Gail Simone's Blog, page 1176

I admit I don't have such a character in the planning stages, but you're right, it needs to happen. I am working with some lovely artists who are Muslim, which could only help. I wish I had a better answer to this very reasonable question. I will certainly give it some thought. Thank you.

I admit I don't have such a character in the planning stages, but you're right, it needs to happen. I am working with some lovely artists who are Muslim, which could only help. I wish I had a better answer to this very reasonable question. I will certainly give it some thought. Thank you.

I admit I don't have such a character in the planning stages, but you're right, it needs to happen. I am working with some lovely artists who are Muslim, which could only help. I wish I had a better answer to this very reasonable question. I will certainly give it some thought. Thank you.

Thank you! I actually have one but I honestly don't know what the value of it is so I never post there. Sorry!

elliottmarshal:

[Image: A black and white sketch of DC Comics character Jeanette. She's posed as if leaning against a wall and looks very stern.]

By Khoi Pham

Oh, my HEART.

Holy moley, that is gorgeous. I need to know who Koi Pham is PRONTO.

In honor of ALL the Batgirls, I'm starting this thread. Please add links to fan art, convention sketches, whatever, anything that HASN'T appeared in an actual comic, that is Batgirl art.

And please no porn, if you don't mind, okay?

Any Batgirl, just link your favorite Batgirl art! Thanks!

ealperin:

gailsimone:

gailsimone:

deathlyillandalwaysbusy:

So I've started reading Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey and enjoying it greatly. And you know what, if you want to draw butts in taking up 3/4ths of every panel, okay, I can actually handle that pretty well. But JESUS FUCK, ED BENES. WHAT THE…

Oh, we definitely need more female artists, but yeah, a female artist is absolutely no guarantee that you won't get tons of cheesecake fanservice. I have had female artists who made Ed look like a puritan in comparison, sincerely.

I think we also need more female writers in the comic book field, not only artists, inkers and editors. I just haven't seen many of these talented female artists because I haven had the chance to go to a con. There are very few great artists I see in general, online, because of that fact. Artists like Rachael Dodson, Faith Erin Hicks, Amanda Conner, Nicola Scott, Joyce Chin are amazing people that draw beautifully and have their own styles. We do need more females in comic books and I hope that happens. Sooner than later. If any, I have the sequel to Womanthology to look forward to writing a 4 page story in. :)

I think more females will make a world of difference. But it shouldn't be ALL on us, the guys should pay a lot more attention to the female characters and portrayals for  a myriad of reasons. The burden should be on everyone to do better.

And it's also true that having females on the team is no guarantee there won't be problems. Unless I'm mistaken, both the Red Hood and Catwoman have female editors, and they have had a ton of controversy this week. I haven't read either issue fully yet (just partially), so it's hard for me to comment on those titles, but I'm sure most of you have read about them.

Sigh. I miss her, too, I miss all the Secret Six. I tried to use Catman and Scandal in Batgirl four, but they have asked us to stick with mostly new characters for a while. But I will bring the Secret Six back as soon as I can, that's a promise. Jeannette and Scandal didn't go away, they're just…on vacation, I guess!

deathlyillandalwaysbusy:

deathlyillandalwaysbusy:

So I've started reading Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey and enjoying it greatly. And you know what, if you want to draw butts in taking up 3/4ths of every panel, okay, I can actually handle that pretty well. But JESUS FUCK, ED BENES. WHAT THE HELL.
I'll give you…

Oh
oh my gosh.
This really blew up. I think this requires an explanation now (now being now that Gail Simone has seen it and I'm all flustered and don't know what to say).

I think the first thing is that I actually did not expect anyone to see this. I'm a tumblr nobody and never aspired to anything greater than that. (My blog is made up of reblogs of cats and other cute things.) This is why I pretty much went off without giving an even-stevens argument. It was just a complaint! But now that this seems to have sparked a discussion:

I wasn't commenting so much on the overt oversexualization of these characters so much as I was commenting on why this particular oversexualizing wasn't working. (eg, the costumes being stuck up girls' butts in an impossible way, the sewn-on basketball breasts)
Mostly because to me, that isn't sexy.
(And I come from a California beach town, so I'm no stranger to booty-shorts. Girls in high school wear them all the time—the difference between ours and Bene's is that while our beach girls got them high enough to have their fannies hanging out, there was no possible way that they could have comfortably jammed them so far up as to show off over half of their buttcheeks.)

