So the other day a couple pieces of art circulated. They’re by Greg Horn.
They’re…less than flattering.
Yep. That happened.
So wonderful Phil Noto, as a gift to Gail Simone and Marjorie Liu drew this:
So thanks, Phil Noto! It’s nice to know that women aren’t the only people who are creeped out by Greg Horn’s…er…work.
I hesitate to use “art” because he, like Greg Land, is a tracer.
While I can’t really pinpoint the person Horn’s Catwoman is “based” on, Maria seems to think it’s Freema Agyeman (See image here) of Doctor Who fame. Which makes sense, because here’s his Power Girl!
Doesn’t she remind you of…
Poor Billie Piper.
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Ew. Ew, ew, ew. I’ve never had the misfortune of coming across Greg Horn’s work before, and…it makes me want to vomit. The positions of Catwoman and and Power Girl are bad enough, but the positions and expressions of the men make everything infinitely worse. And how Horn made sure to include newspaper headline that reads “She-Cat Strikes Again!” while showing how Batman is obviously dominating her; the message is just horrifying!
Dani(Quote) (Reply)
And how it’s essentially self plagiarism in terms of the posing and not at all consistant with EITHER character? OMG.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Eugh.
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! I don’t even…
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
This guy STINKS.[/understatement]
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
So…Catwoman looking like…that, and Batman standing there with a carton like some sort of nightmare milkman. “Special delivery for you…” *loom* “…it’s skim.” Embarrassing two characters in a myriad of ways at once, what a feat.
DM(Quote) (Reply)
Powergirl also reminds me of the character Ishara Yar (Tasha Yar’s sister), played by Beth Toussaint (http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/4/45/Ishara_Yar.jpg). Except, with better hair and without the giant boobs.
Colleen(Quote) (Reply)
I can only think of one thing to say. It’s a three word phrase, and two of the words are vulgarities. :I
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
Wait a second, I just noticed, is her butt sparkling?
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
I know, I know… normally, I say we shouldn’t psychoanalyze people from their work, but c’mon. In this case, it’s like watching SW and concluding Lucas has a juvenile obsession with fast-moving little things shooting down big tunnels: yeah? and?
That image suggests some very unhealthy psychology in its creator. I’ll just… leave it at that. And I wouldn’t say that much, except, well – I’m prepared to defend that conclusion.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Greg Horn has a long history of doing extremely porny covers of female characters. He was hired to do several covers for the Emma Frost series featuring the young, underaged, abused Emma Frost featuring her adult, highly-sexualized-fetished self. Though at least no men were explicitly dominating her in those.
That Batman picture is just absurdly offensive. Catwoman is not a woman of color –when I saw it I wondered if they were subbing in Vixen for no reason. Why would he give her that coloration?
Lindsey(Quote) (Reply)
She reminds me eerily of Halle Berry’s Catwoman, except for the costume, but her facial features and hair would fit. What she doesn’t remind me of is Catwoman-the-character, because lets be honest – she would kick anyone black and blue, who even suggested she should kneel before someone and make him drown in the milk. Esp if its Batman, Justice Enforcer Superordinaire.
Elee(Quote) (Reply)
If Greg Horn like Greg Land prefers to trace porn for his work, I can see where it would be a problem, after all porn is not exactly known for its actresses having normal body proportions and striking heroic poses. Though his choice of reference porn is… disturbing
Elee(Quote) (Reply)
Tracing and porntracing are very common in comics, as is an utter disregard for anatomy (“You know what would look good here? More muscles! You know what would look great here? More tits!”), but not as common as self-plagiarism, aka outright laziness. You can get away with it a lot easier with cover art and pinups than with frame-by-frame story art, but there are plenty of workarounds for that (standardized page layouts, a lot of splash pages, etc.), that in some cases take away from what could have been a decent storyline with better pacing or graphic design theory.
Re: inconsistency, most “name” artists can afford not to care, since they have a built-in audience. Greg Land is notorious for tracing different porn actresses for the same character in a single story without even bothering to change their very different hairstyles, let alone their faces. This is all separate from what’s consistent for the character, to boot, because why limit your porn-trace stock by only using women with angry body language for angry characters? I mean really now, think of the poor artists. /sarcasm
The other thing, which I’m not sure about, is that I know in-comic art usually has separate jobs for lineart (pencils), inker, colorist, and letterer, instead of just a writer/artist dynamic, unless there is a particularly multitalented artist employed. I believe cover art is traditionally all done by one person, but I could be wrong here. So… blame the right artist for the right problem? I don’t know how much of the above, beyond the poorly executed cheesecake, is even Horn’s “work.”
