themyskira:

13574239:

brianmichaelbendis:

I do understand it. it was a mixed message and I’m glad that Marvel copped to it.  frankly, my feelings mirrored Amy Reeder’s

“If you want to know my opinion on Milo Manara’s Spider-woman cover, I’m going to have to disappoint you and say I feel super divided on it. I love Milo Manara!! It’s a variant cover…so it’s sort of an erotica variant! Of course, I’d also like to see Katie Cook do her own version…that’d make Marvel’s choice seem a little less like a systemic problem. And yes, it’s all a different story with context, but without context, it is a bit jarring and I don’t negate that because the Internet really changes our experience these days. And the image itself does remind me a lot of images by artists I DON’T respect…

“That’s not my point. My point is, it’s not an easy thing to evaluate or explain what is okay and what’s not. Some sexy drawings of women I can get behind, some I can’t. Some of that’s context. But a lot of it is what seemed like a weird intuition that I couldn’t really pinpoint, until recently.

“The word that changes everything for me is ‘personhood.’ Does this woman seem like a person? Do they have life breathed into them? A personality? Or are they an object? Do they feel manufactured or repetitive? Would guys who like this appreciate that I am a living, breathing woman? Or would they complain I talk too much?”

–Rocket Girl artist Amy Reeder,

 to add to that I find that there is a very creepy undertone of certain people trying to shame creators. I could do without that altogether. it’s creepy.

 I was more offended by the creators redrawing the cover ‘properly’  how insipid.

 if you don’t like something don’t buy it. if enough people don’t buy it just won’t exist. this creator shaming, to me, is creepier than anything you might think is wrong in this business.

 all an uproar does is put the spotlight on something and that thing ends up being waaaay more financially successful than it would’ve been without it. this is a truth as old as our culture.

 one of my kids might end up going to college because of Glenn Beck’s racist shit about miles morales :)

 sometimes I see people pulling panels out of context in a weird attempt to shame people.  like, if you showed the next panel the panel you showed would and does have a different context.

 in my opinion, artists should be able to express themselves without fear of shaming. that idea is the most important to me. I get concerned about what kind of vanilla, soulless crap we are going to end up with if everybody is subconsciously worried about being shamed.

 I was glad manara came out and defended himself and didn’t back down from his art even though I don’t think he needed to.

 if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. say it over and over.

 and now take a moment and curb your desire to yell at me because I have an opinion that might disagree with your own. thank you :-)

Without context: sexist anatomy-breaking depiction of a woman

WITH context: deliberate choice by marvel to have a sexist erotica variant for something aimed at a female audience

…I don’t see how context makes it better  

in other news: man is more offended by anatomically correct re-draws than the objectification and sexualization of women, and water is wet

“If you don’t like it, don’t buy it” is also disingenuous because, YES! I do like Spider-Woman! I would like to buy all the Spider-Woman books! I want to put my money behind this book and see it become a success so that Marvel continues to put out more awesome Spider-Woman stories!

But if I do buy this book — even if I steer clear of the Milo Manara variant cover — I’ll be buying a comic full of Greg Land artwork that’s only going to make me feel icky. Land is an artist well-known for tracing other artists’ work and photos, including pornography, and contorting women into all kinds of anatomically impossible poses. Doesn’t matter how great the script is, if Greg Land is on art duties I struggle to maintain my enthusiasm.

And god, how often have I faced that dilemma before as a female comic fan? Wanting to support an awesome female character, despite the writing being mediocre or the artwork being creepy, because something is better than nothing. Wanting to buy a certain trade to complete my collection but feeling icky about spending money on a book full of tits and ass. Feeling that I can’t even vote with my wallet because the company didn’t care about my lady money to begin with.

You’re deluding yourself if you think this is about that one cover. There’s a much bigger issue here, and you are taking it out of context to say that the backlash over Manara’s cover was all to do with women taking offence and shaming the creator over one single image.