I’d like to apologize about the amount I seem to be writing about the Buffy Season 8 comic book. Yes, I’m an obsessed fangirl, but it’s mostly because comics are a new medium to me. I find the sexism in comics new and kind of shocking, so I will be writing more about it than anyone wants to know.
So this is the cover of the third Buffy comic book:
That’s supposed to be Willow – who has grown a foot, had breast implants and stole Buffy’s pants. She has also apparently spent the years since we saw her last searching out the single most impractical garment ever made to wear as a top.
Bah – I was so excited about season 8, but I’m not sure I can take it if every female character is drawn for men.
Well, it’s common knowledge that women can fight more efficiently in not-so-efficient clothing. It will always be irritating to me that women in video games, comic books, and everything else aimed at a male demographic, are portrayed as scantily-clad objects, but how can one really combat this without censoring? I’m not trying to be argumentative; I would just really like to know what others think.
Covers are notorious for being over-stylized. I wouldn’t worry too much, although I see why you’re concerned.
(Funnily enough, although certainly not unheard of, that cover art was done by a woman, whereas the by-all-accounts much less cheesecake-y inside stuff by two men.)
I agree with Maia. It’s Goth wank. I’ve no objection to a little fanservice but this is absurd.
I was surprised to see that it was done by a woman too. Although I did like her Buffy, and thought it was better than at least some of the Buffy inside.
I’m almost more annoyed by the top than the breast implant. It’s such a ridiculous garment. I’ve got a friend with a top with sleeves like that and she’s always tying them up and around so she can do anything. As for the complete lack of back/weird front thing – you’d both fall out of it and trip over it. I can’t imagine that red leather pants makes it any more practical.
I’m not especially surprised that it was painted by a woman; it’s pretty common to see women artists drawing women that way in comics fandom, actually.
It is a really awful shirt, though.
I guess I didn’t see it that way at all.
I saw the top/dress thing as a play on the idea of the ugly wicked witch in the black dress. Instead of a frumpy dress, this one is short of a sexy shirt dress. From the front she might look like a standard ideal of a witch, but from the back she is very different.
It breaks the laws of physics to have it stay on, but that is what magic (and double sided tape) is for.
I would complain that she looks wayyyyy to skinny, however Alyson Hannigan is actually that skinny in real life….
I just found out yesterday that she and Alexis Denisof are married. Color me clueless fanboy.
Alyson Hannigan is very thin, but (unless she’s got a breast implant recently) her breasts don’t look like that.
I can see your point (although I hadn’t thought that much about how the dress would have looked from the front), but why must images of women always be undertaken by making them conform to certain ideas of sexuality. That’s changinng stereotypes, not challenging anything.
Hey, remember the days when the cover of a comic actually pretended to have something specifically to do with the issue? and maybe a bit of witty reparte between the hero and the flavor of the month villian?
nah, I’m probably imagining things.
This from the person who was all over me to read Annihilation (which I’m loving, btw.)
Yeah, wouldn’t she set her sleeves on fire the first time she throws lightning around?
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