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
The backlit glow on everything is probably to make up for poor linework, poorly disguised tracing, and poorly executed background/depth/perspective delineation, tbh. The first picture has really inconsistent flat planes, if you look at the way the buildings are put together, how the milk dish is sitting on the ground vs. how Catwoman’s hands and the newspaper next to her are lying, etc. etc. The second cover is more blatantly a PHOTO manipulation (both are, to a certain extent, but the second one just gives no fucks about… anything, actually).
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
Comic book Catwoman is not a PoC, but her portrayal in the TV series by Eartha Kitt and the movie portrayal by Halle Berry have set up a certain tradition in the character’s history. Just an aside.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
Because these are not covers, and they are not done for any of the books, I’m pretty sure it’s all Horn.
You’re right. There are often a separate penciler (who is considered the main artist), inkers and colorists, but even if that were the case here, again, Horn, being the pensiler, would be the main culprit.
Leigh(Quote) (Reply)
This can be said about quite a few comics creators…generally, the superhero side of the comics industry isn’t women-friendly.
To the point where the most vocal female creator (Gail Simone) opened up her Tumblr account yesterday to questions and concerns and plenty of people jumped on her, and it looked like they were expecting her to be ABOVE normal human responses BECAUSE she’s the most well-known vocal female creator.
She was insanely gracious and calm in all of her responses, but holy hell, having to defend a joke she made to another creator 2 years ago on Twitter because of how high a pedestal people have put her on…
Leigh(Quote) (Reply)
We thought Halle Berry too, but Berry’s face isn’t shaped like that. Her cheekbones are more prounounced, her eyes aren’t as big, and she’s got a different mouth. Also her nose doesn’t have the same bridge to it that this one does. Maybe Rosario Dawson?
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
My first thought about the Power Girl picture was that her face reminded me of a young Linda Hamilton, I don’t know why. My second thought was that Linda Hamilton would’ve made a WAAAY more awesome Power Girl than that picture implies. I really have no idea who that woman in the picture with Batman is supposed to be. Catwoman would NOT be doing that.
Mana G(Quote) (Reply)
And let’s not get started on the bizarrities of RPG illustration…
(No derailment intended – there is actually a crossover when it comes to ‘Pulp’ RPGs – see, e.g., http://gallery.burrowowl.net/index.php?q=/post/view/21378&search=thighhighs, an illustration for one of Louis Porter Jr’s games).
Sally(Quote) (Reply)
Ugh, not only are these gross, they’re really poorly done too. I’m always amazed that tracers and other generally crap artists can be in comics, or even be popular (see: Rob Liefeld). Phil Noto’s pic is pretty great though. I looked up his art and it’s vastly superior to Horn’s in basically every way too.
Also, I thought Power Girl looked like Katie Holmes.
FarisScherwiz(Quote) (Reply)
“Normal body proportions” is Otherising language, btw, whether you’re referring to a physical “type” or surgically modified vs. non-modified bodies.
However, I do agree that using/tracing/referencing objectifying, pornographic imagery in comic art is problematic.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
To be fair, though, Adam Hughes doesn’t trace his work. And while he was responsible for the initial art that led to the “Mary Jane Laundry” statuette fiasco a few years back, and he does do a lot of rather objectifying and/or pinup homage cheesecake art as his trademark, Hughes has shown, imo, a wide artistic range and a strong consciousness of character in his art featuring female characters, and himself is not totally free of executive editing decisions that contribute to and reinforce the SF/F superhero comics and RPG subcultures’ casually blatant misogyny and objectification of women.
WHAT, WHAT EXCUSE FOR A PICSPAM, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUTIn other news, this comment was hell to write up, because my ISP, when combined with my desktop, continues to be some kind of portal to the underworld that refuses to stay online for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Gena(Quote) (Reply)
That came up when Leigh and I were talking about the push up images of Powergirl. My boobs… do pretty much the same thing as hers do when I’m in plank or doing push-ups. It’s not her body that’s wrong, it’s that she’s posed in a way where she’s being objectified by both the viewer AND the other men in the pic.
Maria(Quote) (Reply)
Ahahaha that Laundry thing, I remember it well.
Someone posted a parody of that that was Spider-Man in nothing but his mask and a thong doing Mary-Jane’s laundry.
Leigh(Quote) (Reply)
I felt so creepy buying that Emma Frost series because of Horn’s covers. I’m sure then-EIC Joe Quesada cited it’s poor sales as another example of how woman-centered comics don’t sell.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
Power Girl wouldn’t either. Her reaction to the drill instructor would be to leave him hanging from the flagpole.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)