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Discuss: DW Animations between Male and Female

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Project_Hero
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It's even worse when females

It's even worse when females are posed in such ways that are impossible for even contortionists or at least very uncomfortable.

Which happens quite a bit.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Yes, you won't see men do the

Yes, you won't see men do the pose. I do feel you missed my point. Women will pose like that. Look at instagram. Look at twitter. Basically look at any social media. Would Ashley Graham pose like that? Yes.

Kiyori Anoyui
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But you are also missing a

But you are also missing a point. MWM is trying to make things work such as most all outfits work with both male/female characters and beyond. So if they also put poses in that same vein, we more than likely will see male heroes posing like that

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That's fine. I didn't say

That's fine. I didn't say that was bad. I just said the articles that are made up about such things, trying to show it off, are dumb and usually done by some of the worst artists ever.

Maybe if Deviant Artists Aenaluck or Sakimichan did it, it wouldn't look so dumb :p They have both shown they can do sexy guys, put them in sexy poses, but it also just goes to show, there's a difference between the genders in what poses are generally considered looking good and not looking good.

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Posing like that when you

Posing like that when you have reason to is one thing. A lot of the time women in comics are in "sexy" poses when they're doing things like being in combat, confronting a villain, just standing around, etc.

Time and a place for such a thing. Dependant on character too of course.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

That's fine. I didn't say that was bad. I just said the articles that are made up about such things, trying to show it off, are dumb and usually done by some of the worst artists ever.

Maybe if Deviant Artists Aenaluck or Sakimichan did it, it wouldn't look so dumb :p They have both shown they can do sexy guys, put them in sexy poses, but it also just goes to show, there's a difference between the genders in what poses are generally considered looking good and not looking good.

I won't argue that, I'm sure there are many artists out there that can draw way better than this, But, my main reason for sharing it was more for the idea of poses being "genderless", so coupled with genderless animations, you can create such a wide variety of characters.

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Is done in a visual medium,

Is done in a visual medium, so it's done for visual effect. Artist wants work, it's not usually slouchy looking character who gets the sales.

Also, the picture referenced in the first place was a team line up, if anything, looked like lining up to pose for a picture.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Is done in a visual medium, so it's done for visual effect. Artist wants work, it's not usually slouchy looking character who gets the sales.

Also, the picture referenced in the first place was a team line up, if anything, looked like lining up to pose for a picture.

I know the article was a bit overboard, but similar to what I said in my last post it was more about getting the idea out there for poses(and more) for being able to work across the different gender avatars. Meaning that we can see a tough/cocky stance from a female character to a backbending/contortionist male character

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

It's even worse when females are posed in such ways that are impossible for even contortionists or at least very uncomfortable.

Which happens quite a bit.

http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/

It is all about snake girls, centaur girls, swivel girls, eldritch abominations and girls stuck in non-euclidian geometry...

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Yes, you won't see men do the pose. I do feel you missed my point. Women will pose like that. Look at instagram. Look at twitter. Basically look at any social media. Would Ashley Graham pose like that? Yes.

We are getting more than a little off track for both this particular discussion thread and the purpose of this forum in general

Nobody is denying that girls do the 'sexy pose' thing. A lot. Done it myself too, for that matter. Mostly when the photographer told me to strike a pose though. It never crossed my mind to do so during a sports match (which is the closest I and almost all other women could ever come to being an action heroine)
That is not the issue (and it would be beyond foolish to claim that girl posing sexily is some kind of vast comics artists conspiracy)

As I said, this gender swapping is a technique that feminist scholars came up way to expose subconscious bias. If a genderswapped example of something comes across as silly or makes you feel uncomfortable then there is something silly or uncomfortable about the original as well, we just are so desensitised to the (cultural) expression that we are conditioned not to notice that it is silly or uncomfortable.

In this case it is not the pose in and of itself that is silly and no little bit uncomfortable. The pose simply advertises 'look at me and see how sexy and desirable I am' by emphasising the secondary and tertiary sex characteristics. What is problematic is that 'sexy' in our cultural context for women carries a heavy connotation of helplessness and weakness with it. It is still very much the premise of almost all computer games that 'men rescue, girls are rescued' (*). These sexy poses are struck to make the woman appear less threatening, less capable and suggest a greater availability to the (presumed male) viewer. They are NOT the pose of a heroic figure capable of rescueing herself and those around her. You never see a male character in anyting other than a stable pose, expressing strength and capability. Even in combat scenes it is all about expressing purpose, force and strength. Female characters on the other hand often are drawn in inherently unstable and contortionate poses, feet (usually tiptoe even when not wearing heels) close together, one knee coyly crossed before the other, back arched just enough to be suggested,arms not in a ready position but held to frame the torso. If she has any facial expression at all it is usually a vapid one, not an expression of determination. The usual costuming for female characters reinforces this expression of helplessness and (sexual) availability. For the most case modern comics are not as bad as the horrid days of the 1980s, but more than a few artists and publishers haven't exactly evolved from those bad old days still. A more vocal part of their audiences hasn't either.

This is the dissonance that turns the images like the one discussed here, or the many examples from the hawkeye initiative, from merely being silly into making is feel uncomfortable. Because they cast the heroic male character into the role of a female one, and the expression of weakness does not match with what we 'know' a male hero should be and the two impressions can't be reconciled.

And I would like to conclude, before this turns into an even longer and even more off topic feminist tract, that I have no problem with sexy costumes in a superhero game. It goes with the subject matter. I do hope that MWM will follow in the footsteps of Cryptic Studios which (for the most part anyway) managed to make their female heroes come across as heroic, not as super models on a runway (unlike most publishers I could name). I do hope they will include plenty of male character models and outfits that most women will find sexy (as opposed to the more traditional ridiculously bulked out with muscles, scowling and perpetually smouldering with rage male figure that men think (or used to think?) women find attractive.

(* and even here I am deliberately using another cultural pattern that is so ingrained that hardly anybody would notice without it being pointed out: infantilisation of women, by calling them girls as opposed to men

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Great post, Nadira. I don't

Great post, Nadira. I don't know how long it took you, but no amount of time would enable me to do as well.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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All the "philosophizing" and

All the "philosophizing" and "social justice warrior-ing" that's been tossed around on this thread in relation to real life gender issues are important enough to be discussed in their own contexts. But when it comes to this game all we really need to worry about is whether anything will be "gender locked" into being expressible using only the male body model or the female body model.

There's no real point with individual players like us trying to categorize (or prejudge) anything as being "too much" X, Y or Z as long as that X, Y or Z could be equally worn or expressed by either the male or female body models. Sure we could split hairs all day long talking about the merits and/or injustices of comic books portraying female characters in overtly sexy ways as compared to their male counterparts because when considered in isolation any one single example of "artwork frozen on paper" can always be picked apart to the nth-degree either way. But if a game like CoT gives players the tools to design either males OR females to be equally benign or offensive then there should realistically be NOTHING censored-by-design from such a game. The question of "appropriateness" would no longer be pre-baked into the game by the Devs - it would be up to the players to decide what is appropriate for themselves.

Now obviously I'm not advocating for a game based on pure anarchy without due recourse - if Player A is legitimately offended by the way Player B looks/acts then Player A should be able to report Player B to a GM for summary arbitration. But if you're a person who too easily gets upset with a game because "only females are stuck with corsets and stiletto heels" then you're not going to have a proverbial leg to stand on with CoT because if this game ends up being the way the Devs have told us it will be I expect to be able to wear ANY costume item in the game and use ANY stance/pose possible in the game with EITHER a male or female character.

If CoT does fail that lofty goal by making anything be "male only" or "female only" then at that point we can spend countless new hours debating the consequences of that. But until we see that happen let's not automatically bring in all the prejudices and assumptions about "gender inequalities" that sadly exist in other venues.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Men and women are built

Men and women are built differently and pose differently.

Lothic
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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Posing like that when you have reason to is one thing. A lot of the time women in comics are in "sexy" poses when they're doing things like being in combat, confronting a villain, just standing around, etc.

Time and a place for such a thing.

I would hope for a game that would let me create EITHER a male of female character who would enter combat with EITHER a practical/effective combat pose or a ridiculously overly sexy pose as I saw fit. Any game that would prevent me from expressing my characters in such critical ways based on someone else's preconceptions of what my character ought to look like in combat would be fundamentally flawed.

Bottomline you should be free to create your own characters the way you want to. I would never (respectfully) give two shits about what you think my characters should be doing or how they should look.

Project_Hero wrote:

Dependant on character too of course.

This is the only thing that matters.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Men and women are built differently and pose differently.

Not under a system that let's either pose equally on the same spectrum. This whole thing is painfully simple: If you don't want your males to look or move like a Kathoey then don't set them up that way.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I was merely speaking of how

I was merely speaking of how female characters are shown in a lot of comic books. I in no way spoke of how someone should create their own characters.

The addition of having options for both genders is welcomed in a game. Hopefully everyone will have the options to make their characters look and move how they want to.

I will be glad if my characters aren't locked into having a stance or pose I find unfitting for the character in mind.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Political Correctness should

Political Correctness should not interfere with basic human anatomy or Comic anatomy.
and i agree, the choice of pose/idle stance should be the players, not imposed by PC bullies.

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Political Correctness should not interfere with basic human anatomy or Comic anatomy.
and i agree, the choice of pose/idle stance should be the players, not imposed by PC bullies.

I can't think of any stance or pose that wouldn't be able to be replicated by the other sex.

It irks me when games have things gated off for no seemingly good reason. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 for instance female characters couldn't do the great saiyaman pose even though there's nothing inherently masculine about it (other than I guess the inherent masculinity that permeates all of DBZ) and in the second game females get to do the Great Saiyaman 2 (Great Saiyawoman) pose and males get the original. I have no idea on the reasoning behind this, both poses are silly and definitely not in any way (other than name) gender specific.

Also also. If there is poses that a male/female could do that the other couldn't put them in anyway for both models. Who is anyone to tell me what pose my alien from the nth dimension can or cannot do?

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

I was merely speaking of how female characters are shown in a lot of comic books. I in no way spoke of how someone should create their own characters.

The addition of having options for both genders is welcomed in a game. Hopefully everyone will have the options to make their characters look and move how they want to.

