Arguing With Ben
I have this buddy Ben who is one on the more prolific webcomicer out there;
He also happens to be an interesting guy to argue with. Ben is very passionate about what he believes and will have knock down drag out fights about it. But he never does it in malice. He is the type of guy who you can say “Ben you ignorant s!!t” to and take it in good humor. Just keep in mind he will call you an ignorant s!!t back so you have to have the same sort of take no prisoners but hold no grudges attitude that if you plan on entering the debate arena with him.
Why am I telling you this? Well last night I had a little debate with him over the DC comics relaunch, the potrayal of Starfire and the Dave Willis cartoon on the subject. It was a fun debate and something you should check out.
http://animationaficionados.com/2011/09/26/david-willis-is-an-idiot/
Now the title of the episode is “Dave Willis is an idiot” and yet again this is because of the way Ben debates. Later Ben posted a retraction apologizing for the strength of his disagreement which is something you got to respect. A noble man is not someone who always does the right thing but someone who admits when he is wrong. And you guys know I have been in the been there done that catagory of loosing my seam and then having to retract it later so I can respect Ben for this.
http://animationaficionados.com/2011/09/27/an-apology-regarding-david-willis/
This whole controversy is over the almost comically stupid execution of the DC comics reboot. The stated purpose of the reboot was to gain new readers by streamlining continuity to make the stories more accessible. The strange part of all this is right after stating that DC comics seems to have gone out of it way to offend this new audience they were trying to get.
Lets face it once the internet came along most of us stopped buying comic books for their pornography value. A 12 year old now can go online and see any character having sex with any other character in graphic detail. He doesn’t have to pay 3-4 buck for a comic book to get a glimpse of a silhouetted boob. Same goes for 42 year old men with a mentality of 12 year olds. And yet all this is the new lot of comics from DC has to offer is censored soft core pornography.
Seriously the stories are dreadful and cleched. The characterization is about as deep as a single molecular layer of graphine. And the books are about as innovative and groundbreaking as discovering fire is hot. The core comic book audience will put up with this because frankly they are either buying out of nostalgia for their childhood or because they are dreamers who make up their own stories in their head based off the archetypes in the books. The general public on the other hand in no where near as loyal as the core comic audience and will not put up with this crap. Changing continuity will not make up for the fact that most of the books are just plain bad.
And then there is women. My God, DC seems to understand less about women that immortal genderless aliens from a barren wasteland planet in a galaxy with out any form of life reproduces in a dimension where “No girls allows ’cause they have cooties” is written into the fundemental laws of the universe that defines the very existance of time and space. At every turn they seem to go out of their way to let women know they are not welcome and will not be listened to. Starfire is just the most recent insult in a long line of slights to those dreaded carrier of the cootie infestation. Here is a general hint for those of you are genderless aliens, women do not buy things from people who treat them like garbage. Yeah I know it’s weird it’s almost like women are rational human beings who will make informed decisions on where they choose to spend there money.
Ultimately David Willis is wrong. It’s not the slutty Starfire that is going to kill DC it’s all the other things:
- The stories are too decompressed and juvenile.
- There is no diversity of product. It’s retelling of stories and using icon/imagery from the 50’s
- The price is way too high for a single comic .
- There is no investment in new products or searching for new talent.
- The direct market is a sinking ship that DC is clinging to with all it’s might.
- There is no women writing comics or in decision making positions.
- DC thinks the general public are like comic books fans and will still buy their product after being publicly insulted.
A slutty Starfire is the least of DC’s problems, its the systemic and culturally idocys of the company that are the gushing chest wounds bleeding the company to death.
I agree with all of that, although it is the portrayal of the women that I’ve been most insulted by (and have posted my own complaints on my own website). Both Karen Star (Power Girl) and Wonder Woman’s first appearances have them either naked or half-dressed after having sex. One of DC’s promises was to have their lady heroes in less revealing outfits to appeal to female readers, but that seems to have been mostly an epic fail. It makes me so mad that they cancelled the amazing ZATANNA series so they could try and force feed us this crap.
I once said Marvel let the artists do the plot so they could make central spreads of the women; now DC seems to have fallen into a similar trap, treating women like cheesecake. I agree with the above that DC lacks imagination on its’ plotlines. The artwork of the comics have generally improved over the decades but the continuity is terrible, and DC decided a reboot was better than trying to clean things up. Now the writers and editors are asking us to continue watching a movie that has nothing but a “R” rating for violence and near-nudity with lots of action but no plot. In the Flashpoint Reboot? Superman has lost Lois Lane. The Flash has lost his near-eternal love. Kyle Rayner would gain a girlfriend just to lose her, including the latest, an alien. Hal Jordan doesn’t even see Carol Ferris now that she’s a “good” Star Sapphire. Guy Gardner has lost Tora. Starfire is every shallow eighteen-year-old’s dream: sex without commitment. There are no healthy relationships left in DC.
Honestly, my main beef with Red Hood and the Outlaws isn’t having Starfire pose sexily or wear very little. That’s not uncommon for the character. It’s the sudden rewrite of her personality to the point where she doesn’t remember nor care about humans. At all. She used to love Dick Grayson enough that she wanted to marry him. Now she doesn’t even remember his name? And they’re making it out like that’s normal for her all along. It’s ridiculously frustrating. I didn’t read the comics, but I know enough about them, and I loved Starfire in the cartoons, so I was interested in this title just for seeing how they worked her in alongside frikkin Jason Todd. And what I get is a “well, we didn’t really know how to make the character work, so we rewrote the character until she did” approach. I’m glad I couldn’t find one on the shelves to buy, and only just read it from a scan online. Not worth the money.
On the plus side, Batgirl was remarkably better than I anticipated, after they went and ruined Barbara Gordon’s ongoing impact as a character vis a vis Oracle and handicapped superheroes.
The DC reboot is the culmination of years of bad editing and overall direction…
It’s not just one person at fault even though the main editor is a clueless twat.
There’s a bad art director (responsible for the awful character designs) and a crew-load of bad writers helming the books, too.
The sales don’t tell the entire story, nor does the clueless fawning editorial over the relaunched titles.
It’s a shipwreck…
Myself f!!!!!g myself… DC stands for Doing Comics…very badly. Jim Lee should be nailed to a cross then shot.
I find it telling that what I consider some of the best DC stuff since, oh, the Marv Wolfman days, is to be found in the Young Justice cartoon… which is largely based on ’60s and ’80s plots and themes.
Not to detract from those working on the show, they’re doing an amazing job. When I realized that Robin, Kid Flash and Aqualad were fighting Mister Twister, I geeked pretty severely. *plays with his Young Justice Happy Meal toys*
To me, Red Hood and the Outlaws is a TINY symptom of many, much larger problems, like Eric said.
So, since this was posted by Drowemos I wasn’t getting any alerts that there were pending comments to approve and just realized this. Sorry for the delay on everyone’s replies…