When Girls Are Visually Oriented, What Do They See?
H– (my 11-year-old daughter) likes Usagi Yojimbo, Teen Titans Go!, Justice League Unlimited. Her favorites are Alison Dare and Batman.
i’d heard a lot of good things about the new Marvel Adventures Avengers series, so i bought an issue and brought it home. Read it. Seemed okay to me. Handed it off to the kiddos. When H– brought it back, i asked her what she thought.
“It’s good but, well, the art is….” She paused.
i glanced down at the open pages in front of me. “More realistic?” i guessed. Most, if not all, of the stuff she reads is pretty stylized.
“I suppose. But what I was really meant was ‘not very modest.’”
i blinked and picked up the book. Flipping through it, i didn’t see much–well, really anything–that concerned me. i asked her to show me what bothered her. She pointed to one panel. The only panel in the book that shows a whole female figure. All the other females are shown in bits and pieces. Know what it was?
Marvel Adventures The Avengers, No. 10, April 2007 by Jeff Parker (writer), Juan Santacruz (penciller), Raul Fernandez (inker). ©2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.
Just like a regular superhero book. i hadn’t given it a thought.
You know, i could train her to get used to “not very modest” art. i could tell her to man up and recognize that this is the world she lives in and she’s going to just have to modify her values to suit it.
But i don’t think i will. And i don’t think she will.
“More realistic,” indeed. There go some words i wish i could take back.
Sorry, sweetie. Won’t happen again.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:04 am
You are an awesome dad for wanting to share a hobby with your daughter. And you’re even more awesome for listening to her concerns. Rock on.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:23 am
i am indeed an awesome dad!
But now you must come to my house and convince my children….
May 18th, 2007 at 9:53 am
You are the awesomest dad ever! Not just because you give your daughter comics (I wish my dad had given me comics), but because you refuse to let the world dictate who your daughter chooses to be. You need mucho hugs for that and the best father’s day present ever. Also, may I heartily reccomend to your daughter “Leave it to Chance”, a romping thrill ride adventures made for that age group with fantastic art by Paul Smith and a young female hero with a pet dragon who solves magical cases and saves the world
May 18th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Thanks for the recommendation. We already have the three collected volumes of Leave It To Chance, two of them in hardback. They are well-read. In fact they are sitting next to me on the desk here in preparation for some reviews and comments i want to make here.
See how much i rock? What dad can compare?
May 18th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
What’s even cooler is that she can articulate to you exactly what bothers her about the comic. I think a lot of kids would just go with it, take it in, make it part of their visual language going forward. Of course, it IS a compliment to you as parents that she feels like she can point it out to you, too.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
You should correct the problem as soon as possible and tell your daughter that this is not right. Or something.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:16 am
And I forgot to say it on Heidi’s blog, but thanks for offering MA-Avengers as one of the books for her to read! We struck out that time, but one day…
May 19th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Hi, Jeff. i saw on your site that the next MA Avengers is the story of Giant-Girl. That sounds like a good chance to try again. So we will!
And you know, i realize that i’ve left an impression that we (there’s also me and there’s N– the 14-year-old boy who somehow neglected to object) didn’t like the book, which isn’t actually true. i see that i’ve already broken my unwritten rule of talking as much about the stuff we like as the stuff we didn’t. Sorry about that. Strike 1 for me too.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
In the words of Frank Miller, “The Customer Is Always Right.”
However, Jeff, I wouldn’t feel too bad. That Morgaine picture was no more revealing than Raven from the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans era, when superhero comics as a whole were much more kid-friendly than nowadays.
And kudos to you and your artists for making kid-friendly books without falling into a Johnny DC-type “house style”. That style is all well and good, but it’s not the type of story that hooked me on comics when I was 8-9. Kids should have THEIR Adams, Kirby, Buscema, Swan, Perez, Garcia-Lopez, or Aparo just like fans of our generations did, and not have their options limited to the really cartoony stuff. So utilizing guys like Leonard Kirk is a better draw to kids than the Johnny DC stuff.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:04 am
I’m curious, why does she find that picture less modest than say, Raven from Teen Titans Go? Other than the low cut neck line, I think both Raven and Starfire have more revealing outfits.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
i didn’t ask her for specifics (and won’t) because i don’t have a good way to ask without making her self-conscious. It’s more important to me that she have a sense that the opinion is a valid one.
