Why I’m Taking a Break: Exhibit A
The first of many weekly video blog posts is now up. In this episode I’m talking about Wizard Magazine. Hardly an interesting subject, I know, but as I was flipping through the latest issue I noticed a few things that made me cringe, made me think and made me want to throw up. Watch and I’ll let you figure out which.
Yeah, and water’s wet. SFW? It’s like pushing the unconscious drunk off his barstool: it’s easy, but it’s not going to sober him up.
I’ve checked out Comic Foundry a couple of times and, while it was certainly better than the disappointing Lo-Fi and MillarWorld’s Magazine (is that still around?), it’s in no position to be throwing stones at any one else. The comments section to the linked post is entertaining for all the wrong reasons — kudos to Leigh Walton and Jennifer de Guzman for calling a spade and a spade, though — and reinforces the negative feelings I’ve had the past few weeks about the industry’s peripheral players and hangers-on and the increasing sense that I’ve been on the verge of falling into a similar pattern here.
Really, I just want to get back to reading good stories complemented by appealing pictures and sharing my thoughts about them with anybody who stumbles across the site. More later…
PS: Just noticed Leong posted replies to some of the comments he received, including de Guzman’s, to whom he offered the jaw-droppingly stupid:
As to Jennifer’s note about the headless women? Well, two things. 1) It’s hard enough to convince someone to pose for you WITHOUT their face showing, let alone with. 2) I prefer our “models” without heads. Unless they’re somebody you’re going to recognize, I think the cover loses focus because you’re stuck trying to figure out if you’re supposed to know who that person is. Also, I prefer the girls and the guy without heads because you get to decide what they look like in your head.
Miss the point much?
Funny thing is I’m pretty sure Leong’s one of the more respected peripheral players on the scene. Or was, at least…
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haha @ the 7even/Kevin Spacey comment in that thread.
Indeed.
Buck up, sir. Go read some Alex Robinson books, it’ll cure what ails ya.
thanks for nailing this one. how could the entire point of those two comments be missed? I join with the two women who clearly are paying attention. And our friends at Comic Foundry are either a bit blind to the sexism or can’t take being called on their playing the tits and ass card.
How ’bout you read the first part of that same statement, which offers a reason for the chosen covers? A cover that illustrates the cover story…not that far out or unusual.
“Very true. We’ve featured two scantily clad women on our covers — But we’ve featured a bare-chested fella as well. I’d also mention that the point about the Wizard covers was the (possibly coincidental) unoriginality. I stand by the CF covers in that they’re editorially relevant. They weren’t just for fun. The first was a story about body forms in comics and the second was about Lost Girls (hence the yellow brick road). What about Wizard? Was Angelina Jolie editorially relevant? With only one question inside about her? You decide.”
I read Leong’s whole explanation and it simply didn’t work for me. His “bare chested fella” defense, suggesting a topless man and woman are equivalent, is just plain stupid, and bringing Wizard’s covers into the debate makes no sense at all since I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see CF as another Wizard.
And either cover’s editorial relevance is arguable at best, and still doesn’t make them any less off-putting or potentially offensive. Fact of the matter is Leong lost some portion of his potential audience because of those cover choices, and lost another portion because of his boneheaded response to mostly constructive criticism.