Comic Book Resources

Wow, everything I needed to know about chicks IS in comics! Forget “Sandman” or “Love and Rockets” or “Strangers in Paradise!” THIS is what I need to truly unlock the secrets f the feminine mind and heart!

Okay, on a less snarky note (am I in a snark fee corner?) wow. Just…wow. As a historian, this is both amusing and scary. (e.g. The use of the word ginchy. I thought that was just a myth.)

And yeah I can see why Steinem got on O’Neil’s case. Something tells me it wasn’t just the depowering.

Diana, “you’ve come a long way baby.”

But… But… I thought Wonder Woman was a feminist icon who’s always stood for female empowerment, and that it’s only recently she’s been perverted into some sort of cheese cake icon that lives only to please men!
The Shock! The Horror! The Whiny-ness of people who’ve built up a fictional character to represent some ideals she never stood for!
Will the internet survive this one?

And yet it’s still probably the best Wonder Woman run ever…

Even if it’s just for the pimping awesomeness of I-Ching, which, yes, sounds cooler.

Great post. Now I don’t have to buy “What Would Wonder Woman Do?”:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Would-Wonder-Woman-Do/dp/081185177X/ref=pd_bbs_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202711658&sr=8-8

Fact Fifteen: You would be wise not to tell a chick you love her and not mean it, because for chicks, that’s all that matters in life!

To be fair, All that matters might indeed stretch it a bit far but this does seem like pretty solid advise.

I…I don’t know if I should burst into tears, or hysterical laughter.

Just as an aside, couldn’t Wonder Woman have used her golden lasso to discover the truth in that little ol’ trial? Just wondering.

Just to play devil’s advocate…is it fair to judge comics of that era by today’s sensibilities? Isn’t it possible that that depiction of Wonder Woman accurately depicts the sensibilities of a lot (not all of course) of the women at that time?

I would say, T, that it might reflect the ideas about women that men had more accurately than what women thought. I could be wrong, of course. My mom was in her mid-20s at this time, and she was married, but was also out working and being “independent.” She’s never struck me as someone who would think the way Diana does. Again, I could be wrong, but this seems like the men thinking this is how women think.

I expect this might cost me a number of votes in the upcoming election, but I think all of the above facts are true.

Can you really tell me they’re not?

Don’t worry your pretty little heads about it, girls. Just vote Poundcake, and he’ll take care of you!

“Never yet saw a chick who wouldn’t be dumb if you gave her a chance!”

Direct quote from one of the panels in fact #12. Great stuff.

Oh man, I am totally buying this. By the way, that green hippie cowboy in the panel above Fact Eight is one surprisingly surly looking dude. I’d probably buy a comic book about that guy as well.

I would say, T, that it might reflect the ideas about women that men had more accurately than what women thought. I could be wrong, of course.

You’re not, or at least not very. When you get down to that Core Concept so beloved of editors everywhere, Wonder Woman is a guy’s fantasy version of what a chick superhero should be. Her strengths do not accurately represent a real woman’s by a long shot.

That green hippie cowboy dude turned out to be Wild Bill in the G.I. Joe comics, actually.

Also, the assessment that “WW is a guy’s fantasy version of what a chick superhero should be” has been true ever since William Moulton Marston created her. However, to be fair, you could also say that, “Superman is a guy’s fantasy version of what a boy superhero should be.” I think the difference is what you mean exactly by “fantasy,” since I think those sentences are using the same words to talk about two entirely different things.

I would say, T, that it might reflect the ideas about women that men had more accurately than what women thought. I could be wrong, of course. My mom was in her mid-20s at this time, and she was married, but was also out working and being “independent.” She’s never struck me as someone who would think the way Diana does. Again, I could be wrong, but this seems like the men thinking this is how women think.

I’m not saying you’re right or wrong, I’m just asking how can any of us know that for sure? There were many women who were against 60s feminism you know. I don’t know if we can just assume most women in their 20s were Steinem types that didn’t obsess over marriage, wanted to compete with men for the top corporate spots or were afraid to be openly submissive and admiring to a man.

Well it’s a comic from, what?, ‘69? 70?

It probably holds as accurate a mirror to reality as other comic books from the same period of time.

Oh, yeah, one other thing. If “I Ching” was supposed to be a pun and a play on the idea that me-no-speakee-Engrish Chinese people don’t use particles, then apparently nobody told Denny O’Neil how to pronounce the title of the book properly. The first syllable is pronounced as a long “E,” not as an “Eye.” There can’t be a double meaning there without a deliberate mispronunciation, which makes him look dumber no matter which language is being mispronounced.