I will be glad if my characters aren't locked into having a stance or pose I find unfitting for the character in mind.

Wait...so...if someone wants their own character to be like that. It's okay. But, if someone writes/draws their characters to be that way, it's bad? You just contradicted yourself.

You can't say, people should be able to do with their characters as they want and then complain (which is what it was) when the professionals do just that. :p

"You should be able to have your character pose however you want! Except Wonder Woman! She has to pose like all the guys! And those other female heroes! Pose like the guys! But your characters can pose however they want! But really, by my previous statement, that means, stand like all the guys!"

That's what's being said, when someone complains about WW's pose but then says "You should be able to make your character however you want." :p

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It's a little out of

It's a little out of character for Wonder Woman to be posing like a porn star when facing down a bad guy, no?

And it's not contradictory at all. YOU the player should be able to decide how your character acts and stands etc. I do not care for how artists tend to pose characters owned by companies. See? Not a contradiction.

Same as if someone featured a character you created and had them act or pose in a manner unfitting to the character you made you might not care for it.

And it would be fine if some characters posed like that, or whatever, and it was consistent with their character. It's not as fine when 90% of female comic characters do it for the sole reason of tantalizing their presumably male reader base.

Again to reiterate. Player choice good. Comic Art (often) bad.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Again to reiterate. Player choice good. Comic Art (often) bad.

sooooo if the player choice is more like standard comic art...is that bad?

It sounds like you are saying player choice is good unless that player chooses a style you don't like.
NO player choice should be bad. If the player wants WW to walk like a runway model, then fine.

I think the devs mentioned somewhere that they have a variety of idle stances. So this argument may be moot.

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Again to reiterate. Player choice good. Comic Art (often) bad.

sooooo if the player choice is more like standard comic art...is that bad?

It sounds like you are saying player choice is good unless that player chooses a style you don't like.
NO player choice should be bad. If the player wants WW to walk like a runway model, then fine.

I think the devs mentioned somewhere that they have a variety of idle stances. So this argument may be moot.

If the ONLY choice is like bad comic art then yes it's bad. Players are free to make their characters stand or pose however they want to. I may not like it how they choose to have their characters stand or pose but I welcome the option for them to do so. I just do not want to be forced to choose options I will not like.

So... Again. Player choice good. Bad comic art bad.

If someone makes a Wonder Woman homage and makes them move like a runway model I will not like it but it's not my character and I do not have to interact with them.

And again these two opinions are not contradictory in any way. I do not like bad comic art. I like player choice. If there is bad comic art poses or stances I likely will not use those stances if I have other alternatives but their inclusion among many other possible stances or poses is welcomed as I am aware this game is not made to tailor to my specific wants.

There. Have I made myself clear yet?
Options are good even if I will not use them.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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I see nothing wrong in noting

I see nothing wrong in noting the drastic differences in male vs female poses/body types etc across a variety of mediums and exposing them as a bias of some fashion. The gender swap is reproducable and consistent enough test to establish a meanigful discussion about it. (As evidenced by our strong responses. )
A few questions I generate from the gender swap...
"Should I take part in stereotyping?"
"How does this affect my behavior IRL and online? (or other mediums)"
"How does this phenomena affect others in regard to fostering their capacity to be independent, thoughful, responsible people in the world?"
"How does this affect my understanding of and my relationship to violence? "
"What happens when we see this bias for what it is and does this knowledge give us license to 'play' with it; create more individualized meaning and nuance in personal expression?"
The last question on my list leads me to consider the gender swap exercise as a practice which frees me by deepening my awareness of how I can respond to feeling stereotyped or how I might utilize stereotypes to communicate with nuance. This opens up more freedom for me as I can communicate more precisely. It allows me to consider possibilities outside of any current trends of polarized thinking which may influence our culture at this time. I appreciate the freedom that questioning offers. As I appreciate everyone's perspectives that have been drawn in this conversation.
Best,
Beeker

p.s.
I note that I am generating questions and not assuming that the gender swap is some sort if "hidden" ultimatum. I often get the impression that many who see these kind exercises appear to make this assumption (based on their highly reactive responses) acting "as if" they had been "ordered" to change how they think ir feel. I might very well do the same if I were truly placed that situation...
Perhaps generating a question as a response helps clarify this for me. Helps me keep a cool head and stay in dialogue, even though it may be difficult. IDK, just a thought about how to digest the internet. That and lots of bleu cheese dressing. :-)

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I love this discussion.

I love this discussion. First, because it is civil. But mostly because these are excellent points, on all sides.

One thing I always like to remember is that the way a player chooses to represent their character says more about them than it does about anything or anyone else. If someone wants to play an oversexualized character, a character that relies on poor stereotypes, or a character done in poor taste; then every person who sees it will get some information about that player. It should say nothing about the game, except as evidence that the game has given its players freedom to explore their design concepts.

Keep in mind, also, that for some characters poor taste might be perfectly suited. And to that end, I'm sure it would be appropriate for a female or male character to use his or her sexuality as its own weapon, or maybe just a way to get his or her picture on the front pages.

I've made it no secret that I want to make a character who was built to be a female sex-bot, but when programmed with the zeroeth law of robotics its directive to love man was naturally extrapolated to be love of mankind; and so it started its crusade to make all men safe. I fully indent to make this robot oversexualized in its secondary and tertiary sexual characteristics, but that is part of its design. It is inherently offensive and misogynistic, but that irony is the appeal of the character to me, and hopefully highlights just how wrong the whole concept of a sex-bot even is. I am banking on MWM to give me a flexible enough character customization to realize this concept. And I hope it allows others to explore whatever concepts they want as well.

I want someone to be able to make this:

and even though I could never bring myself to playing such a character, it looks like MWM's making as many emotes and poses gender-neutral as possible will make it a reality. And for that, I approve.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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@Project Hero: thank you. I

@Project Hero: thank you. I misread your statement. Choice is best.

Beeker wrote:

I see nothing wrong in noting the drastic differences in male vs female poses/body types etc across a variety of mediums and exposing them as a bias of some fashion. The gender swap is reproducable and consistent enough test to establish a meanigful discussion about it. (As evidenced by our strong responses. )
A few questions I generate from the gender swap...
"Should I take part in stereotyping?"
"How does this affect my behavior IRL and online? (or other mediums)"
"How does this phenomena affect others in regard to fostering their capacity to be independent, thoughful, responsible people in the world?"
"How does this affect my understanding of and my relationship to violence? "
"What happens when we see this bias for what it is and does this knowledge give us license to 'play' with it; create more individualized meaning and nuance in personal expression?"

The last question on my list leads me to consider the gender swap exercise as a practice which frees me by deepening my awareness of how I can respond to feeling stereotyped or how I might utilize stereotypes to communicate with nuance. This opens up more freedom for me as I can communicate more precisely. It allows me to consider possibilities outside of any current trends of polarized thinking which may influence our culture at this time. I appreciate the freedom that questioning offers. As I appreciate everyone's perspectives that have been drawn in this conversation.
Best,
Beeker

p.s.
I note that I am generating questions and not assuming that the gender swap is some sort if "hidden" ultimatum. I often get the impression that many who see these kind exercises appear to make this assumption (based on their highly reactive responses) acting "as if" they had been "ordered" to change how they think ir feel. I might very well do the same if I were truly placed that situation...
Perhaps generating a question as a response helps clarify this for me. Helps me keep a cool head and stay in dialogue, even though it may be difficult. IDK, just a thought about how to digest the internet. That and lots of bleu cheese dressing. :-)

Holy Moley! Now that (bolded) is a crapload of SJW guilt right there. No one asks questions like that!

Let me see if I am reading your post right. and please tell me I am wrong.
If I (a guy) plays a female toon, am I supposed to ask myself questions like that? If I want to play WW with a runway walking style, am I supposed to contemplate how others may be triggered by it? Cause if I am, they can take a hike (on a long runway).

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Holy Moley! Now that (bolded) is a crapload of SJW guilt right there. No one asks questions like that!

Let me see if I am reading your post right. and please tell me I am wrong.
If I (a guy) plays a female toon, am I supposed to ask myself questions like that? If I want to play WW with a runway walking style, am I supposed to contemplate how others may be triggered by it? Cause if I am, they can take a hike (on a long runway).

LOL. Yeah, SJW can take things too far. There is a difference between the sexes in more than their reproductive bits. Just ask Annika Sörenstam. Deliberately ignoring those differences is doing just as much damage as exploiting them. Edit: IMHO.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I did not state anywhere that

I did not state anywhere that my questions should be those of any other person. However, my post script seems more relevant now.... You appear to be acting "as if" I am telling you what you should do or think. This is not the case.
If it upsets yoh that I pose questions then I'm not sure what to say about that. They are the best path I have to learning.
Respectfully,
Beeker
p.s. Again don't forget the bleu cheese. It really helps.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

It's a little out of character for Wonder Woman to be posing like a porn star when facing down a bad guy, no?

And it's not contradictory at all. YOU the player should be able to decide how your character acts and stands etc. I do not care for how artists tend to pose characters owned by companies. See? Not a contradiction.

Same as if someone featured a character you created and had them act or pose in a manner unfitting to the character you made you might not care for it.

And it would be fine if some characters posed like that, or whatever, and it was consistent with their character. It's not as fine when 90% of female comic characters do it for the sole reason of tantalizing their presumably male reader base.

Again to reiterate. Player choice good. Comic Art (often) bad.

Wonder Woman posing like that....*views old covers*...yup. Seems standard for the character since her beginning, with possibly less being tied up than at the start.

Seems in character with how she started.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

It's a little out of character for Wonder Woman to be posing like a porn star when facing down a bad guy, no?

And it's not contradictory at all. YOU the player should be able to decide how your character acts and stands etc. I do not care for how artists tend to pose characters owned by companies. See? Not a contradiction.

Same as if someone featured a character you created and had them act or pose in a manner unfitting to the character you made you might not care for it.

And it would be fine if some characters posed like that, or whatever, and it was consistent with their character. It's not as fine when 90% of female comic characters do it for the sole reason of tantalizing their presumably male reader base.

Again to reiterate. Player choice good. Comic Art (often) bad.

Wonder Woman posing like that....*views old covers*...yup. Seems standard for the character since her beginning, with possibly less being tied up than at the start.

Seems in character with how she started.

Cause the character hasn't been developed or changed in any way since she first appeared, right? It's not like there were any huge events that scrapped and rewrote their entire universe or anything, right? Of course not!

Same as it's fine for Batman to kill people and use a gun because that was something he used to do... Definitely no different from the character we know today. Nope.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Same as it's fine for Batman to kill people and use a gun because that was something he used to do... Definitely no different from the character we know today. Nope.

How does Batman killing people with a gun even compare with WW posing/fan service?
I fail to see the connection.

Lets not get dramatic here. come on.

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Same as it's fine for Batman to kill people and use a gun because that was something he used to do... Definitely no different from the character we know today. Nope.

How does Batman killing people with a gun even compare with WW posing/fan service?
I fail to see the connection.

Lets not get dramatic here. come on.

You apparently missed the second part of that where I said "because that's something he used to do" so the argument that Wonder Woman used to do something holds as much weight as saying it's fine for Batman to do something in his roots. Nothing dramatic about it. Unless it's an entirely different thing for one character to be excused behavior based on their roots and not another for some unexplained reason.

Basically both arguments are that the characters have gone through a lot of changes since their inception and it's not really a valid excuse for any current renditions of the characters especially DC characters who have had their universe restarted a few times.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

It's a little out of character for Wonder Woman to be posing like a porn star when facing down a bad guy, no?

And it's not contradictory at all. YOU the player should be able to decide how your character acts and stands etc. I do not care for how artists tend to pose characters owned by companies. See? Not a contradiction.

Same as if someone featured a character you created and had them act or pose in a manner unfitting to the character you made you might not care for it.

And it would be fine if some characters posed like that, or whatever, and it was consistent with their character. It's not as fine when 90% of female comic characters do it for the sole reason of tantalizing their presumably male reader base.

Again to reiterate. Player choice good. Comic Art (often) bad.

Wonder Woman posing like that....*views old covers*...yup. Seems standard for the character since her beginning, with possibly less being tied up than at the start.

Seems in character with how she started.

Cause the character hasn't been developed or changed in any way since she first appeared, right? It's not like there were any huge events that scrapped and rewrote their entire universe or anything, right? Of course not!

Same as it's fine for Batman to kill people and use a gun because that was something he used to do... Definitely no different from the character we know today. Nope.

Well, there I can go and look at the movies and see...

Batman with guns...killing people...

"I didn't shoot people. I shot their cars...that they were in...totally different..." >_>

:p

As for the pose. I don't actually remember any story of WW losing her being a man in every way except her gender, so unable or unwilling to pose as such. In fact, I'd say it be one of the easiest and comical ways in which she can easily one up the guys on the team.

*getting ready to pose for the group shot...all posing just like a man*

WW: You know. I can still do one thing none of you can do.

*changes pose*

WW: Pose like this and not look stupid.

*jaws drop...possibly Plastik Man attempts the pose*

PM: She's right.

:p

Point however was, the one in control of the character decides how they are. The artist decided and many here went "That's wrong! Shouldn't be done!" to someone else's character :p

As for WW posing like that, I totally believe it depends on the writing at the time.

I never would've taken Batgirl to be the type to instagram and twitter everything she does before, now look, they changed her.

Only two ways to deal with the comics when they do this with the characters. Decide they're wrong and stop buying or be okay with the change and keep buying. I've done both for various reasons. :p

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In my very brief survey of WW

In my very brief survey of WW covers, the only sexy-pose ones were either Pinups in the 40s, or Not actually from the Comics, but another artist's impression.

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Fireheart

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The movies are bad. One of

The movies are bad. One of the reasons for this is the terrible characterizations of beloved characters.

I'd say the fact she's a warrior first and grew up on an island without men would probably mean that she doesn't regularly get in poses to excite men. You know, just a thought. She -can-, yes. But she'd only really do it in specific situations which then have a reason or purpose which wouldn't be bothersome. The fact that artists and writers generally have their female characters act or are drawn in a way to entice and excite teenage boys is a problem in the industry.

So the artist and writer just have free reign to deviate as much from the actual characters as they want? Then what the hell is the point of having those characters to begin with? If you write a story that suits Batman but put Superman in it instead that is then a really bad Superman story. The characters aren't infinitely interchangeable. They're supposed to have consistent personalities that people can know and understand consistency and continuity are some of the reasons people continue to pick up comics. If a character is fully at the mercy of the writer then something is wrong. Yes you can tell stories where a character changes, yes you can write stories where the character acts different, but you usually build up to the former and have a reason for the latter.

And you couldn't see batgirl as someone to use social media? The girl who was Oracle? The one who spent most of their time in front of or using computers? Someone who was always connected to a vast array of information? And if it's a younger version of that character it makes even more sense in a modern story that she'd use social media.

I tend not to buy comics recently mostly due to the cost involved I think the last comic I purchased was an ultimate avengers comic before the merging of the universes. I do however still consume comics media, I watch the movies and cartoons. Justice League Action has a really fun Wonder Woman but then again they have a really fun everyone.

You know you can like a thing and still understand there are problems with the thing you like, right? I like a lot of things that have a whole host of flaws. One of my favorite movies is Titan AE, it's far from perfect but it holds a place in my heart. You can like a thing without pretending the problems aren't there.and as for comics they have a whole host of problems especially when dealing with female characters and staff and have for a long time. There's a reason such tropes as "woman in refrigerator syndrome" exist. And if you don't think that a character posing sexy when they have no reason to do so at that time is a problem imagine if in every fight scene Batman was drawn with a posture that made him seem frightened or like he was coming on to his attacker, wouldn't that be odd? Distasteful? Distracting? Or if every male Superhero costume was drawn like it was a cover of a cheap romance novel, wouldn't you get sick of seeing it?

In short. I have no problem with a character posing or acting sexual if it fits their personality and the scene they are currently in. If it does not meet that criteria it is a bad characterization of a character.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Why is there any worry over

Why is there any worry over WW poses? If you don't like them don't buy the book.
The people who DO buy the books are young men. Of course WW will pose in a more feminine style.

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Nope. Sorry. I just never

Nope. Sorry. I just never got the feeling older Batgirl would be all "Time to selfie me taking out the baddies" :p

Social Media in non cape life totally different :p

As for the posing sexy when they don't have to? What was brought up was a cover pic. That thing that is typically not a part of the actual comic itself, but rather a pic of the team or individual in a pose or maybe doing something related to the story in the comic, without actually being part of the story.

That's why the pic of the team standing there and WW in some sexy pose doesn't bother me, as that's what it was meant to be an artist doing a pin up cover of the comic.

And there's just no point in worrying about realism of that.

Also, as for WW, I'd say some depends on what point is she in her story? Right off the island? Modern society? Look at the movies. She took up heels. Something a warrior would wear? Hasn't that been decided a no? :p

As for some of the shots in a comic story itself? Yes, bad when they do the full 180 twist :p However, I'm looking to be amazed by the shots and art style. Not feel like I'm watching some boring fight that might seem realistic :p

Basically, everything I've been saying is bad since the beginning of CoT...to much realism is suckie and bad for the genre. :p

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Why is there any worry over WW poses? If you don't like them don't buy the book.
The people who DO buy the books are young men. Of course WW will pose in a more feminine style.

The idea there, is really one of "If they stop it, more people will buy the book!"

It actually hasn't happened yet at all. Which is actually backed up by some of their interviews and twitters. By that, of course, I mean, they blame the current readers jumping from the book for hating the changes and not the fact that new readers aren't jumping on :p

*sigh* I miss my Spider-Woman comic. It'll be forever before we see her again is my feeling :(

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Wonder Woman was an example

Wonder Woman was an example only. Female characters in general are often put into sexy poses. This isn't only about Wonder Woman. This has never been only about Wonder Woman. She is just the easiest example of a female character that has no business posing sexy when a situation does not call for it.

And as for a cover pic that was brought up? Uh, I've never talked about a specific cover. I have only been talking about the depictions of female characters in comics generally.

I haven't said anything about realism. Bringing realism up has no bearing on the conversation. It's not IN CHARACTER for Wonder Woman to pose sexy for no reason, therefore to have her do so is a poor characterization of the character.

The only time realism needs to be brought up in regards to comic art is when characters (without stretchy powers) are drawn in such a way that would only be possible by breaking their spines.

Wonder Woman can wear heels. Her having them on her Superhero outfit doesn't make much sense. But she's a highly capable warrior who (in most iterations) can fly so heels become more of a non issue.

Pretty sure one of the largest demographics of people who buy comics are 40 year old men, but I have no statistics to back that up. Though a quick search tells me that the number of women buying comics is increasing. Make of that what you will, I haven't been keeping up on modern comic trends.

So in short, characters who have no business posing sexy in situations they have no reason to pose sexy in bad. Characters posing sexy in situations it is warranted good. Or at least not eye rolling.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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What did this thread become?

What did this thread become?

Charles Logan
www.cloganart.com

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Young men are the main

Young men are the main customers for comics. Of course the girls will be all feminine. It sells with the target audience.
These are facts of life, PH. if the audience was mixed, the genre would be different.

I do take issue with your phrase, that characters have no business posing sexy. They have every business. Its their job to sell comics.

When you think about it, this is a pointless argument. Comics will continue to sell to their main demographic: young men.

Further the devs have already said there will be sexy costumes, different idle animations, and a boob slider. we have already seen a Power Girl boob window in a twitch session.
~~There is no reason to get upset.

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Young men are the main customers for comics. Of course the girls will be all feminine. It sells with the target audience.
These are facts of life, PH. if the audience was mixed, the genre would be different.

I do take issue with your phrase, that characters have no business posing sexy. They have every business. Its their job to sell comics.

When you think about it, this is a pointless argument. Comics will continue to sell to their main demographic: young men.

Further the devs have already said there will be sexy costumes, different idle animations, and a boob slider. we have already seen a Power Girl boob window in a twitch session.
~~There is no reason to get upset.

Ok, so. 1 the amount of women buying comics is increasing. Up to almost 50% in some cases, so your first point doesn't hold much ground.

