Scottie's Real World.
Scott J Grunewald's outrageous look at comics and pop culture.

This is the true story (true story!) of real events, that happen in the real world, that bug the shit out of me. I write about them, to find out what happens, when people stop acting like mindless sheep and start getting real.

Is anyone else as depressed about the current election proceedings here in the US? We just had our Iowa Caucus (Why the Iowans get to vote first is beyond me. I mean they're from Iowa! But maybe that's the point, they're from Iowa, they need SOME kind of claim to fame I guess) and it looks like George W Bush and Al Gore came out on top. Joy. We get to choose between a Texan junkie and Data from Star Trek to be our next president.

As much as I loathe Bush, I'm finding myself even wearier of Gore. He is married to Tipper Gore after all, who is surely a demonic succubus. You'll remember that she campaigned for years to get that nifty "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" sticker on CD's and cassettes. They've been so effective up to this point haven't they? In this day and age of Columbine, she's bound to be at it again. What's the next victim of her stupidity? Movies? Music? Video Games? Books? Comics? Be afraid my children, Tipper Gores thick calves may be stomping all over our First Amendment rights any day now.

Now on to something comic related...

On January 19th, DC Comics released JLA: CREATED EQUAL. This is an Elseworlds story about a cosmic event that causes the entire population of Earth to die with the exception of Superman and Lex Luthor. Apparently it also caused the female population to become screaming dykes. How offensive can you get?

Now I'm a big believer in the power of the female population. If the male population were to suddenly die off, I could easily believe that our wars would end, and things would get better. And I have to admit, the idea is rather fun, and could have been so if it hadn't been turned into a thinly veiled wet fan boy dream. All the men are dead; Superman must re-populate the world. Will they use artificial insemination, of just trust Superman's super speed to get the job done? Faster than a speeding bullet indeed. How does Luthor pee in his little containment suit? Why suddenly do all the women look, how can I put this delicately, butch?

Would I have been asking these silly questions if it were a well-written story? Of course not. I was thinking, maybe I was being a tad oversensitive about it all, so I decided to have a female friend read the book and tell me what she thought about it These were her reactions.

"So the only women involved in the book is a colorist? What's that about?"

"With all the men gone, do all the prime jobs now go to the lesbians? Or did the artists just decide to show all the lesbians that now have significantly less competition?"

"If Lois is pregnant, why is she walking around in one of Clarks shirts with her tits hanging out? Wouldn't she feel bloated and unattractive?

"Hmm. More lesbians and now they're angry with Luthor. They're infiltrating the entire superstructure of big business it seems. Could a lesbian coup be coming?"

"Damn, he must be a super man to fill that jar!"

Well, needless to say, Tonya didn't like the book. She wouldn't go so far as to say it was insulting, but rather used the word insipid. She said that a woman should have written the book, seeing as how the guy who wrote it most likely didn't even speak to a woman before the script was written.

Now this raised the hairs on the back of my neck a bit. Can a man write a book from a woman's perspective? It's been done, but honestly, not that often. At least not well.

I had a bit of an argument with a friend a few months back. It was suggested that an American writer couldn't write JOHN CONSTANTINE: HELLBLAZER because it was far too British a book to be treated properly by a non-Brit. I disagreed (And still do, seeing as how the writer in question is Brian Azzarello)

But know I'm on the other side. I found myself wondering if a man can write a story about a woman. Can a story about a gay man be written by a straight man? Or a story about a black man written by a white man; will it be any good? It kept me wondering for a few days, and my answer was yes. A writer can write about something other than himself, but it's not easy, and it's going to take a lot of research.

JLA: CREATED EQUAL was simply an example of something that's been going on in comics forever. The almost total ignorance of women. Comic readers call tarts like Witchblade and Fathom "strong women". How so? Because they kill people while wearing uncomfortable looking bone bikinis? Bullshit, they're sex objects that cater to the two things young boys like the most, tits and blood. Just like most women in comics.

JLA: CREATED EQUAL was supposed to be a book about women taking control of the world and making it a better place in the face of tragedy. It ended up being a book about Superman, with a supporting cast of scantily clad women who desperately need the last man alive to solve their problems.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on one book, seeing as how there are many more books that treat women even worse than this one, but it's a glaring example of what's wrong with the industry. Don't try and cultivate a female readership, hell, don't try and cultivate any kind of new readership, just placate the aging fan boys that refuse to mature.

Why would a new reader see a book like this and want to start reading comics? Books like this make me want to stop reading them.

Scott J Grunewald lives in Los Angeles with his dog Rosie and his grotesquely large comic collection which he proudly refuses to put in polly bags and boards (The comics silly, the dog loves being sealed in plastic).

Scott Grunewald is Editor-in-Chief of PopImage.

Back

Attitude | ProFile | Industrial
Interviews | Reviews | Pi Comics
Talkback | Archives | Gallery