I think I’m just going to go with “it’s his codename,” since it’s the only way I can look at him and not get infuriated at how so many comics creators respected the Orient so much in the 70’s that they couldn’t get any of the facts right. See my rants about “Shang-Chi/Chinese Chess” for another example.

I’m sure Denny O’Neil meant to be respectful with I Ching, too, but I’m also sure that the creators of the Superfriends meant to be respectful when they created the Samurai and Apache Chief. You know what they say about good intentions.

Denny O’Neil has since profusely apologized for I Ching.

You’re right, T, that we’ll probably never know. I would be willing to bet that no one involved with this comic ever asked a real-life woman what she thought, though. Again, I could be wrong!

I don’t know if we can just assume most women in their 20s were Steinem types that didn’t obsess over marriage, wanted to compete with men for the top corporate spots or were afraid to be openly submissive and admiring to a man.

We absolutely can assume that most women in their 20’s in the 70’s were not ciphers who lived to please others. It’s called “respecting their intelligence”. And the term “Steinem types” is immensely masochistic.

Also, not being familiar with a better alternative is not equal to being content with the current state.

You’re right, T, that we’ll probably never know. I would be willing to bet that no one involved with this comic ever asked a real-life woman what she thought, though. Again, I could be wrong!

Haha, that’s true!

And the term “Steinem types” is immensely masochistic.

I don’t know about all that now. It wasn’t meant to be insulting.

Compared to Egg Fu, I Ching is almost culturally sensitive.

I can’t get terribly angry at Steve Engelhart — it wasn’t Doug Moench, who didn’t even create the character — for giving Shang-Chi a pretentious name which also means “the rising and advancing of the spirit,” not least because he and later Doug tended to name the American and English cast members with equally charactonymic formulations. You can blame Doug for “Shen Kuei,” I guess, but at that point he was just following a pattern long established by Sax Rohmer and Engelhart.

You had a British Navy man whose last name was Tarr, another with the improbable last name Zaran, a half-Japanese woman with the first name “Leiko” (”arrogant”), an American kung-fu dude named Rufus “Super Midnight” Carter, a Russian spy dubbed Samizdat, an MI6 file clerk turned brainwashed killer whose real name was Eric Slaughter, and criminals of unspecified European extraction with names like Carlton Velcro and Pavane.

Trust me, in Master of Kung-Fu it wasn’t just the foreign characters or just the Asian characters who got “meaningful” but unrealistic, even overtly cutesy or idiomatically smug names. It was everyone. They wore their souls in their cognomens. And frankly, it operated more as a literary device than a mode of prejudice or abject cultural ignorance. Besides, isn’t “Shang-Chi” exactly the sort of name the (non-Chinese, per the original novels) Fu Manchu would give a son of his own?

I-Ching, though…that’s like introducing a Minnesotan named “Large Catechism.”

I don’t know about all that now. It wasn’t meant to be insulting.

I know, but when you reduce the idea of intelligent, independent women to “Steinem types”, it communicates a sexist attitude.

I respectfully disagree and will just leave it at that.

“I-Ching, though…that’s like introducing a Minnesotan named “Large Catechism.”

Isn’t he working for UFC, nowadays?

Theno

Oh, I’m sure that O’Neil didn’t mean any harm by with I Ching, just like I’m sure Will Eisner didn’t mean any harm with Ebony White in “The Spirit.” I have no problem accepting his apology for it. It’s definitely a “racism of ignorance” thing rather than a “racism of malice” thing, and there’s a big difference between the two. I’ve met the guy at a signing and he came off as such a gracious guy that I can totally believe he’s deeply mortified by it in hindsight. In print/internet, I probably come off as a lot more angry than I am. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to read these comics, just like one black creator (Dwayne McDuffie?) said someplace that he can’t really take Eisner’s “Spirit” because of Ebony.

“Shang-Chi” might have been the sort of name Fu Manchu would have given to one of his sons, but that’s not exactly something to aspire to. I don’t hold up Sax Rohmer as a guy who was doing any favors for people who look like me, and I think I could make a real case for Fu Manchu being a “racism of malice” type of character.

The real problem I have is that when I hear “shang-chi,” I think “Chinese chess” because they’re homonyms, so I’ve never been able to take the character seriously because of that. I didn’t discover until recently that they even had the “rising of the spirit” translation and characters, but that’s still an insufferably dorky name.

Well it’s a comic from, what?, ‘69? 70?

1967, I think.

[…] I’ve already shown you how awesome the first volume of Diana Prince: Wonder Woman is, and on page 97, DC brings us another volume!  You know you want to learn all about women, 1960s-style! […]

[…] the former in tandem with the Diana Prince, Wonder Woman trade, (which Greg covered beautifully here) because that sort of thing amuses me. I read the latter because YA is one of those series […]