For certain characters it is OUT OF CHARACTER for them to pose sexy when they have no reason to do so.

And again for the umpteenth time I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH SEXY COSTUMES, CHARACTERS, POSES, ANIMATIONS OR ANYTHING. The problem I have is when it's unnecessarily shoved in people's faces or used for characters it really shouldn't be. If you want to make a sexy character with sexy animations all the power to you. I have no problem with people making their own original characters look or act how they want to. Again. I take issue when ESTABLISHED characters are portrayed poorly. I hate any Superman story where Superman is a callous dick because it is OUT OF CHARACTER FOR HIM. The same goes for female characters who it's out of character to pose in a sexy way for NO OTHER REASON THAN TO LOOK GOOD FOR THE READER. If you want soft core porn there's a whole wide internet full of the stuff. Leave it out of my comics. Writers and artists should focus on writing compelling stories and artists should be making our heroes look badass regardless of gender. Yes, they can look sexy while doing it but it should not come at the expense of their character. Female heroes are more than just eye candy for male readers.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Why is there any worry over WW poses? If you don't like them don't buy the book.
The people who DO buy the books are young men. Of course WW will pose in a more feminine style.

There is no specific worry about Wonderwoman poses(*).
They are however examples of the traditional differing standards between the depiction of male and female superheroes.

It does not really matter which visual medium you use (though games and comics tend to be the worst offenders), it is fairly standard (certainly until well into the zeros) that every aspect of the design of female characters, from their fysiology, posing, clothing, psychology and story, to convey one thing above all else: how attractive she is. It is not a stretch to state that female characters in most (visual) stories have the job of being sexy (and by pretty narrow definitions of what sexy means in our culture). They may, at best, have a side job of being a genius level theoretical physicist, or a btilliant military commander, or a CEO, or internationally infamous criminal mastermind whose name strikes fear in the heart of men. But her job always is to be sexy.

Men on the other hand are allowed to be a wider range of things. They are allowed to be weak or strong, big or small, smart of dumb. When they have a job then they really have that job in the context of the story. Their attractiveness is not the purpose of the character, but a side effect of hiring attractive men for starring roles. When they are depicted as powerful then their clothes, their fysiology, their poses, their psychology all reflect that to masculine stereotypes.

And therein lies the problem with the stereotypical sexy female poses for a superheroine, including those wonderwoman ones mentioned, they reinforce the message that women are there to be sexy, not to be competent. They are in the story for the (presumed audience of heterosexual) men to ogle(**), not to vanguish evil and save the day.
This is also why the Wonderwoman movie was such a major victory. It cut down on the stereotypical portrayal of powerful and heroic women (it didn't get rid of it entirely, but the worst of the stereotyping was gone, allowing the character to be a superhero who happens to be a woman but was not defined in that role by her gender, and who at the same time was not a male character in a female body as too many action heroines end up being)

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with attractive, even sexy, heroes. It comes with the territory of fantastic characters who are bigger and just 'more' in every sense of the word. There is however a problem when a small part of this being bigger than life becomes the exclusive definition in such a restrictive way that there is a comflict, if not outright contradiction, with what the character /should/ be: an example of what we could aspire to be ourselves.

Batman wouldn't be an effective, or believable, heroic character if he ran around, fighting crime, in a speedo, posing his behind and flexing his muscles every other frame. The same /is/ true for superheroines, only they have not been allowed to be anything but that for such a long time that we have no other mental image of superheroines. Thankfully that mental image is being challenged and slowly changes. Much to the dismay of those who don't want the status quo to be challenged..

(* From the start Wonderwoman has been problematic and contradictory. The character was created by a BDSM obsessed polyamorous psychiatrist who was quite feminist (unlike the vast majority of his contemporaries) but at the same time strongly believed that liberated women should regularly be tied up to keep them from being too masculine ...
When introduced into the wider superhero community she automatically became the secretary, even when at that that time she already was depicted as one of the most powerful heroes in the DC universe, because as a woman she could not be seen as stealing the limelight of the male heroes.
She was and is a feminist icon in part because of the history of her creator, and in large part because for a long time she was the only female superhero written with any kind of agency.)
(** This is insulting not only to women who are frequently stripped of agency this way even in their own story, but most definitely also of the male audience which is essentially told that they should have no more depth or interest than the most shallow of 15 year old boys who just discovered the wonders of women).

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Young men are the main customers for comics. Of course the girls will be all feminine. It sells with the target audience.
These are facts of life, PH. if the audience was mixed, the genre would be different.

I do take issue with your phrase, that characters have no business posing sexy. They have every business. Its their job to sell comics.

http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/04-remedial-adulthood/math/

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Firstly I doubt women are 50%

Firstly I doubt women are 50% of the market. But even if they are - they are not complaining! Otherwise the market would have adapted by now.
Secondly, if we all have no problem with choices offered by MWM for the player...why are we arguing here?

If the comic/gamer base really is changing, then industry will change without any input from us.

My only concern in arguments like this is people attempting to force MWM to limit choices for the players.

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No one is attempting to limit

No one is attempting to limit any choices. This has never been said nor is it a stance anyone has taken.

And people aren't complaining? Escher girls and the Hawkeye initiative disagree with you on that. Also Linkara a comic book reviewer has complained about such bad art in comic books for ages.

And yes, the industries will change and have been changing, there's probably a pretty good reason why we got a girl Thor, Spider Gwen, and many other new female characters in recent years. Heck the majority of the ultimate avengers were girls in the time before they ended the ultimate universe (Cloak and Spiderman being the only guys on the team). And video games have been showing this new trend too with some great female characters in recent years.

And why are we arguing? Maybe because some people keep misunderstanding my points and think I'm arguing for or against something I am not.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Nadira wrote:
Nadira wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Young men are the main customers for comics. Of course the girls will be all feminine. It sells with the target audience.
These are facts of life, PH. if the audience was mixed, the genre would be different.

I do take issue with your phrase, that characters have no business posing sexy. They have every business. Its their job to sell comics.

http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/04-remedial-adulthood/math/

The problem with that, continues to be..."Look! We got rid of what you complained about!" "Yay! I bought the comic!" "Where are the others like you?" "Oh there aren't that many!" "But, we lost a lot more people than we gained, catering to you!" "That's okay! Because you made it for me!"

I'm not against making comics for others. Never have been. However, I am against them changing them to try and cater to others who still don't buy the comic. :p

They made that Starfire comic that was all about being closer to Teen Titans Cartoon Starfire. It got cancelled. :p Why? Because that millions of Teen Titans cartoon fans weren't picking up the comic.

I was one of the few picking it up :p Truthfully, making Starfire more like the cartoon for that new generation of fans, made her crap in the current comics. :p I even kept buying it, going "They'll figure out they screwed up and change it!"

They did not :p They cancelled it instead. Very seldom do they try to reinvent again.

Dave was always stupid when it came to his line of thinking there :p

Best bet was always to invent a new character that doesn't do whatever or does do whatever or is whatever someone thinks is missing and see if THAT BRAND NEW CHARACTER sells :p Want that character the doesn't dress in some skimpy ass outfit. Make her! There's actually always been MANY of them. Spider-Woman's original outfit always covered every aspect of her, but they HAD to change it out of spandex that was still being used by many male characters, because...OH NO SPANDEX! :p

That comic didn't sell well either :( They didn't even give us notice on that one. I was at the comic shop going "Why haven't I gotten my Spider-Woman fix? Gwen and Silk suck in comparison!" "Sorry, they just cancelled it out of no where."

Vote with your wallet is what people say and they hate it when those who buy comics do, because it usually means, their change went south.

Unless it's a number 1 issue. :p Then that change seems all awesome! Then it tanks!

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Social Justice doesn't sell

Social Justice doesn't sell comics.

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Brand new characters tend to

Brand new characters tend to do poorly.

Maybe the comics did bad because of poor marketing. I don't see many comic adds outside of comic stores. There's never been a thing at the end of a cartoon being like "Love the Teen Titans? Then you'll love their adventures in their comics!" So how are non-comic readers supposed to turn into comic readers?

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Social Justice doesn't sell comics.

Really? X-Men usually does pretty well.

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X-Men dropped SJW content.

X-Men dropped SJW content.

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Yeah, the best tactic I can

Yeah, the best tactic I can think of is to find someone who is already doing a great job with their character(s) and offer a publication deal.
https://sidekickgirl.net/intro-i/
http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-1/page-0/
http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/48

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

X-Men dropped SJW content.

Oh, so they stopped being a multicultural group of misfits the world doesn't understand fighting for the rights of their kind? So what mutants are now fully accepted by the marvel society at large? They're no longer hated and feared? Full rights for all mutants? No longer used in unethical experiments? So the X-Men won and the marvel world no longer needs them?

Neat. Good for them.

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Brand new characters tend to do poorly.

Maybe the comics did bad because of poor marketing. I don't see many comic adds outside of comic stores. There's never been a thing at the end of a cartoon being like "Love the Teen Titans? Then you'll love their adventures in their comics!" So how are non-comic readers supposed to turn into comic readers?

I know they do. The risk can and maybe should be taken though. Obviously, risking the old characters hasn't been working and they blame the fans when it doesn't :p

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

X-Men dropped SJW content.

Oh, so they stopped being a multicultural group of misfits the world doesn't understand fighting for the rights of their kind? So what mutants are now fully accepted by the marvel society at large? They're no longer hated and feared? Full rights for all mutants? No longer used in unethical experiments? So the X-Men won and the marvel world no longer needs them?

Neat. Good for them.

When X-Men (and comics in general) try to make it blantant, it fails. At least right now at any rate. :p

Introduce a new character that's not a white male and no one bats an eye. No one went, "They made that new mutant black?!" :p They just accepted it. I don't even remember people caring about alternate reality versions being different.

Fury is black? No problem! Beast and Colossus are gay? No problem! This comic is awesome! Change the already established characters to the different ones? Fans start having problems!

Except the whole love is love and adults can love other adults freely as they want...that did not work for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch in the Ultimate Universe it seems :p

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Brand new characters tend to do poorly.

