Comic Book Anatomy

Anybody who's browsed super-hero comic books in recent times has noticed the dichotomy between how men are drawn and how women are drawn. (I know my wife has mentioned it once or twice.) Sure, supers are fantasy, so it makes sense that the anatomy would be idealized. And that's true for men. But to call female super-heroes idealized would be a gross understatement. Completely unrealistic might be a good starting point, instead. The audience for supers has dwindled to the point that it's now overwhelmingly male, and the men like to look at the unbelievable ladies. The problem of objectification has traditionally been difficult to get across.

But something's been making the rounds of the comics blogs that just might start to help the fanboys understand. In response to this real-life cover by Frank Miller for an upcoming issue of All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder, odditycollector has put together a collection of covers objectifying their male stars (and depending on the environment of your workplace, they may or may not be work safe). These are very funny and make their point without equivocation.

The assumption among many in the comics community about why artists continue to draw women to all the worst stereotypes was perhaps best summed up a couple of months ago by Tim Seeley, artist for any number of books from Devil's Due Publishing, in Chicago Reader (no link because the article's old enough you'd have to buy it online from the Reader):

[Drawing comics is] this weird lonely job where they start to vent their romantic and sexual frustrations. I think if more comic-book artists were starving there'd be more comic books about meat loaf. Fortunately most of them are well fed. They're just undersexed.

Maybe we'd be better off with a diet of meat loaf for a little while.

Interestingly, and totally coincidental to this issue coming up at this time, I saw a play on Sunday that featured swordfights between topless women (what better way to spend Mother's Day, but--sorry guys--that was the final performance). The breasts on these performers did not behave the way I'd been led to believe they would from years of reading comics. They did not remain pert and perky at all times. Although a fighter might have arched her back at some point during the combat, that was not as common a position as it is in comics. I'd suggest that comic book artists should watch something like this to help them better understand how a female body actually looks in the midst of a fight, but I fear the artists' attention would focus in all the wrong places.