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Friday, November 20, 2009. New Comics were 2 days ago

 

All the Comics in the World: Attractive Men

By Shaenon K. Garrity

Thursday October 16, 2008 09:00:00 am

There's really only one reason Minx, DC's late graphic novel imprint for teen girls, failed: it's friggin' hard to get a comics line off the ground. Even Vertigo, Minx's obvious precursor, wasn't really a brand-new line when it launched in 1993; it was more of an umbrella for a bunch of already popular titles like Swamp Thing and Sandman. Selling an entirely new line of original graphic novels, most of them by artists and writers unknown to the target demographic—a demographic, incidentally, to which the publisher had never tried to market before—was a Herculean task.

That said, I can think of two other key causes of Minx's demise. First, they didn't do a crappy vampire comic. As someone who works in the manga business, I can attest that if you want to sell to teenage girls, you put out something with vampires in it. It doesn't have to be any good. Just look at Twilight. One crappy vampire comic could have kept Minx afloat for years.

Second, almost none of the creators involved could draw sexy guys. No offense to my dear friends Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm, creators of the excellent Minx book Good as Lily, but you know what Derek's idea of a handsome male lead is? Somebody who looks exactly like Derek Kirk Kim. And that was one of the better efforts. Most of the artists could not top the raw sexual power of a skinny Korean guy in checkered Vans.

Why are American cartoonists so bad at drawing hot men? Japanese cartoonists can draw hot men. European cartoonists can draw hot men. Not as hot as the ones the Japanese cartoonists draw, but guys like Moebius at least put in an effort. Concerned about the dismal state of American cartoon beefcake, I assembled a crack panel of people who were hanging around my apartment last night:

Andrew Farago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum, creator of the webcomic The Chronicles of William Bazillion, and my husband.

Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, creator of the webcomic The Stiff, fellow comiXology columnist, and the only person who understands me when I compare moe manga to the grey goo scenario.

Pancha Diaz, manga editor and co-creator of the webcomic Iceheart.

Rafael Diaz, Pancha's dad.

Leia Weathington, creator of the webcomic The Legend of Bold Riley.

Elizabeth Conley, cartoonist and printmaker.

Mohamed Elhassan, who builds lasers or something, I'm not totally sure, but it's something really smart science-type people do. And he draws comics.


The question posed to the panel: Which American cartoonists draw attractive men?

Jason's picks: Duncan Fegredo (not American), Bryan Lee O'Malley (not American), Carla Speed McNeil
Pancha: "Bryan Lee O'Malley? You're supposed to pick artists who draw hot guys, not artists you think are hot."
Jason: "Oh, yeah. It's a thin line."

Pancha's picks: Wendy Pini, Mike Mignola, Joanna Estep, Carla Speed McNeil
Pancha: "When I was a kid I totally wanted to bone those elves."
Rafael: "What? I didn't realize I was buying you porn."
Me: "Why Mike Mignola?"
Pancha: "I like Abe Sapien."

Rafael's Picks: Milton Caniff, Tom of Finland (not American by birth), Los Bros Hernandez, Dan DeCarlo
Me: "I can't think of any handsome men the Hernandezes have drawn. They mostly draw horrible moustaches."
Mohamed: "You think they're horrible moustaches. We think they're hot."
Me: "Who's attractive in the Archie comics?"
Rafael: "Veronica!"

Mohamed's Picks: Walt Simonson, Craig Thompson
Mohamed: "Would anyone say Alex Ross?"
All the women: "No."
Elizabeth: "It's not that his men are unattractive, I just don't want to bone them."

My Picks: Carla Speed McNeil, Terry Moore, Kyle Baker, Dylan Meconis
Jason: "Didn't Terry Moore have like one good-looking guy in the entirety of Strangers in Paradise?"
Pancha: "Yeah, but he was hot."
Me: "Even though in his first appearance I totally thought he was a lesbian."

Elizabeth's Pick: Mark Buckingham
Elizabeth: "Bigby is hot."
Mohamed: "I do not understand that. He looks like he never bathes."
Elizabeth: "He bathes!"

Andrew's Pick: John Romita Sr., Jaime Hernandez
Andrew (holding out a Love and Rockets collection): "See, here's Speedy. He doesn't have a moustache."

Leia's Picks: Carla Speed McNeil, Mike Mignola, James Jean
Leia: "James Jean does that bony Adam's apple thing. Shit, even his women have Adam's apples. And I would chain myself to Mike Mignola's radiator and perform acts of sexual abasement for him."
Mohamed: "Have you ever seen the man? He looks like Uncle Fester."
Pancha: "One time she licked a faxed Mike Mignola script."
Leia: "Almost licked it."


The conclusions of the panel? Carla Speed McNeil draws fine-looking men. Among the women, there was complete agreement on this point. Not only did Mike Mignola receive high marks, current Hellboy artist Duncan Fegredo also made the list. From this we can conclude that Hellboy is smoking hot. Overall, the panel had trouble coming up with names. The conversation kept drifting into either non-American artists who draw sexy men or American artists who draw sexy women. As Elizabeth put it, "I did not think it would be so hard to think of artists."

Pancha commented, "American comics tend to have ugly men and women."

Also, all the men on the panel thought Tintin was kind of hot.

Shaenon K. Garrity is a manga editor at Viz Media and is best known for her webcomics Narbonic and Skin Horse.

All the Comics in the World is © Shaenon K. Garrity, 2008

 

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