Maybe the comics did bad because of poor marketing. I don't see many comic adds outside of comic stores. There's never been a thing at the end of a cartoon being like "Love the Teen Titans? Then you'll love their adventures in their comics!" So how are non-comic readers supposed to turn into comic readers?

I know they do. The risk can and maybe should be taken though. Obviously, risking the old characters hasn't been working and they blame the fans when it doesn't :p

I blame the marketing for both. Honestly it's like making a thing in your house, showing no one, then wondering why no one thinks your thing is awesome.

Radically changing a thing that a certain group of people have liked a certain way and then trying to sell the changed thing to only those people is probably going to go poorly.

And in that same note why would someone who regularly picks up a handful of specific comics take a chance on a new character? Unless they hear from their peers it's worth it they just won't bother.

A lot of the problems with comics not selling is that they're only being marketed to existing comic fans.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Every argument against WW's

Every argument against WW's "sexy posing" is moot because she is fake. She doesn't exist. How she poses is how those that own her character want her to pose...just like how you will want the character you 'own' in CoT to pose. There is no difference. Sexy posing is almost distinctly feminine, and that's not sexist. Goodness gracious there are some ridiculous posts on here wanting to somehow connect in-game, fake, digital characters to real life scenarios...as if there is some unconscious connection exuding inherent sexism, etc.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

Brand X
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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
Brand X wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Brand new characters tend to do poorly.

Maybe the comics did bad because of poor marketing. I don't see many comic adds outside of comic stores. There's never been a thing at the end of a cartoon being like "Love the Teen Titans? Then you'll love their adventures in their comics!" So how are non-comic readers supposed to turn into comic readers?

I know they do. The risk can and maybe should be taken though. Obviously, risking the old characters hasn't been working and they blame the fans when it doesn't :p

I blame the marketing for both. Honestly it's like making a thing in your house, showing no one, then wondering why no one thinks your thing is awesome.

Radically changing a thing that a certain group of people have liked a certain way and then trying to sell the changed thing to only those people is probably going to go poorly.

And in that same note why would someone who regularly picks up a handful of specific comics take a chance on a new character? Unless they hear from their peers it's worth it they just won't bother.

A lot of the problems with comics not selling is that they're only being marketed to existing comic fans.

Well, I know I take chances on new characters based on concepts and art style.

Sooo...a lot of newer artists may get passed by, because for some reason, they think they're good, but they're no Tony Daniel, J Scott Cambell, Jim Lee, Michael Turner...they're like trying to be Gary Franks. Gah! Or that one artist who likes to make heroes look like real people *shiver*

I'm sure artists not finishing a book on time hurts possible sales as well as a book that constantly changes writers. A dedicated team, I still feel works best on all comics.

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jtpaull wrote:
jtpaull wrote:

Every argument against WW's "sexy posing" is moot because she is fake. She doesn't exist. How she poses is how those that own her character want her to pose...just like how you will want the character you 'own' in CoT to pose. There is no difference. Sexy posing is almost distinctly feminine, and that's not sexist. Goodness gracious there are some ridiculous posts on here wanting to somehow connect in-game, fake, digital characters to real life scenarios...as if there is some unconscious connection exuding inherent sexism, etc.

Can you explain how sexy posing is almost distinctly feminine? I'm not entirely sure what it is you mean by that.

And granted it's their character they can do what they like with it. No one is disputing this fact. But that doesn't mean that anyone just has to silently accept or like it. The internet is a platform where people can voice their opinions; essentially telling people to just shut up and accept it, I feel, isn't helpful nor a constructive part of a discussion.

If you would like to tell people more about why they have no right to complain about things they do not like in a thing they enjoy please go right ahead.

Lastly as far as I know no one has tried to connect any in-game things with real life scenarios but feel free to point these out.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Well, I know I take chances on new characters based on concepts and art style.

Sooo...a lot of newer artists may get passed by, because for some reason, they think they're good, but they're no Tony Daniel, J Scott Cambell, Jim Lee, Michael Turner...they're like trying to be Gary Franks. Gah! Or that one artist who likes to make heroes look like real people *shiver*

I'm sure artists not finishing a book on time hurts possible sales as well as a book that constantly changes writers. A dedicated team, I still feel works best on all comics.

I'm glad you broaden your horizons on new characters and I'm sure if a lot more comic fans would venture out of their comfort zones the sales figures might be more varied.

And yes while bad art, or delayed books, or a constantly shifting writing staff can make a comic lose readers the underlying problem remains that comics just aren't reaching the audience it needs to. And as for sales regular issue sales are down but collections of issues (graphic novels, etc) are up (as far as I'm aware, correct me if I'm wrong) same as manga sales are doing well. I think if instead of releasing issue by issue they released larger collections (whole story arcs for example) they'd probably be doing better as a whole. I don't think I've ever bought a single issue of a comic, only the paperbacks and I'm probably not alone in that. The industry needs a bit of shaking up, they need to find a new way that works.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:
jtpaull wrote:

Every argument against WW's "sexy posing" is moot because she is fake. She doesn't exist. How she poses is how those that own her character want her to pose...just like how you will want the character you 'own' in CoT to pose. There is no difference. Sexy posing is almost distinctly feminine, and that's not sexist. Goodness gracious there are some ridiculous posts on here wanting to somehow connect in-game, fake, digital characters to real life scenarios...as if there is some unconscious connection exuding inherent sexism, etc.

Can you explain how sexy posing is almost distinctly feminine? I'm not entirely sure what it is you mean by that.

And granted it's their character they can do what they like with it. No one is disputing this fact. But that doesn't mean that anyone just has to silently accept or like it. The internet is a platform where people can voice their opinions; essentially telling people to just shut up and accept it, I feel, isn't helpful nor a constructive part of a discussion.

If you would like to tell people more about why they have no right to complain about things they do not like in a thing they enjoy please go right ahead.

Lastly as far as I know no one has tried to connect any in-game things with real life scenarios but feel free to point these out.

It's not that sexy posing is feminine only. It's that, in general, a male can't pose in some poses and look good. They end up looking silly. Whether people want to admit that's the general truth or not, is besides the point. :p

You have the one picture and we hear complaints of "WW is too sexy! They wouldn't pose a male like that." but, if they had the same artist do it and reverse the poses, yeah, sure WW would still look good, everyone (in general) however, would be laughing at the male heroes.

However, the way to not silently accept it, would be to go out and make that serious cover with those poses reversed and start that comic and quit trying to change what was already well regarded by those who actually purchase it. :p Maybe that twist will go over well and be a big hit! :o

However, I do feel real fans are getting tired of seeing their faves changed for a vocal minority who won't pick it up either way.

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So if someone doesn't like a

So if someone doesn't like a thing they shouldn't voice their distaste but instead go make their own?

... Are you serious?

Can you define "real fans" for me? Under what caliber is someone a real fan?

And again it may be all about marketing for people not picking it up "I don't buy comics because they do/don't do X" comics advertising in a comic shop where that person has no reason to go "comics! Now doing/not doing X!" That person has no real way to know that the thing they wanted to see in comics is available and as such they don't buy any and then the industry goes "well I guess people really didn't want that thing!"

Again a lot of ventures in comics may have been popular with people at large if they actually advertised themselves to people other than the already comic buying public.

Edit: also if these "real fans" are tired that their thing is being changed shouldn't they, by your statement, just shut up or go make their own?

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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I think this discussion of

I think this discussion of sexy poses in interesting and all rather pointless. Because after all my time on earth, what men find sexy in women is different than what women find sexy in men. And what women find admirable in other women is different than what men find admirable in other men. In other words, there is a reason that a pose that is attractive on a woman is not attractive on a man. Likewise there are poses that men find admirable in other men that they would not find admirable in a woman. I talking about you, rage-face vein-splitter.

If a business is targeting a certain demographic, why should anyone else complain? The teen male demographic likes testosterone and fan service. Targeting that demographic is a business decision, and while others may take offense; if the business is happy with it's targeted demographic, who are we to try to make them change?

Does the comics industry take public funding that I don't know about?

Are businesses that target that demographic missing out on a large untapped demographic? Yes. And I suppose if you cared about the business itself, you would want them to capture a larger market. And I suppose that's what all of these social experiments in comics have been trying to do, perhaps. But it appears as if where they've failed, it is because they've attempted to change demographics with an already-captured audience. And I think that's what Brand X has been saying.

If you want to shift your target demographics, you either have to do so gradually, so as not to lose your existing base, or you have to start something new so you can pick up your new target without losing your old.

It's just business.

Edit: And if we want the world to change how it perceives women, we have to work with the audience. As long as young men want fan service, there will be fan service providers. Modern media makes more money from women pandering to their superficial needs than it ever will from men by showing women as superficial.

to wit:


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Jeeze, Huck there's a lot to

Jeeze, Huck there's a lot to unpack there. So I guess I'll go point by point.

Yes, different poses and such are admired differently by different people. No one has said anything to the contrary.

Obviously the business is not happy targetting that demographic as the new 52 failed pretty spectacularly which was made to capture new teen male readers. And as evidenced by them constantly trying new things to try and gain more readers. Having a core fan base is all well and good but without the ability to reasonably grow that fanbase that is just bad business.

Not sure what your point is with the public funding angle.

Their changes have likely failed because they only market to (mostly) pre-existing fans. This is a dumb business move.

And finally we have two things targeted at two different groups but both are telling their readers that they need to be what society wants them to be; Boys have to be productive and girls have to be pretty. This is a symptom of a societal problem. If you are constantly told that these things should be important to you eventually you may start to think that these things should be important to you.

Edit: also, Project X? Did me and Brand fuse or something? I mean it's better than Brand Hero, that sounds like a commercial super hero.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Jeeze, Huck there's a lot to unpack there. So I guess I'll go point by point.

Yes, different poses and such are admired differently by different people. No one has said anything to the contrary.

Obviously the business is not happy targetting that demographic as the new 52 failed pretty spectacularly which was made to capture new teen male readers. And as evidenced by them constantly trying new things to try and gain more readers. Having a core fan base is all well and good but without the ability to reasonably grow that fanbase that is just bad business.

Not sure what your point is with the public funding angle.

Their changes have likely failed because they only market to (mostly) pre-existing fans. This is a dumb business move.

