Monthly Archives: February 2009

The evolution of breasts

I've made an extensive study of the scientific literature*, and I haven't been able to find any data on why the breasts of humans are far larger, and far more important as secondary sexual features, than in any other primate. I was prompted to study this vital issue when noticing that the average breast size of your typical super-heroine has increased dramatically since the genre began, as you can see in the following comparison:

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Random Panel: Recession-proof job descriptions

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(Image ©1992, Marc Silvestri, from "Cyberforce" #1.)

"Watchmen" interview

I read the following quote by "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder on CNN just now:

"The story itself is a pretty straightforward mystery," said Snyder, "but inside of that, there's this huge plot that has international intrigue and a super-villain and everything you want from a superhero story.

And it made me want to put my head through the wall. The "Watchmen" graphic novel is a "straightforward mystery" with a "huge plot that has international intrigue and a super-villain and everything you want from a superhero story" in the same way that "All in the Family" was a "straightforward sitcom" with "a cast of zany characters full of good-old-fashioned American hijinks and crazy situations and everything you want from a silly sitcom".

No no no no no no no. Like "All in the Family", "Watchmen" used the traditional conventions of a genre and turned them on their head to tell the story of interesting, conflicted, flawed, deeply human characters. My dad never realized Archie Bunker was making fun of racists -- he thought the part was straight-up and agreed with everything that came out of the character's mouth. He didn't understand the concept of irony any more than Zack Snyder does, judging from that quote. To walk away from reading "Watchmen" and to think that the plot and the super-villain were the most important bits is to completely miss the entire point. I cannot tell you how disheartening it was to read that. Gah.

I have a sinking sensation that this movie isn't just going to be bad, it's going to be epically bad. Categorically bad. Galacticaly bad. Bad in a way that slanders not just itself and its source material but the entire genre. My guess as to how this is going to turn out is best summed up in this "Bloom County" strip:

bloom-county-1

I sure hope I'm wrong, but everything I see gets me more and more disheartened. Zack Snyder completely does not understand this project. At all. I better bring a sponge with me to the showing because I have a feeling my eyes are gonna bleed. Blech.

Reason #5: He can't handle the truth

When I say Rob Liefeld can't handle the truth, I mean the truth is that he can't handle anything with a handle. Like swords:

badswordholding-composite

Study those for a bit and see if you can tell the fundamental mistake he's making. Pay particular attention to the one at the top right of the image and try to imagine how in the hell anyone could actually use a sword "held" like that, with the hilt perpendicular to the hand instead of parallel.

Once you're ready -- feel free to put on sunglasses or something, facing directly into this sort of thing can lead to blindness -- take a look at how he treats hand-held guns (and there are even more guns than swords in any Liefeld comic):

badgunholding-composite

Why are there no fingers curling around the handle of the guns on the left and on the right? What the hell is his left arm grasping in the center image? Again, there's a pattern here. See if you can spot it.

Give up? The explanation is pretty straight-forward, particularly if you remember that Rob Liefeld is a lazy artist:

He draws the figures first, with their hands however he knows to draw them, and then adds the items in the hands later. As if they were an afterthought. Which they are, because while shooting guns is kewl, hands holding guns are not. Think I'm crazy? Take a look at this beauty:

xf1-badgunholding

First of all, where the hell is that thing pointing? If it's like every other gun ever manufactured in the history of projectile-throwing, the handle ought to be on the opposite side of the sights, otherwise aiming it would be a cast-iron bitch. But in this case that would mean he's going to be pulling the trigger with his penis, which I think even Rob Liefeld understands is probably less than optimal battlefield strategy.

But he didn't draw the gun until after he was done drawing the figure, you see, and by then he was bored with the whole thing and couldn't be bothered with actually drawing his weapon parallel to the arm holding it. That's why you've got the penis-fired orientation and the fact that he's holding it as if it were pointing towards the bottom right side of the panel, and yet the barrel is practically facing the viewer.

Still don't believe me? Consider this, then:

xf2-badswordholding

I defy you to explain that weapon in that hand in that position any other way. Liefeld only knows how to draw hands in three or four different positions. And figuring out how to jam a weapon in those positions takes too much time, so he just crams them in however they'll fit, twisting them however he needs till it looks right enough to get out the door.

Here's what happened with that particular cover, I guaran-damn-tee you. He drew the figure first, thinking "It'll be awesome to see Cannonball reflected in the sword!" But then when he was done with the fun part -- the figure -- he realized that if he put the sword actually in its hands, the thick part of the blade would be off-panel, and you couldn't see the reflection. So instead of just redrawing the hands, he skewed the sword blade thirty degrees and called it kewl.

Because he's lazy.

And he doesn't know how to draw things in hands.

And that is reason number six why I hate Rob Liefeld's art.

Random Panel: "A little too-life-like" Sandy Doll

strange-tales-1-1951-life-like-sandy

(An ad from "Strange Tales" No. 1, 1951.)

META: Comment problems

Apparently something is going amiss and I am not getting email notification when someone posts a comment. Which means if you've posted anything for me today (maybe even late yesterday), I probably haven't seen it. I'll try and manually go through the last few posts to see if anything major's come up. The "Contact us" link and form are still working, though, so if it's urgent you can use that. Sorry for the problems, I can't tell what's up.

HM3 Journal: Like an onion

Onions have layers and make you cry, which is exactly what HM3 has been all about the last few days. I've been working on getting the layering stuff all worked out, which has been more challenging than I anticipated. Unlike the Minis, in HM3 all items are in the same "bucket". All of the "Headgear" items were in the Headgear bucket, so if you wanted to move a particular Headgear item on top of, say, a Mask, while leaving all the other Headgear items below it, well, too bad. You can't do it.

But in HM3 all the items and the layers they are on stay in the same bucket, so you can put any item on any layer you like. Which is good. But by default, I want it all to layer as you'd expect, with hair on top of the head and belts on top of pants and footwear on top of the feet they're supposed to go on, etc. My goal is, for anyone who wants to just use it with the basic defaults in place, it'll function just like HM2.x, more or less. I thought that would be easy to pull off, but it wasn't.

I finally got the layering stuff working today, though, and to show you the fruits of my labor, here's the latest screen shot:

Notice that I also am about to get "grouping" working, so you can move, scale, and rotate nested items together. In other words, you can move the Hair with the Headgear and the FacialHair and the Mask and the Head all at once, or make them all the same size at once, etc. Pretty neat. It doesn't actually work yet but it will. I swear it!

Anyway, let me know if you see anything hinky or if you think of something it'd be cool to have.

Oh yeah! I forgot I also got a primitive "Zoom" feature working so you can get up close on the head for more of a classic "portrait" sort of look. I need to make it more fully-featured, but the basic idea is there.

Random Panel: Top Model, mutant edition

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(Image ©2005, "Arana" No. 3, Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)

Note to self: The Legion is not clothing-optional

When you're designing your super-hero costume, you should make a particular effort not to forget a few fundamentally important bits. Like pants:

gimpants

Apparently Gim Allon (aka "Colossal Boy" from "The Legion of Super-Heroes") never heard that particular adage. Now, granted, sometimes it's all right to leave your house just in spandex Underoos, but not -- and this is a key exception here kids, so pay attention -- if you're also wearing a bondage harness on your upper body. Along with a Onesie that has built-in shoulder pads. I keep expecting Shadow Lass to hook a chain to his collar and lead him off to the Danger Room for a little "Battle Simulation", if you know what I mean. And judging by the humiliated look on his face, I think Gim most definitely does.

Random Panel: Ya THINK?!

boybuddies