If you ever wonder what those superhero artists are thinking when they draw female characters like sex dolls and male characters like steroid freaks (as I often do), it turns out that some of them really are straight up sexist and unthinkingly misogynist. I’m sure they don’t think of themselves that way, but I suspect they never would have said the things they do in Wizard’s “How to Draw” books if they didn’t think they were writing to a “guys’ locker room” audience. Perhaps someone should tell them that we have this thing called the internet, and women are on it. And some have scanners and blogs where they mock things like this.
How to draw female comic characters [NSFW] from “Wizard How to Draw: Heroic Anatomy” (link courtesy of WFA)
The message that runs throughout these scans is that men are to be strong and heroic; women are to be sexy, sultry, and above all, “feminine”. Not once do the writers consider illustrating a female hero not posing in a sexually submissive way for the (male) reader. That’s just the way they’re supposed to be, because sex is what women are for, right? They’re members of the sex class, not heroes in the way only men can be. I’m not going to comment in detail, because the drool from all that ogling is making my keyboard sticky. The privileged viewpoint on display is breathtaking in its self-assurance. Some of the stuff’s flat out wrong, like Jim Balant’s comment on how women’s eyes “are more slanted and catlike than a man’s”. He uses the word “catlike” three times in that section. The guy must have some kind of fixation. Women are like wild animals? Oh, how original. As for Bart Sears who thinks his freakazoid men are “believable”: yikes.
Read the original first, then check out Brown Betty‘s brilliant reworking, Michael Turner Exudes Sex Appeal [NSFW], in which she replaces Turner’s tips on drawing porn with snippets from the art theory/cultural studies book Ways of Seeing. Because that’s what these artists are really saying.
(The title of this post is inspired by the fact that these are all guys telling other guys how best to draw women, building on a rich tradition of male authorities asserting how women should think, look, and act.)
[Linked at When Fangirls Attack!]
I'm a thirty something Supergirl fan from Canada who's been reading DC comics since 1996. If you don't like discussions of social justice issues in your fandom, this might not be the place for you!
Good read … just a question, do you think that the reason why they might draw women this way is more so be because comic book big-wigs don’t see women/girls as “the” target reader? I think it’s wrong myself, I go to comic shops all the time, and I see a lot of women (some as old as my mother) buying comics and stuff.
The males … I don’t look anything like the “heros” in the comics, but you know I never once looked at it like they were made to look like steroid freaks. I’m gonna have to think about this one….DAMN I HATE IT WHEN SOMEONE GIVES ME SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!!!!!!!!!
:-)
“do you think that the reason why they might draw women this way is more so be because comic book big-wigs don’t see women/girls as “the†target reader?”
Yeah, DC and Marvel (I assume that’s who we’re talking about) don’t consider female readers of any age to be their target reader (which is financially stupid and offensive in itself, but that’s another matter). That isn’t an excuse, mind you. It’s just as sexist whether men are reading it or women. Ultimately it *is* their responsibility who they choose to hire and what type of work they approve.
Even assuming, for sake of argument, that women aren’t in the target audience, there’s still a huge problem here. The reason there’s such an uproar over this is because the artists’ own words make it painfully clear that they’re incredibly, unthinkingly sexist. We’ve generously given them the benefit of the doubt, not accusing them of misogyny unless there’s real, ample proof (i.e. from their own mouths). Some have called this denial; I call it being charitable =) This is proof that they really are that sexist. They couldn’t draw women in a nonsexist way if DC or Marvel suddenly told them that they were now including women in their target audience, because of the messed up way they view women and men.
And here’s where DC and Marvel’s responsibility comes in: Why are these people getting work? If they were all noname wannabe artists it wouldn’t be a big deal. But this is the style that’s being taught to the next generation, full approved and endorsed by companies like Marvel (who owns an interest in Wizard) and DC every time they put one of these guys on a top book. Also, Wizard is a big name. Not everyone knows they’re crap, and besides this *is* the style that’s in far too many comics and in every other comics ‘how to draw’ book, so aspiring artists are going to be eating this stuff up and absorbing these damaging messages. Wizard has a lot to answer for by publishing these books, especially in this day and age.
[5:30pm: Edited and expanded comment to clarify my thoughts]