And finally we have two things targeted at two different groups but both are telling their readers that they need to be what society wants them to be; Boys have to be productive and girls have to be pretty. This is a symptom of a societal problem. If you are constantly told that these things should be important to you eventually you may start to think that these things should be important to you.

Project_Hero, I couldn't tell if you were agreeing with my points, disagreeing with my points, expanding upon my points, or just using my points to say whatever you wanted. But by addressing me specifically, you implied something. I just don't know what.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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It's a little disagreement,

It's a little disagreement, and a bit of wondering what your point was.

You mentioned that different poses and such appeal to different people, what's the relevance in this?

You mentioned that the comics industry targets a teen male demographic, the new 52 made specifically to target a teen male demographic did poorly. So that is either obviously not their core demographic or the new 52 did other things spectacularly wrong. Thereby calling into question the validity of them using superheroines as eye candy for a demographic that either doesn't exist for them or doesn't care about it.

You talk about attempting to shift their demographic which as I pointed out is practically impossible for them to reasonably do because they don't market outside their core demographic.

And the last part was with your edit. Which is a societal problem and not an audience specific problem. It's a media problem. Yes they wouldn't sell if they didn't have the audience for it but people are conditioned to be an audience for it by the deluge of media they ingest growing up. Young minds are impressionable and if most of what young girls get growing up is telling them they need to be pretty then they might just grow up thinking this is an important aspect.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero, then it appears

Project_Hero, then it appears as if you got my points perfectly. They were not directed at you. They were observations, and as such I'm glad you understood them.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

I think this discussion of sexy poses in interesting and all rather pointless. Because after all my time on earth, what men find sexy in women is different than what women find sexy in men.

Of course. Nobody denies this.
Welcome to the world of focus groups though. The living example of how evolutionary success can leave you stranded in an ecological dead end.
(Extra credits for reading or at least taking notice of "Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture")

Marketing likes products that appeal to a narrowly defined group, in particular a group with a lot of disposable income and poor impulse control, and then targets the .... out of it.
Marketing really dislikes products that refuse to appeal to a niche and instead cross over to different groups that are not supposed (by marketing logic) to find that product interesting, because then it doesn't know which strategy to use and which additional products to place with it.

This gave us the aggressive push in the late 80s and early 90s that computer games are for boys (only) even if before they were mostly unisex. It also gave us two decades of games that were designed to be testosterone bombs and could not have been more off putting for (young) women if they were designed to be.
In the same time Lego, which until then was marketed as a toy that was fun for the entire family, decided to bet everything on 'only boys play with lego while mother and daughter do the dishes in the background'. The aggressive marketing campaign and the even more aggressive push towards conflict heavy play sets did indeed increase popularity with boys. It also did pretty much kill off entirely all popularity it had with girls, ending up costing the company far more sales than it had gained with its hyper focussed marketing. And they are now spending millions every few years trying to create a 'girls lego' that fits in their narrow interpretation of 'boys like this and girls like that'. And failing every time because lego is a terrible platform to create 'housekeeping, jewelry, make-up and shopping' experiences that it insists is the only thing girls are interested in.

And comics are doing the same really, by creating books and imagery that only appeals to a small fraction of young teenage boys only, And that they quickly grow out of for the most part as soon as they discover the internet. Those that stick with comics almost never do so because of the fan service and sex appeal. Yet, thanks to decades of focus groups and aggressive boys-only marketing the companies have pretty much destroyed any bridge they had (or can rebuild) to other groups.

What is obvious is that there /is/ a market. The Teen Titans cartoon series was popular with girls (and this fact was one of the reasons why it got cancelled). The female heroes in the marvel cinematic universe are popular with men and women alike (as are most of the male heroes I might add). Final Fantasy has a female fanbase that is perhaps as big as its male fanbase (or it was, as square enix seems intent on switching to the boys-only mentality with its latest games). Comics with female heroes lately do as well as many with male ones, even the few genderswapped ones.

Huckleberry wrote:

If a business is targeting a certain demographic, why should anyone else complain? The teen male demographic likes testosterone and fan service. Targeting that demographic is a business decision, and while others may take offense; if the business is happy with it's targeted demographic, who are we to try to make them change?

Nobody is telling anybody to change.
They are telling the comics industry that they are replicating harmful stereotypes, and that they are missing a huge potential by focussing their market so narrowly.
As explained in that comic I linked: A typical teen titans cartoon episode was watched by 2 million children, between 25 and 50% of them girls. A typical comic is seen by 100,000 boys, and that only if it is extremely succesfull. Yet DC comics decided to double down on appealing only to a part of those 100,000 and to completely and permanently alienate those 500,000 to 1,000,000 girls who /could/ have been converted into future customers with a less stupid marketing focus.
But yes, the company is entirely free to do as it pleases and market itself out of existence (as it seems to be doing). Just don't expect me to pretend it is logical or smart business sense.

Huckleberry wrote:

If you want to shift your target demographics, you either have to do so gradually, so as not to lose your existing base, or you have to start something new so you can pick up your new target without losing your old.

You start with creating a product that does not alienate the customers you would like to pick up but instead offers something that appeals to them
Then you try to /reach/ your new potential customers where they already can be found.

What the comics industry did instead was going the Lego route, by creating a product that they expected to appeal to the stereotypes their marketing department came up with. Basically, do the equivalent of painting it pink and tying a bow around it. And then they didn't advertise it where actual girls or young women would actually learn about it. Of course that strategy largely failed. Comics, especially superhero comics, are entirely the wrong medium for the girlified experience they were trying to sell. Worse, girls with a rare few exceptions, have long stopped going to comics stores because by and large there is nothing for them there. If they have a boyfriend who reads comics (and who still does so after they got the nint that their girlfriend was not exactly thrilled with the pandering, objectification and fan service in comics) they are unlikely to pick up the new version and share it with their girlfriends. The new comic after all is, thanks to the 'miracle' of focus group marketing, pretty much designed to /not/ appeal to them.
But you which titles did succeed? The ones that stayed true to the concept of superhero action but gave the female lead the kind of concerns and every day live that young women could relate to (and no, not the silly girls like pink, clothes, jewelry and shopping shallowness that is so aggressively promoted by cartoons and Nick, but things like trying to fit in with friends and family, social life and relations, juggling boyfriend and a demanding job. Trying to figure out important questions like when to do what is right, when to do what you want and when to do what is needed. The kind of moral questions that were often at the center of the best comics stories when the main character was male)

Huckleberry wrote:

Edit: And if we want the world to change how it perceives women, we have to work with the audience. As long as young men want fan service, there will be fan service providers. Modern media makes more money from women pandering to their superficial needs than it ever will from men by showing women as superficial.

to wit:

Yes, focus group marketing. But that is all about nurture, not nature.
Women are not inherently obsessed with beauty and boys. Not more than men are anyway (and billions of women have no time or energy to waste on the pursuit of beauty because they are too busy trying to survve with their family).

But if girls magazines (and traditional fairy tales and stories) are the only thing you read and hear from the day you are born, then it is kind of extremely hard not to internalise all of it. That after all is the entire point of those stories: to teach girls what to think and do and how to feel and behave. And yes, the same goes for boys too.

Still, we have drifted very far away from not just the subject of City of Titans, but from the subject of this discussion too. I don't want to further heat up the debate by going into reasons why the way women are portrayed in comics and computer games is problematic and troublesome.
This does not say anything about City of Titans though, and the developers have given indication that they are trying to dial down on the most problematic aspects. In that it is good that they are trying to follow, and improve on, the example set by City of Heroes.

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Nadira wrote:
Nadira wrote:

...see above for full text...

I can't agree with you more. With the exception that I believe in a far more lassez-faire attitude towards business. I guess that's the Libertarian in me. I don't disagree with your goals, but I feel stupid businesses should be able to fail by their own stupidity. And if that means that they be allowed to pander to the shrinking demographic they are attempting to appeal to, so be it.

This is a Complex holistic issue. With feedback loops making it very messy indeed. I do not envy parents today.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Project Hero: The real fans.

Project Hero: The real fans. What are those? They're the ones who actually read the comic. Not make a deal about getting offended about it, so it changes, but never picks it up afterwards. Which, is most of those who complain about anything in the comics. :p

Not to mention, as I mentioned to Nadira. The comic she linked was just wrong. 2 million girls watched Teen Titans? Yay! You would need 5% of that 2 million to actually decide to pick up the comic, to now replace the 100k that was reading the book who just left. :p

Now one could say, they could possibly keep the 100k number, by replacing those who left by that new demographic. But then, what did they gain? Is it worth the risk? Is it fair to the long time fans?

Let's look at women magazines. Let's look at those covers. Yeah. They're not dressed up to look boring. Usually posing sexy and they're not even pandering to the male audience there. That's for the female audience. The difference? Those who don't read the comic are complaining to change something they don't even bother to read and wouldn't read if it met their requirements.

Let's go back to that Dave Willis comic. We go from a teen girl in a mini skirt and belly shirt, to a 20 something character in less (but do take note, lots of skin was being shown). So, according to Willis, the best idea is to turn a character who's been a certain way for so long, into the new cartoon version, so it picks up a likely 1% of that cartoon watching audience? :p Seriously. Dave never knew what he was talking about in that area.

All those little girls watching the cartoon, didn't go running out to buy the comic and then go WTF. Instead what happened, was a kid watched it, went out and the mom went WTF.

The one who understood the difference? Erik Larsen! He had a cartoon made of his comic and didn't change the comic. The comic wasn't going to be dumbed down to the show's level, because they had different audiences and dumbing it down wasn't going to increase those comic sales. :p

Where's the hate on to get those Deadpool movies and Wolverine movies to PG-13, so the kids can watch them like they can easily pick up the comics? :o If we're going R with those movies that made so much money, maybe it's time to ramp those comics into R rated territory!

Dave's argument fails.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

The one who understood the difference? Erik Larsen! He had a cartoon made of his comic and didn't change the comic. The comic wasn't going to be dumbed down to the show's level, because they had different audiences and dumbing it down wasn't going to increase those comic sales.

