Chynna Clugston (BLUE MONDAY) talks about what draws women to comics, and why girls don’t always mind the ones with punching:
We need more well-written character pieces to get women in here. I don’t mean lame romances or popularity contests, bitch fights and more of that crap. We need a good balance of everything, and for the record we’re not usually shy about someone getting punched in the face, since many of us have the urge to punch plenty of people in the face. If some people could see that we’re not all that different, that we just tend to enjoy stories with substance and characters we give a shit about, we’d get more women in here.
Meanwhile, on the side of comics that is all about punching, Marvel editor Bill Rosemann tells MySpace Comics that he’d like to see more super hero stories embrace heroism:
Things I want to see more of…ah…this sounds odd, but I guess just more stories about heroes. We live in very dark times. By and large, our industry’s books are about heroes, so let’s see them do heroic things. Don’t be afraid to have characters that inspire us, and show us that even in the darkest of times, it’s the heroic heart that can win.
But Marvel’s flagship writer Brian Bendis, currently penning a book about villains replacing The Avengers, explains to Newsarama that he isn’t sure that heroism is something that can easily quantified. In fact, it may not even exist at all!
Every once in awhile I see someone refer to themselves in a comic book as a criminal, or “I’m the bad guy.” They’ll actually say, “I’m the bad guy.” And I’m like, no one actually thinks they’re a bad guy! You know? Even the sociopaths have a complete agenda. So I really wanted to explore that. Norman is the hero of his story, and everyone on his team is the hero of their story. Yes, they have vendettas, and absolutely, they want to stick it to the man and let everyone have it. But how they’re doing it is through this idea of being the hero of their own story.
Posted by Aaron Humphrey
Actually, your Bendis quote comes from the Newsarama interview (which you linked to), not CBR.
Speaking of Blue Monday, I want more Blue Monday, danggit! Please? Please?
As to Bendis’ thoughts on heroes, I mostly agree. I’m all about character studies and seeing story events through unlikely perspectives. All that is of course just a tool to worthwhile story-telling and if Brian Michael Bendis or Alan Moore or Sean McKeever or David Lapham or whoever can use the tools at their disposal to craft worthwhile stories—stories that fill some need, be it commentating need or entertainment need or otherwise—then three cheers for them. Four cheers if they really create something worthwhile.
Thanks for catching that, Rob!
Dane, I believe there is a new Blue Monday miniseries on the stands right now, with issue 2 in stores this month.
I’m afraid that the Bendis interview is a lot of words about nothing. Bendis’s background is in crime fiction, he apparently enjoys writing villainy more than he does heroism, and the interview is an attempt to justify elevating villains over the heroes. That’s it.
Knowing the difference between right and wrong, or good and evil, entails having a moral sense. If one lacks a moral sense but isn’t obviously deranged, he’ll function on the animalistic principle of self-gratification.
As for the situation Bendis set up for DARK AVENGERS: It’s a bit difficult to deal with the situation arising from a failed storyline, but that’s what “Secret Invasion” was, and nobody at Marvel wants to deal with that, for obvious reasons. Supposing that the reader’s understanding of the Marvel Universe moved from point A to point B via “Secret Invasion” is the same as saying that point B exists in another dimension. During the trip, the reader’s senses are warped.
SRS
Can we go a week on this blog without some form of this sexism/not sexism/blah blah blah argument popping up? We already had the racism thread for the week.
OI. Indeed Mark. Sorry everyone, this is getting to be like the regular brawls outside a Millwall footie match. I’ve removed the repetitive posts and THREAD CLOSED.