I concede that I was pretty hard on Ed Benes. I can't imagine how he thought those costumes fit up there, but the art in general is usually pretty solid. And I like how he draws Savant's face. And I realize the main Black Hole Booty picture I used as an example isn't from the book. I used that because I put in about 7 minutes to look for a picture that exemplified what I was complaining about, and that one was just perfect. I mean, the focal point was her butt. How could I resist? I wasn't trying to create a real argument, just a heat-of-the-moment rant that I thought would make my non-comics friends laugh. (It was hasty and hurtful though, and for that I sincerely apologize. A person is a person, no matter how far removed I am from him, and I wasn't being fair to him in the slightest.)

I'm glad Ms.Simone told Bene's story though. He's certainly talented, even if I have problems with his art. And I'm happy that he got an opportunity like this.

And then we (being some other people over the course of the morning who are not me, since I was in math class) got into an argument about oversexualization. I have this to say: ridiculously sexy characters have their place. It is hard to break habits of drawing oversexualized women. And while these are professional artists, they draw the way they draw. It can be good and bad at the same time. (Like Joe Bennet: I showed off his cringe-worthy drawing of the Birds up there, but just the page before, he drew some phenomenal little girls. The were chubby and cute and actually looked like small children playing with chalk. I was impressed.)

It happens. I don't think that means we should stop pointing it out, but let's try not to get outraged the way I did. Personally attacking somebody never inspires positive change, and I'm pretty ashamed of myself now that I've been called out on it. (But hey, at least it was funny. I'll wear that as a badge of honor.) 

Objectorbit says, "Perhaps that just how some women like to draw their women?" Which I think is nice. (I can't seem to find where the initial argument about needing more female artists to balance out the fanservice came from.) I really like drawing sexy women. I love drawing pin-up style women. And I actually like looking at them too, and I'm not even a lesbian. I'm sex-positive (which means I HATE it when people demonize sex, because I think it's a perfectly natural part of life, whether you choose to have it or not)— I'm from a French background too. So sexuality in comics doesn't offend me. It's really about the way its portrayed.

So, uh, I don't think women are the problem or the solution.
I got a little lost in what I was trying to say here, but I just wanted to kinda put my actual thought process out there so that people don't think that I'm the raging dickwad that my original post kind of makes me out to be.

Also that I am pretty much IN LOVE with Birds of Prey right now, and I can't wait till November so that I can finally read the rest of the trades that I accidentally shipped to my house instead of my dorm.

No, no, no, really, you DO NOT have to defend yourself or what you wrote, I thought it was really funny and there's some obvious truth in it.  I admit I have a higher tolerance for cheesecake IF it's done well than a lot of female readers do.

One thing I loved about Ed was, if I asked for a guy to be sexy, or posed in a sexy manner, damn if he didn't do that with the same kind of intensity and dedication he used with female characters. That made a lot of difference…a lot of people followed the book during Ed's run primarily for Creote and Savant, for example.

But I seriously only reblogged because I admired the way you threw the words around. I thought it was really funny and well done. NO apologies or defenses necessary at all!

erkhart:

gailsimone:

superheroeskickingass:

gailsimone:

gailsimone:

deathlyillandalwaysbusy:

So I've started reading Gail Simone's run on Birds of Prey and enjoying it greatly. And you know what, if you want to draw butts in taking up 3/4ths of every panel, okay, I can actually handle that pretty well. But JESUS FUCK, ED BENES. WHAT THE…

Oh, we definitely need more female artists, but yeah, a female artist is absolutely no guarantee that you won't get tons of cheesecake fanservice. I have had female artists who made Ed look like a puritan in comparison, sincerely.

Ms. Simone that may be true. But I have not scene them.

In some cases, it may be because some things get edited before they go to print. The first couple that spring to mind are both great artists, I loved working with them, but the cheesecake was far greater than what Ed does.  Adriana Melo in Rose and Thorn, we had to change a LOT of poses that were not supposed to be sexualized.  Adriana is a fantastic artist but some of the stuff came to us looking very, very sexualized at inappropriate times.

The other in the front of my mind is Joyce Chin, whom I worked with on Vampirella/Magdelena/Witchblade. GREAT artist, but holy mackerel, even fully clothed, her women carry a parental advisory!

"Need more female artists"? No, for what you're after you need more female editors.

Believe me, that is no guarantee, either, unfortunately.