You bring up a really good point with this argument. Besides Teen Titans, The Savage Dragon is another good example of a lot of comic book franchises who cartoonized their characters for the small screen without changing the more mature content of the source material. Looking at it objectively, it's a pretty sly marketing gimmick. Like putting cartoony cigarette ads at a child's eye level. I admit comparing comics to cigarettes is a far stretch, but you have to admit that it's based upon catching their interest while they're young and transfering them into the new medium when the subject's tastes naturally mature.

Granted I don't think the comics industry was that devious about it.

I think the networks just said to the comics industry,
"hey, I heard you've got a comic book with teen heroes, let's make a cartoon!"
and the comics industry said
"ok"
and the networks said
"can we tone down the sexuality for our target demographic?"
and the comics industry said
"sure, why not."

And that's probably how it went.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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@Brand X. Everything you just

@Brand X. Everything you just said makes perfect sense. However, I do not expect it to sink in.
You cannot make people see when they are squeezing their eyes shut.

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So "real fans" are people who

So "real fans" are people who just accept whatever schlock their being shovelled without complaining about it? Ok then.

"All those little girls watching the cartoon, didn't go running out to buy the comic and then go WTF. Instead what happened, was a kid watched it, went out and the mom went WTF."
Do you have those statistics? I really would like to know how you know that this is exactly what happened in every case. If not this is just supposition. I'm sure a ton of longstanding Starfire fans were A-OK with turning her into a sexual goldfish.

How do you know those who don't read the comics are complaining about it? Again you're just assuming this is the case and discounting those people as not being "real fans."

I'm not a "real fan" by your definition. At least not anymore. I haven't bought a comic in years now. I know a ton of super hero trivia. I know what makes a good Superman. I know the green lantern oath by heart. But I guess I'm not a real fan because I'm not buying comics. And I'm not buying comics because they're expensive for the amount of entertainment they bring.

Cool. Good to know, I guess.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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I didn't say the real fans

I didn't say the real fans just accept whatever either. However, what have the numbers shown? Make a serious change, the numbers go down.

Miles Morales has never pulled out good numbers outside of issue 1s, until a bit recently, but they had to totally change Peter to something else and Miles to a Peter clone to do it. :p

That means all those people who love the idea of him, aren't going out and supporting the comic by going and buying it.

Starfire got that comic where she was just like the cartoon, except older. It didn't sell well. It got cancelled. I was buying it. I can tell you why it didn't sell well. Older Starfire in the DC Comic Main Universe, doesn't work well when she acts like the 15 year old who just arrived on earth, but has been on earth for over 5 years and doesn't know a single earth custom :p

Now, let's go with what you just said. Great, you're a fan. Now, should they listen to the fans who are actually buying the comics? Or the fans who aren't buying the comics, but hey, they have an opinion on how it should go, but when it does go that way, they still won't buy it?

You go with the first. Not the ones who love the concept but don't care to actually keep it going :p

Some Players: "I sure do love that City of Heroes. Love/d to play it. Love/d it's concept. Sure don't want to pay any money towards it!"

NCSoft: "We've cancelled City of Heroes!"

Those Same Players: "NCSoft sucks! They cancelled the game I wasn't paying for!"

Yes, comics sales go up and down. What was popular may not be popular anymore and the reasons vary. Spider-Gwen has gone down (though I bet they get good merch with her...same with Gwenpool...both seem to be more popular as concepts than actual comics :p) from having some better numbers.

Will it go up? No idea. However, we had these female characters, praised for not being the male hero. No one was buying.

Angela. No one was buying.

Iceman. No one is buying. I'm betting it gets cancelled soon, it's pulling Spider-Woman numbers, it's terribly written. :p

But no, I really don't see the reason to appeal to people who won't buy, but be willing to try by losing the fans who do.

Seems better to just make a new character, see if it's the magic one, and go from there.

Though, maybe like MMOs, they're running out of good names too :p

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So instead of trying to widen

So instead of trying to widen their reader base they should instead just cater to their ever shrinking reader base? Sounds like a great business move.

Again comic's sales problem is a marketing problem. You don't see comic adds anywhere but comic book stores. How is the public at large supposed to know that there's a comic they might like? It'd be like only advertising video games in video game stores, or only knowing what's coming out movie-wise by going to the cinema.

There's a reason the people who want those comics don't end up buying them and it's mostly because they don't know they're being sold.

You keep placing the blame on potential customers that don't know they're being catered to. I had no idea until you brought it up that they even ran a Teen Titans-esque Starfire comic. And I'm someone who pays at least some attention to the comics industry. How is someone who pays no attention to it supposed to know there's a comic catering to them?

The fact that these comics do poorly is because outside of comic shop regulars no one knows about them.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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The reader base did not start

The reader base did not start shrinking unto beloved characters were replaced with upstart newcomers.

The key to introduce a new hero is to write them into a number of stories as guest heroes and build a fan base...THEN open a new comic.
Killing off Bruce banner and replacing the hulk kills readership loyalty. Just like a bakers dozen with spider powers. Rewriting beloved heroes with longstanding hetero romances into gay stereotypes destroys existing characters, AND reader loyalty. Ironman, thor and wolverine are all chicks, the old characters tossed aside.

Its no wonder marvel titles are failing one after the other.

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The reader base did not start

The reader base did not start shrinking untill beloved characters were replaced with upstart newcomers.

The key to introduce a new hero is to write them into a number of stories as guest heroes and build a fan base...THEN open a new comic.
Killing off Bruce banner and replacing the hulk kills readership loyalty. Just like a bakers dozen with spider powers. Rewriting beloved heroes with longstanding hetero romances into gay stereotypes destroys existing characters, AND reader loyalty. Ironman, thor and wolverine are all chicks, the old characters tossed aside.

Its no wonder marvel titles are failing one after the other.

Project_Hero
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Do you have the numbers for

Do you have the numbers for that?

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

Brand X
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Niche market to begin with.

Niche market to begin with. Also, yes. Look at monthly sales. Look at their more recent social media (like twitter). :p

They blame the old readers for not picking up their new and improved totally different, "Look! We changed who's the Hulk and Thor and Iron Man and how we changed all these other heroes, to be more than just the white males they were!"

Which, I will give you, I don't believe (need a closer look) X-23 being renamed Wolverine, has hurt that titles sales. I still pick it up, but I liked X-23, I just hate that they decided the name X-23 sucks and they had to give her the Wolverine name, for name recognition.

Not to mention, Project, the MCU has done nothing but print money, but notice how it hasn't increased comic book sales.

Not to mention, I remember lots of people complaining about them changing Mystique in the comics to match the movies (naked and scales) which was done only so new readers who came in from the movies would see the same Mystique. However, when it came to the comics NOW they're like "Look! All those characters from the movies, totally replaced!" :p

It's a different market, because it's a different mentality. I can't get people into superhero comics that are into the equivalent mangas (basically superheroes, only manga). I know so many who love love LOVE the MCU movies, but won't pick up a comic because "It's for little boys" :p

It's like getting people to accept that cartoons aren't just for kids and trying to get them to remember, when cartoons came out they were also for adults, but they'll disagree with that now. :p

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Nadira wrote:
Nadira wrote:

What is obvious is that there /is/ a market. The Teen Titans cartoon series was popular with girls (and this fact was one of the reasons why it got cancelled).

I believe you are thinking of Young Justice, not Teen Titans.

Composition Team

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Niche market to begin with. Also, yes. Look at monthly sales. Look at their more recent social media (like twitter). :p

They blame the old readers for not picking up their new and improved totally different, "Look! We changed who's the Hulk and Thor and Iron Man and how we changed all these other heroes, to be more than just the white males they were!"

Which, I will give you, I don't believe (need a closer look) X-23 being renamed Wolverine, has hurt that titles sales. I still pick it up, but I liked X-23, I just hate that they decided the name X-23 sucks and they had to give her the Wolverine name, for name recognition.

Not to mention, Project, the MCU has done nothing but print money, but notice how it hasn't increased comic book sales.

Not to mention, I remember lots of people complaining about them changing Mystique in the comics to match the movies (naked and scales) which was done only so new readers who came in from the movies would see the same Mystique. However, when it came to the comics NOW they're like "Look! All those characters from the movies, totally replaced!" :p

It's a different market, because it's a different mentality. I can't get people into superhero comics that are into the equivalent mangas (basically superheroes, only manga). I know so many who love love LOVE the MCU movies, but won't pick up a comic because "It's for little boys" :p

It's like getting people to accept that cartoons aren't just for kids and trying to get them to remember, when cartoons came out they were also for adults, but they'll disagree with that now. :p

Pretty sure comic sales have been in steady decline for years. And it's because they don't market outside their already shrinking reader base.

Video games were once thought of as a children's toy and now look at how huge the market is. Almost because they marketed it in such a way to show people this wasn't the case.

Again you and Cy keep saying that these changes have hurt comic sales but comic sales were hurting to begin with. So as a business is it better to slowly bleed out or try something new to try to get more folks in? But as they do not market outside of comic books and comic book shops it's extremely difficult for the general public to know that certain comics exist. Again I pay at least some attention to the comics industry, I go to comic book stores on occasion and I don't know half of the things that go on. But I can probably tell you what new movies or games are going to be coming out and I don't even have cable.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

... And it's because they don't market outside their already shrinking reader base.

So untrue. One need only look at the Marvel media empire to see comic book marketing at play. And how many DC movies have there been? And let's not even go into video games based on comic books.

Quote:

Video games were once thought of as a children's toy and now look at how huge the market is. Almost because they marketed it in such a way to show people this wasn't the case.

No, the slow death of the graphic novel and any paper-based media is because of the rise of the digital age.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

@Brand X. Everything you just said makes perfect sense. However, I do not expect it to sink in.
You cannot make people see when they are squeezing their eyes shut.

You can't declare yourself the winner of an argument by stating the opponent is unwilling to listen to your arguments. That's an Ad Hominen argument.(attacking the person not the argument)

I do not find Brand X's (or your) arguments convincing because they are mostly argued from opinion rather than from evidence. I have no doubt you feel the same about my arguments and Project_Hero's. That does not mean I can't be convinced. It will just take more than a token effort.

However, I am hesitant to get into this argument any deeper. It is not exactly on topic for this forum, and the tone of the arguments is slowly but steadily getting more strident. This is not a debating club and I am not here to 'win'. Rather I would prefer to talk about what I hope will be in City of Titans, and about ways I believe the game can be made even better. I am still trying to figure out how an innocent picture of three male superhero characters dressed in a wonder woman swimsuit and classical sexualised feminine pose could get derailed this much. Especially in a thread that started out with the developers showing off a little of how much they could do (already) with male and female character models and with a few combat animations.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

No, the slow death of the graphic novel and any paper-based media is because of the rise of the digital age.

Personally, I'd attribute it to ignorant and incompetent marketing.
Nowadays everybody has a smart phone, a lot of children and young teenagers have a tablet or access to one. XComics and similar publishers make getting access to comics online as easy as using social media (if quite a bit more expensive). Same as with ebooks, the big book chain online stores (Kindle, Kobo) online sales do not yet exceed dead tree sales, but it is now conceivable that ebook sales become the majority before too much longer.
But the problem, always, is getting people into that store first, be it the comic shop or the online equivalent thereof. And here we get to marketing and having a product that the (intended) audience believes appeals to them. Why do most people walk past a comics store? Because there is a whole host of preconceived notions and negative stereotypes at work that make people feel "that's not for me". Online the problem is exarcabated by the fact that there are millions of shops online and potential customers are unlikely to find online publishers on their own.
The companies need to create more products that appeal to a wider range (and yes, it does not mean every product needs to appeal to as wide an audience as possible) so that anybody who somehow enters the (virtual) shop is not put off by the clear focus on a different demographic and can actually find something that appeals to them.
Then advertise around the big shows (cartoons like Teen Titans Go, and more broadly appealing movies like Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy) to point all those millions and millions of viewers where they might find /more/ stories that they might like if they enjoyed the cartoon or movie.
Instead, how many viewers who watched Guardians of the Galaxies even know there is a comic series of that name? How many even know where to find a shop selling those comics. And if they actuallyknow are instantly put off by the grungy man-cave look and feel of over half of them?
But if you get somebody into your store and they are able to find something that they like, they either may never progress beyond that one title, or they may gradually broaden their horizons. That only works if you get them into your store in the first place, and aggressively pushing away everybody who is not already a committed customer, is not going to encourage many new potential customers past your doorstep.

After all, at the end of the day, what is the primary reason why superhero comics and movies appeal? Because of the daydeam they provide of 'this person, who is so much better, could be me.' Sure, there are a few comics and story lines that transcend this modest goal and become sequential art, but for the most part, if you can't at least somewhat imagine yourself in the place of the superhero(*) either actually or as wish fulfillment then the story falls flat for you. This also was the reason why City of Heroes became the success that it was: for the first time you really could be the superhero yourself, exactly the way you wanted it to be. (and that I think is where both CO and DCUO missed the boat. You weren't the hero of your own story, at best you were the sidekick of somebody elses. Or you were never really 'in' the game in the first place).

Ultimately, the increased important of the digital age does not /have/ to mean the end of comics, just like it doesn't have to mean the end of writing, or music stores or television. The business model may have to adapt but kindle, i-tunes and netflix show that this is not particularly difficult or challenge. For comics this is not more of a challenge. Companies will have to let go of their overweening pride and their rigid traditions, and those companies that can't or won't likely will be swept away and replaced by other companies in the same market that did adapt to the changes.

(* why do you think so many of the classical superheros have a mild mannered or nerdy alter ego?)

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Project_Hero wrote:
Project_Hero wrote:

Again you and Cy keep saying that these changes have hurt comic sales but comic sales were hurting to begin with

There is this funny story from the days of the height of the bitter battle against music 'sharing' sites.
Part of the claim that 'peer to peer sharing kills the music industry' claim was that the number of records sold had declined by 80 million world wide the year before.

And then some journalists did a little counting and found that the record companies had also collective published 80,000 less records that previous year. Meaning that if those unpublished records would, on average, have sold a 1000 copies globally, there would not have been a slump in sales at all. It turned out that the record companies had decided to cut from their catalog the less popular records and artists, assuming that customers would turn to one of the few million selling artists when they couldn't find the music they really wanted to buy. Apparently these 'brilliant' CEOs and marketeers, couldn't figure out that for most people Kylie Minogue was not an acceptable substitute when they were looking for Slayer or the Carmina Burana...

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Beamrider wrote:
Beamrider wrote:
Nadira wrote:

What is obvious is that there /is/ a market. The Teen Titans cartoon series was popular with girls (and this fact was one of the reasons why it got cancelled).

I believe you are thinking of Young Justice, not Teen Titans.

Maybe. A lot of what I have been talking about came from a post mortem of the series (which I think was Teen Titans) that explained, quite convincingly that the number one reason why it got cancelled was the general decline of the saturday morning cartoon market (due to a variety of reasons of which an actual decline of the audience was only a minor part).
But a big reason also was because Cartoon Network didn't like the audience the series was developing. They demanded an exclusive focus on the male heroes and a catering only to boys in the 8 to 12 age group (because those were believed to be the only ones to buy the toys and toys were believed to be the place where 'the money is at'). The series did well with a slightly older and more diverse audience and the creators wanted to capitalise on that and were set on continuing to create storylines that were a bit more mature and focus on a wider range of interpersonal relations of the cast of the series. Cartoon Network would have nothing of it and axed the show. Similar to how other shows continued to be cancelled by Cartoon Network
I have been looking for that youtube documentary but have unfortunately been unable to find it again (and didn't think to bookmark it), so it counts as little more than hearsay :(

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Niche market to begin with. Also, yes. Look at monthly sales. Look at their more recent social media (like twitter). :p

They blame the old readers for not picking up their new and improved totally different, "Look! We changed who's the Hulk and Thor and Iron Man and how we changed all these other heroes, to be more than just the white males they were!"

Which, I will give you, I don't believe (need a closer look) X-23 being renamed Wolverine, has hurt that titles sales. I still pick it up, but I liked X-23, I just hate that they decided the name X-23 sucks and they had to give her the Wolverine name, for name recognition.

Not to mention, Project, the MCU has done nothing but print money, but notice how it hasn't increased comic book sales.

Not to mention, I remember lots of people complaining about them changing Mystique in the comics to match the movies (naked and scales) which was done only so new readers who came in from the movies would see the same Mystique. However, when it came to the comics NOW they're like "Look! All those characters from the movies, totally replaced!" :p

It's a different market, because it's a different mentality. I can't get people into superhero comics that are into the equivalent mangas (basically superheroes, only manga). I know so many who love love LOVE the MCU movies, but won't pick up a comic because "It's for little boys" :p

It's like getting people to accept that cartoons aren't just for kids and trying to get them to remember, when cartoons came out they were also for adults, but they'll disagree with that now. :p

I'm not saying you're entirely wrong,
But this article says that the picture is not so clear cut as all that.

https://www.cbr.com/no-diversity-didnt-kill-marvels-comic-sales/

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I think it is important to

I think it is important to consider poses and animations not by gender, but by intent. What are the messages that these model configurations are meant to send and to whom are they being sent? Are we friendly and inviting, proud, aloof, and isolated, or threatening and repellant? The question of feminine, sexy, or masculine is much more subject to cultural and personal interpretation.

I'd add that the reason why males and females move differently is in the bones and masses. I hope that the Devs have paid attention to this, but in the long run, I'd be almost equally content with a generic android skeleton that ignores 'gender'.

From my own experience, the poses that are attractive, regardless of gender, are simply 'relaxed'.

I feel like the 'argument' in this thread is over 'how much sexy is too sexy' and recognizing that Any postures that appear in a game will require Dev-time. So we don't want the Devs to 'waste' time creating assets which are 'too much', such that we wouldn't want to use them. So the disagreement is over how much is enough/too much.

Unfortunately, this disagreement over simple aesthetics has become about 'rightness' and everybody has a lot more energy invested in 'rightness' than the mere question of what looks nice. In essence, I'm seeing this as 'The Jiggle War' mark II.

At least this time it's more about culture differences. It's true that 'sexy' is attractive and attraction can be parlayed into sales. It's true that sexual objectification is a rampant tool in this kind of marketing and it can lead to damaging effects. Yet our culture continues to support the marketing because, wrong or right, it works (and we like it).

However, besides all of that, this thread is supposed to be about what the Devs are doing. It looks to me like the Devs are putting their hours of labor into the Middle. They're less concerned about objectifying their models and more about making them look and work right. Frankly, if they get this everyday stuff working, then they can always add the 'sexy' at a later date, or not, as they choose.

So, how about those Animations? Those are going to take plenty of Dev time, even if they can figure out ways to import some from a pre-made Library. Perhaps this thread is a good place to make suggestions? https://cityoftitans.com/forum/animation-suggestion-thread

There's one for Emotes, too. https://cityoftitans.com/forum/emote-suggestion-thread That would be a great place to suggest /sexy emotes, right?

Unfortunately, I don't think we have any threads for discussing cultural issues, unless it's this one: https://cityoftitans.com/forums/superhero-culture

Be Well!
Fireheart

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I guess to get us back on the

I guess to get us back on the actual topic I will again say that I hope we have a number of varied poses and animations available for whatever character a player wishes to make.

Making any of them, and clothing options, locked to a specific model, I feel, is counter intuitive.

More choice is always better.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."

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Nadira wrote:
Nadira wrote:

Instead, how many viewers who watched Guardians of the Galaxies even know there is a comic series of that name?

That's a good point. A severely missed opportunity. I was hugely into comic books in the 90's and I never heard of them. I wonder if anyone has access to the comic book sales figures before and after the movie.

Nadira wrote:

Ultimately, the increased important of the digital age does not /have/ to mean the end of comics, just like it doesn't have to mean the end of writing, or music stores or television. The business model may have to adapt but kindle, i-tunes and netflix show that this is not particularly difficult or challenge.

I've read a few comics that were adapted to the digital screen. In fact, the Spider Woman motion comic was pretty good, if I remember.

But I think the point is fairly made and we have all pretty much come to an agreement that without better marketing new customers won't be brought in, and disenfranchising your existing customer base by changing their beloved products "for reasons" only results in a smaller customer base.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.

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