Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Published in The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

A quick post to announce my essay ‘The Feminine Mystique: Feminism, Sexuality, Motherhood’ is now available in the latest issue of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2011) published by Taylor and Francis.


The issue is devoted to the topic of superheroes and gender.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Notice the Difference? Eliminating the Feminine in Superhero Comics - Image Appendix


After some calls for a greater sample size of female superhero comic book characters displaying male body characteristics to support my theory in the 'Notice the Difference?: Eliminating the Feminine in Superhero Comics' I have responded with this post and the images below.

On a number of the images I have marked lines defining the height of characters. These are of course approximate. They disregard hair height and go through the approximate area of the heel of the foot which negates high heels and standing on the balls of the feet. In these figures, the pubic area (on which I have marked an approximate line through the area) is quite obviously above the mid-point of the body. A standard female body will have the pubic area slightly below the midpoint of the body. Further explanation can be found in the three part 'Notice the Difference' essay.

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

Read Part 3

On a number of figures I have also marked lines of the shoulders down to the hips. The standard female body should have hips slightly wider than their shoulders but on these figures the shoulders are wider than the hips - a male body trait. Perhaps if the characters weren't so unconscionably thin their hips might be wider than their shoulders.

I have also provided a figure of standard male and female anatomy to compare the comic character bodies against. Obviously the images are not to scale, however they do provide a decent reference.

Below are the characters Sara Pezzini (Witchblade #1 November 1995), Aspen Mathews (Fathom #4 March 1999) and Synergy (Stormwatch Sourcebook, #1 January 1994).

   

Characters below are again Aspen Mathews (Fathom #1 August 1998) , and a character sketch of Fairchild (Gen 13, #1 February 1994).
Below is Void and Zealot (WildCATS, #1 August 1992).

  


Below is the character Flint from Stormwatch (#47 May 1997and although her hips are offset, they are obviously smaller than the width of her shoulders. Similarly the Witchblade (Witchblade Infinity, #1 May 1999) character has the same features. 



The images of Mystique are from her run in X-Factor (#130 1997 and #127 1996 respectively). In the first her elongated legs are evident which come from having the pubic above the mid-point of the body. The second her also exhibits shoulders wider than her hips.



The images of Wonder Woman and Supergirl from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Again (2001-02) show the characters with broad masculine shoulders.




The images below are from Matt Fraction and Fabio Moons Casanova: Gula (#3 March 2011). Both show the female character with pubic area above the mid-point of the body leaving the torso/upper body too short and elongating the legs.

     


Artist Adam Hughes also likes to see Wonder Woman with broad, masculine shoulders and slim hips. This is the cover image for Wonder Woman #178 (March 2002).


Below is Stuart Immonen's characters from the cover of Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E #1 (March 2006). The female characters display  the pubic area above the mid-point of the body leaving the torso/upper body too short and elongating the legs. 



Below is a character sketch of the WildCATS character Zealot, by Travis Charest (Charest worked on WildCATS from 1994 to 1998), again with pubic area too high.


Below are images of figurines based on the Justice League Unlimited animated series (running from 2004-06) characters and we can see here that Wonder Woman also exhibits the male characteristics of shoulders wider than her hips. The male characters are rendered in a hypermasculine manner with incredibly broad shoulders.