But this question came up in comments at the Beat (note Eric Shanower’s remarks in particular). The human figures are essentially nudes with clothes painted on, there’s a slit up the dress to the thigh, and jewelry is positioned in… interesting locations. No one H– knows dresses like that.
Raven and Starfire are much more abstract drawings.
You’re asking me to determine where exactly the line in the sand is drawn, and i can’t tell you that. All i can see from here is that she’s drawn it a lot farther back than i would have.
For me, food for thought.
But you are making the comparison between Morgan Le Fay and Raven/Starfire. Given the difference in the art styles, do you think there’s really a comparison to be made? i don’t see it. Are you saying that the female characters in Teen Titans Go! are as sexually charged as the Morgan picture? Really?
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:36 am
Kids should have THEIR Adams, Kirby, Buscema, Swan, Perez, Garcia-Lopez, or Aparo just like fans of our generations did, and not have their options limited to the really cartoony stuff.
i definitely agree. We picked up Marvel Adventures Avengers 13, and i think the work by Leonard Kirk and Terry Pallot is excellent here.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 am
Skipper Pickle: I am making a comparison between Morgan Le Fay and the Teen Titans Go! characters BECAUSE of the art style: you yourself did so when you said this illustration style was “more realistic.” My question is, if Raven and Starfire were drawn in the less cartoony style as Morgan Le Fay was, would your daughter find those costumes to be less modest? If Morgan was drawn in a Teen Titans Go! style, would she find that costume more modest? Is it the style of a drawing, not just the content, that can determine what someone may have a reaction to? These are hypothetical questions, I don’t expect you to go ask your daughter these, but I don’t think you were wrong to say the style of this book was “more realistic” than the books your daughter is used to. I think it’s a valid difference between the two.
Now, I’m certainly not saying that the image of Morgan Le Fay is more realistic in a “this is what a woman looks like and this is what all women should aspire to be.” That’s definitely not what I’m trying to get at. But just on an illustrative style level, you will find Morgan Le Fay’s proportions closer to real women proportions than the bobble-headed, stick-limbed Raven and Starfire. I’m also not saying I prefer the Morgan Le Fay image: quite frankly, I think it’s a horrible illustration. But I will acknowledge the artist had a clear intent at drawing a naturally proportioned woman, at least moreso than the cartoon style of Teen Titans Go!
I do think there is a line between a cartoon style and realistic style, and on one side of the line something can be humorous and entertaining, while on the other side it can be quite disturbing. Kids have loved the antics of Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, and so on, but depict some of the same violence with realistic imagery of rabbits and cats and mice and you’ll hear a lot of crying. I think that applies to all sorts of things, and likewise a costume drawn in a cartoon style can make a totally different impression than a similar costume drawn in a more realistic style.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:51 pm
i’m not sure i’d say that the more abstract style is inherently more modest, because then someone will fetch me an indiscreet Gotham Girls image a la Bruce Timm and i’ll have to eat my words. I think what’s true here is that the more abstract style allows the viewer to see what they want to see (or to not see what they don’t want to see?).
You may be right that “more realistic” was an accurate term when it comes to artistic style. But what she hears and what i say are probably not aligned–she doesn’t know anyone who dresses this way, so what does she hear if i say that it’s a more “realistic” drawing. i’m not sure.
i agree that the problem with the Morgan image stems primarily from style—drilling down, it’s also about posture, accentuation, and contour. But now i am pretending to know more about art than i really do. You probably have more expertise in this area than i.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:03 am
I wonder if what your daughter is concerned about with this picture might be the vacant eyed sexuality as opposed to a more emotionally three-dimensional female characters in Teen Titans Go!, for instance? Food for thought, anyway.