TMINE

It’s that time again everyone. Time for my annual year-end break which some crazy people have decided to call “Christmas”.

As usual, I plan on doing precisely no work over the Christmas break, beyond maybe a review of Wonder Woman #15 on the 28th or 29th, but I’ll be back with the news and more on January 7th or 8th. Some time around then anyway.

Survey time
As always, let’s take this as an opportunity to have a reader survey. What sorts of things would you like to see on this here blog in 2013? And what sort of things have outstayed their welcome? Anyone thought of a replacement for Sitting Tennant yet?

Leave your requests for more, less or the same below in the comments and I’ll decide what gets the chop and what stays alive when I get back. I’ll probably carry on as before, but you never know.

In the meantime, a Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to you all, thanks for reading (yes, even you lurkers) and a great big thanks as always to everyone who’s left a comment for livening up the place!

Comics’ depictions of women – particularly superheroines – is something of a thorny issue. For a lot of people, both male and female, the hypersexualisation of female characters is off-putting at the very least. Those who want to investigate this angle further can read this fine essay at Comics Alliance or this one at Comic Book Resources.

There are some, however, who argue that both genders are treated fairly: the depictions of superheroes aren’t exactly realistic portrayals of men and their bulging muscles are equally hypersexualising. That, in fact, superheroes and superheroines are treated equally (badly).

To disprove this theory, a little project has been gathering steam this week. The Hawkeye Initiative (NSFW, which should tell you something) has a simple premise: take a given picture of a superheroine and put Hawkeye (the character played by Jeremy Renner in The Avengers) in the exact same pose and the exact same costume. If he doesn’t look like a tool and you can argue that what he’s wearing is actually a really good outfit for fighting (or doing anything) in, then that pose isn’t hypersexualising. And women from all over the Internet have been sending in their ‘compare and contrast’ drawings.

My favourite, though, is this one: