Battle of the butt-in-the-air arachnid superheroes

Yeah, I’ve been a fan of Minara for a while, and this doesn’t look much like his style. Like maybe he just sent them some old crap he hadn’t used.

Aw, yeah, you did.

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I greatly appreciate your efforts to lighten up the mood in this thread.

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The slideshow in themarysue’s site linked above is excellent. Really does a good job of redrawing the covers – mostly the real cover.

This Manara cover aside, the real cover is just terrible. When the frack happened to her legs? I mean, it would be awesome if Spiderwoman became a comic about a disabled woman kicking ass, but I think it’s not meant to be…

It looks like something right out of Photoshop Disasters.

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The internet ain’t gonna run out of Spidey gifs any time soon, like. Have at it @funruly :smiley:

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Really?
Folk are complaining,
That a picture drawn by Manara,
Milo Manara,
features a female with prominent, sexualized buttocks.

OMG, heaven forbid they catch sight of a Robert Crumb illustration!

Criticise the choice of Manara as a guest artist for a mainstream (?) comic if you must (I’d still stongly disagree, but understand your opinion) - but you should never expect anything but that style of art from an artist whose fame includes that style of art.

  • still, this is a sad example to have highlighted. Manara does much better, and much sexier, much better, than this throw-away piece.
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Yes, exactly. People who judge first.

As I said, there are much better examples. That’s from a 5 minute Google search. I’m sure someone who was actually into comics would be able to give you a much better rundown.

But please, by all means, join the furor over something comparatively benign. I’m sure that’s the best use of your energy and time; that most in the comic book subculture will take you seriously when you display a lack of familiarity with their passion by missing out on the far more rampant objectification and examples where male characters show up in similar poses. It’s a great way to foster an us/them insider/outsider defensive combative dynamic.

Here’s a pose of a female superhero kicking butt. I can barely see the objectification anymore.

I’ve seen some idiots do that.

The potential difference–and forgive me, I don’t know if they made a new character for Tor or not–is that Spider-Woman is a different character.

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Oh, God, that link about Wonder-Woman. Because women IRL never have breasts that large. And superheroes never have unrealistic body types. But that third one…holy Christmas, what the heck is going on with that pose?

And the original cover…holy crap. I’m sorry, but it just seems worse knowing who did the art. Not only did they get an erotic artist to make their Strong Female Superhero™, it looks dull, uninspired, and amateur, especially compared to some of his other work. I have, not joking here, seen better work on Deviant Art by amateurs.

A surprising numbert of people are not complaining about that. They are actually denying that it has occurred. I’m not complaining about it, either. I’m just saying it’s obvious to me that it has happened.

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Lots of good (imo: Alex Ros, Stuart Immonen) comics illustrators use photo references. Lots of Pixar animators, too.

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Because Manara is an erotic artist, a grotesquely contorted body with spread cheeks is the only thing this man can ever draw?

The only work of his I actually own is the Sandman’s Endless Nights and, even though there are several blow-job faces unnecessary to the plot throughout, the women aren’t bent over every which way in every panel. The art overall is extremely well-done; buildings, landscapes, male/female figures, clothing, etc. This man can draw eye-watering porn but he also has the skills to draw a perfectly normal and non-deformed female. For anyone who knows Manara’s skills, this cover is that much more surprising; not because it is sexual but because it is shitty.

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That doesn’t mean they need them. But I’m the one saying I think he started with one here.

I liked your comment because I do agree that it’s ridiculous that some people are complaining about the position alone (note title of this thread which is not “Manara Draws Reprehensibly Bad Cover”). However, I want to make sure you read the articles and comments available at The Mary Sue (redrawn cover outlines can be seen there). The people there (and here) are mainly complaining about both variant covers because both are badly drawn.

That’s what I’m complaining about, and I’m a chick. Manara is an excellent artist, and specializes in the female figure - this cover shouldn’t be this bad. The guy is 69. I’m actually hoping there isn’t a problem with his health.

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Yep, the slideshow shows that a figure artist understands structural form of the body. I did say both variants are terrible, but Greg Land is nowhere near the level of artist that Manara is. People regularly complain about his lack of foundation skill understanding the human form (he often forgets people have insides). That’s why some people are so shocked by the Manara cover.

If you want to see more, I recommend a Google search for “Greg Land tracing”. Land is an artist that heavily relies on photographic reference material and material from other artists, and he directly traces. There are lots and lots of examples on the web.

Manara is a true figure artist. A search of “Milo Manara tracing” won’t return any examples of it, just wonderful pictures he drew. The man is a 69 year-old Italian artist who has spent most of his career drawing the human figure. He doesn’t need a reference for basic position anymore than Karine Charlebois did when she did her outlined corrections.

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Yeah, I don’t understand. I know nothing of his work, but I assume that if he’s such a renowned artist he must know how to draw.

Which implies this was either incredibly lazy, rushed, or intentional.

Hipster comic anyone?

@regeya

I’m not convinced that ALL objectification is bad. We all do it to each other sometimes, whether you’re a man or a woman. We all prefer to interact with more attractive people.

Where’s the restaurant with the ugly wait staff? Portland maybe?

What we see in comics are a symptom of our overall cultural values. They’re what you get when you combine a highly superficial/visual/objectifying society with a gender-dominated largely immature genre.

All superheroes have idealized bodies, yet no one complains about the male objectification. We’re not quite drawing in camel toes and moose knuckles yet.

Clearly we, and our society, have an objectification problem. We complain about it when it makes us uncomfortable seconds after doing it to someone else.

If we decapitated and objectified women the way Hollister bags do with men, we’d have a riot.

If we objectified men in a way that women wanted to look at in comics they’d be built like these shirtless, grapefruit-drinking guys:

The muscle-bound fantasies of teen boys aren’t what girls are interested in. Those are men’s fantasies. Superhero comics don’t tend to cater to straight women, and this concept has already been discussed in relationship to video game ideals.

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