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bluefall (bluefall) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-10 13:12:00

Entry tags:

char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: ben caldwell, title: wednesday comics

Wednesday Wonder Woman
Ben Caldwell, who's working on the Wondy segment of the upcoming Wednesday Comics weekly, has been posting art teases at his blog. There's some fairly cool stuff and some vague suggestions of plot as well.

Looks like the first villain will be Dr Poison. Callback, there - she was Diana's very first costume foe in the Golden Age as well.

Though we're doing post-Crisis relaunch throwbacks as well:

Don't mind me, I'll just be over here facepalming for a minute.

Looking pretty good, at any rate. I'm starting to look forward to this title.

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bencaldwell
2009-04-20 12:25 pm UTC (link)

howdy!

i've had trouble getting onto the site for a few days, but i thought it might be polite to answer a few comments/questions...

1 - WW+SM= well, i can't tell you what they do or don't do, but i can tell you that i abhor random hookups of vaguely-but-not-really-compatible characters who happen to be in the same general vicinity. well, it's AWESOME when it happens on gossip girl, but that's about it.

i may or may not be a good writer, but i never have characters do something "just because" -- either something is characteristic of them, or it is not. when this story is done, that image and its place in the story will make perfect sense, and no one will be disappointed. except maybe jupiterrhode. if that one sketch of the tiara turns you off because it lacks the double points, it's safe to day there are a lot of other things that will bug you soooo much more. fair warning!

2 - when i did WW children's books several years ago, half of the people hated that i made diana so thin. they thought i was lauding paris hilton etc and promoting bad body imagery. the other half loved that i showed young diana with a young body, and not a playmate physique. there's no right or wrong, but "pleasing everyone is a noble goal... for a concierge". it is what it is.

as a non-moron and father of 2 daughters, i can only do my best to treat each character as an individual and draw them accordingly. while many artists draw WW as a porn star and seemingly get bonus pay for every pose where she is pushing both her chest AND her rear in your face, i tried to emphasize a lean and athletic frame that seemed appropriate for her age. (in this story of her early years.) i didn't draw her like a tank because she doesn't have that sort of personality. (after all, if i were drawing SM and BM together, i would certainly give them different builds because both their personalities and their physical approach to problems is so characteristically different.) in fact, while everyone has their own opinion, i would suggest that a bulldozer WW is antithetical -- it assumes that strength, power and heroism are directly related to the size of your deltoids. diana's athleticism and brains are as much or more a part of her overall "strength" as her weightlifting abilities.

i also hate the fact that most comic artists give every female the exact same body (occasionally interspersed with a "fat" or "old" variant). which leads me to...

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bencaldwell
2009-04-20 12:26 pm UTC (link)

3 - dr poison is easily one of the most awesome and neglected supervillains ever. it's insulting. i decided early on that WWs principal foes would all be existing characters... and women. if WW is a role model for a positive feminine ideal, can't her enemies be equally strong models of a negative? her three foes have distinct personalities, motives, and bodies. only one of them has the typical va-voom comic body (cheetah), because that fits her rather vain, narcissistic and flamboyant personality.

i made dr poison freakishly lean and androgynous because she is one of the most self-negating characters in comics. there is nothing either soft or sexy about her personality. (although ironically, some people think that my DP drawings are a cheap attempt to sex up the character, so oh well...) she's covered in punctures and scratches and bandages because she does terrible things to herself, and she wears a minimum of utilitarian clothes because she doesn't give a shit about anything that doesn't directly aid in her overwhelming obsession. she has tattoos because she is a member of the ultra-nationalist japanese "black dragon" society, with extensive links to the yakuza (and yes, there was a real BLS which engaged in espionage and terrorism on imperial japan's behalf from the late 1800s to WW2). her hair is japanese cutie-pie because a) she is japanese and b) there is nothing more disturbing than something that should be cute and happy sticking needles in you eye. it's a matter of taste, but to me the rictus and trench coat screamed "if you hop a time machine to mid-1994 then i am going to scare the crap out of you". might as well give her twirly mustaches and a black hat.

i didn't give dr poison a specific age, but she is supposed to be pretty young. she is ruthless and callous in the way that only a young, rootless person with ideological nightmares can be. a sort of purified embodiment of totalitarianism, who doesn't care what she breaks or even if she survives. so you can imagine she and diana have a lot to chat about...

sailor libra - it is true, fortune is cruel!

batcookies - i would say don't pre-judge it, but frankly what do i care? that's sort of what the internet is for. and google maps.

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jupiterrhode
2009-07-10 11:39 pm UTC (link)

My distaste of the double points comes in because it's a pre-crisis throw-back, and the less said about pre-crisis Wondy the better. George Perez was the best thing to happen to the character since her creation, and there is almost nothing from before his reboot that is worth salvaging. I am concerned, therefore, whenever I see pre-crisis bits that more pre-crisis bits will follow.

It's not because I'm a stickler for Diana's usual image, far from it. If you could give her a costume that makes sense, is aesthetically pleasing, and covers her like armor is supposed to I might weep in public.

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