Porn Revelations...

I was recently asked to contribute to a "Doomsday" portfolio, and until then I didn't know what a "Doomsday" was.  So I did some research first before saying yea or nay.

 No softness here.

Turns out this character looks like a cross between a walking gem show and an overblown bodybuilder with a really tiny head, the idea being I guess that crystals and diamonds are hard and so they'll make muscles seem harder too. I was instinctively revolted and naturally had to figure out exactly why.

I'd also add that this character is best known for "killing" Superman, which is yet another example of Comics falling on its face. Killing the hero is easy and obvious, and dumb because a dead hero never was a hero.

In this case, the analysis didn't take long.  My feeling is that "Bodybuilding" and the body-image it represents is like the opposite of anorexia in women--though in all fairness, men can have anorexia too. What the promotion of this steroidal imagery does is tell males that their bodies aren't up to society's current standard, in the same way that Pornography tells them.

Hoffman gets in the way again.

And nowadays, not only is mainstream Porn making some guys pressure their wives and girlfriends into getting surgery etc, but they also are getting pressure to adopt the male porn-star "tat" look. In fact, the Porn industry is actively promoting its own lines of fashions for a mainstream audience.

And Comics have bought into Porn, mainly via its intense inferiority complex of recent years.  Those feelings make it imitative of any other popular medium--Movies, especially, and Gaming, as examples, and most disturbingly, Porn. That's Marvel and DC, kids.

The key indicator for Pornography is basically simple: it's when you objectify another person for your own sexual satisfaction.  

Here's a brief artist's statement I wrote to accompany my "Doomsday" drawing.

“My intention with Doomsday was to depict a man-made creation symbolic of evil that has been transformed into fertilizer for flowers while beings from a different vibratory plane visit to offer him their love and good wishes for his new life.”

The Pledge Drive...

Lately I've been retiring a lot of my various projects, in other words, I'm no longer selling them.  You may know that most publications have a "peak" and then sales slowly decline after that.  These older books of mine like Electric Frankenstein do still sell steadily, but in spite of that I feel they no longer represent me, so I'm willing to sacrifice the income just to get them out of the way.  They are cluttering things up.

After five years, no more.

While I'm talking freely here, I have a new idea I'd like your feedback on.  Ready?  WELL... We all know that Comics and Fantasy Art have been increasingly invaded over the years by growing amounts of "T&A".  Some have explained this to me as simply being a preference of an older male audience, but I think the cause runs deeper than that.

The Cause, to me, is basically an infiltration of Porn.  Now, this is not to take the moral high ground on other artists, because I have surely contributed to it over the years. But, you may notice the shock exhibited by Comics outsiders when confronted with "standard" comics imagery these days; they tend to recoil.  Fans are accustomed to it, but it's very weird to the general public.

A Sample of the Porn invasion in Comics.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. has been flipping out lately because as licensors they don't understand what Porn has to do with Burroughs' writing and characters.  Sure, he may have said they're nude in the books, but that's hardly the point; the books say it, they don't show it.  Tarzan was naked for some time, too. No one's showing that.

So anyway, the mantra among comic artists these days has become one of so-called survival; "If we don't cater with sex, we'll starve".  Plenty of talented people are wasting their lives on this stuff.  I think it's gone far enough, and I'm ready to act as an example and starve if necessary.

Make no mistake, today's comic art is porn, it's just a matter of degree.  Porn relies on objectification, mainly of women, and this effects falls across a wide spectrum.

People, human beings, loaded with personality and character.

The above is a perfect example of watered-down porn. The characters pose for no other reason than to titillate, obliquely offering themselves to us for a sexual romp.  The fact that this is but one example of an Industry-wide phenomenon doesn't speak well for the health of that industry.  Like us comic artists, would Marvel and DC die by leaving out the Porn?

If they did, then it's a good time to die.

What I want to begin here is a pledge list for Comic Artists, that they will no longer pander and if necessary die by starvation rather than continue and contribute to this miserable and negative trend.  As I've said I have contributed to it in the past, but enough is enough.  Are you brave enough, and do you have enough faith in your talent to go it alone--without taking the easy way out, demeaning women and yourselves?

So who's got the guts out there?