex Ross covers, but they were sort of "staged" looking anyway -- static. Wolverine might be sexy here, but he's all piss and vinegar and is going to cut the arms off anybody who says otherwise.

Beefcake! Beefcake!

(saving cover to desktop)

Occasional Thoughts: Deja Vu All Over Again

X-Force is #1 on the sales charts, Larry Stroman is on X-Factor, we have another Invasion!, and Valiant's restarted.

Deja vu, anyone?

Then again, I always felt that everything in comics eventually comes around again. It's just part of that "it's a small world after all" thing.

I loved the art on the new "X-Force," but spiritually I find it the sibling of the Liefeld orginal. It's all about fight!fight!fight!fight!cool!cool!cool!cool!

We can criticize certain comics, but look at the numbers.

The best-selling DC comic is All-Star Batman and Robin. We can laugh at it all we want, but the fact is that many many comic book fans are buying this comic, and most probably a lot of people who do not classify themselves as fans. The top selling comics, I have to believe, attract readers outside of the fandom.


Why All-Star Batman and Robin is a top-selling book:
a) It's a Batman book not tied up in continuity
b) Jim Lee has name cachet
c) Frank Miller has name cachet beyond comics

Again, we can criticize books like ASBAR and JLA, but they are bringing in the cash for DC.

Which brings me to DC's newly-announced 2nd JLA book, Justice League.

Two Justice Leagues sort of apes Marvel's new Avengers -- but then again, DC did this successfully (at least for a while) in the late 80s.


There was also the attempt to extend the JLA franchise with Justice League Elite, which I think failed because its desire to be so very "different" from the regular book, with a lack of iconic characters outside of Green Arrow and Flash. The issues that became another JLA spin-off book, JLA Classified, were originally assigned as arcs for the regular title.

I think having James Robinson pen this new JLA book is interesting, given his work on Starman, but it is hardly a slam-dunk. Starman was an awesome book but came out some time ago. The question becomes: can he bring that magic to Justice League, and will the mass market who have propelled ASBAR and JLA to such heights cotton to his direction on the title?

As for the inciting incident that helps form this new team:

"That event? A murder. Unsurprisingly, neither DiDio not Robinson are saying who will be taking the upcoming dirt nap, only that it’s tied to Final Crisis, and that the League’s response causes a schism."

Which brings us to another deja vu moment:


Meanwhile, the Marvel/Stephen King cash cow continues with an adaptation of The Stand. Remember how Marvel used to adapt all that Clive Barker stuff and it really didn't seem to make much of a splash What happened? With books like Dark Tower, Anita Blake, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and World of Warcraft, licensed material seems to have made a strong comeback.

So will DC's new Chuck book suck or not?
I know there has been some snark about how some retailers are selling the Buffy issue where she has lesbian sex as "come and get your Buffy lesbian sex comic right here, yeah!"


Back when Northstar "came out" in the early 90s, retailers, at least in Brooklyn, did the same thing. "Teh gay book, it might be worth money some day, come buy it!" You know, except Northstar didn't have any gay sex in that book, because gay male characters aren't allowed to have that in comics (only hot women).

Finally, I love the way some male comic readers freak out at the faintest suspicion of penis on their covers:
I say: more penis on DC's covers! More penis!


See, this all leads back to why we don't have more comics where male characters wake up in bed with each other after having sex.

And that's all I got.

Why I Don't Take Witchblade Seriously

Witchblade should, in theory, be a superheroine I would like.

First, she's an Italian brunette. I can relate.

Second, she's a witch, who has blades. This is cool.

But, in the final analysis, I do not take Witchblade seriously. Which is to say, when I think "Superheroines" she does not come up on my list.

Why?

Because she's largely a T&A Superheroine.

I mean, the TV show went some way in breaking that image up. But in the comics, for the most part, she is largely a T&A Superheroine.


T&A Superheroines pose in every panel in a manner than accentuates their chest or ass. They often are depicted on covers half-naked. T&A Superheroines are ostensibly "empowered" females, tough wimmens...but written mostly for the males in the audience.

But I'm not complaining about that. Because having established that characters like Witchblade, Lara Croft, Vampirella, Lady Death, etc. are T&A Superheroines, they now get a free pass to be as sexy and over-the-top as they want.


I mean, it's a whole genre. It's a genre that has the right to exist. Men have the right, if they so choose, to buy comics with half-naked women with webbing on their breasts. And even buy the damn statues. It is, in my opinion, erotica. I might make fun of some of that erotica, but I wouldn't want to start advocating censoring it.

But that genre needs to be recognized and called what it is -- fantasy/soft-core erotica. It's not about mainstream superheroines. It's not for children. It's not the norm. It's specialized.


It's only when I see a Superheroine with a capital "S" like Wonder Woman treated like a T&A Superheroine that I get really annoyed.

Interestingly, with the "Anita Blake" comics we get an inversion of this, with the male characters a bit more sexualized. The "Anita Blake" book series spawns from romance novels, which have a nice long history of half-naked beefcake on their covers. It's erotica. It's ok.

Saturday Morning Superhero Beefcake

Here's a find: a blog dedicated to drooling over sexy beefcake shots of your favorite superheroes.

What struck me first is that there's quite a few images of "non-functional" nudity or partial-nudity here from mainstream comics of male superheroes.

What struck me second is that Nightwing & Batman seem to have cornered the market on this sort of beefcakery. In fact "Nightwing in the shower" seems to need its own tag.

There are also many helpful tags for those inclined to search for such things as "no nipples," "Speedo," and, of course, "Penance."

(Of course, the pic from "Anita Blake" I posted below sort of doesn't count, but what the hell)

Women Drawn To Men With Muscles

"Women are predisposed to prefer muscularity in men," said study author David Frederick of UCLA.

Curiously, while women prefered strapping muclebound gents, in the end 76% settled for "Jim" from "The Office."