InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Maybe you should get out more."

heartless guttersnipe (parsimonia) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-31 08:47:00

Current music:	metric - dead disco
Entry tags:	char: booster gold/michael jon carter, char: catwoman/selina kyle, char: harley quinn/harleen quinzel, char: poison ivy/pamela isley, creator: dan jurgens, creator: dustin nguyen, in-joke: context is for the weak, title: booster gold, title: streets of gotham

Streets of Gotham #5 cover (and some Dustin Nguyen art)

I don't believe this cover has been posted yet:

Huntress! In Streets of Gotham! Yay!

...wearing the Jim Lee costume! Boo!

I will say this though, Dustin Nguyen manages to make the costume look not so weird. And according to his blog: "my first shot at Huntress on a cover, i've not been keeping up wiht her lately, so was given reference for the costume. i can hear fans everywhere complaining to no end already."

Hah! It's interesting that he was given this costume. Hrmm. I'm guessing this is Tony Daniel's fault? Since he wanted Huntress in that costume for her two seconds in Battle for the Cowl, that is?

At any rate, I just wanted to point out something (one of many things) that I appreciate about Nguyen's art. A quick look through his DeviantArt gallery and I think it's safe to assume that like most male comic book artists, he likes drawing women. But even when he does cheesecake, it never dehumanizes the women he's drawing. You still get a sense of who they are as characters, and even when he's doing a more cartoon-ish style, there's still a general plausibility about them (in that they still probably have room inside for internal organs and spines and all that other stuff vital to the human body).

Take, for example, this art he was apparently selling at SDCC:

It's Gotham Girls posing on dirt bikes (or whatever they are). The concept is fairly cheesecakey. And yet, you know exactly who they are, what differentiates them, and they look like could possibly exist in reality. Even their poses are somewhat fitting: you've got Catwoman looking kind of tough and indifferent, Poison Ivy is posing, perhaps a bit seductively, and Harley is just...Harley.

(My only nitpick is that I question whether Ivy would want to advertise something that promotes fossil fuels, but whatever.)

Aaaannnd here are two panels from Booster Gold #19:

Context is for the weak.

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parsimonia
2009-07-31 09:29 pm UTC (link)

The girls looking, as you put it, as if they "could possibly exist in reality" may be for one of two reasons: One, there's a longstanding tradition of automobile and motorcycle manufacturers using women to sell their product. Two, the girls look like they're riding customized bar hoppers, etc. here, and there's the stereotype that women bikers (particularly Harley riders) are either thin and sunburned with bleached feathered hair or heavyset with huge busts. So Nguyen may be playing to that or poking fun at it.

Well, I wasn't referring to the bikes or their posing on them, but rather that, as

greenmask says below, the women clearly have weight, solidity and muscles. They have waists in proportion to the rest of their bodies, and they are built like their backs could actually support their chests without being in pain on a regular basis. I don't know a thing about vehicles or ads for them, so you could be right about Nguyen playing on stereotypical biker models.

"Fairly cheesecakey"? More like VERY cheesecakey.

Well, considering the kind of cheesecake one is liable to see in comics, or how any number of other comic artists would probably do the "gotham girls pose on bikes" concept, this is really not all that cheesecakey. No one's cleavage or butts are hanging out, nobody's spine is unnaturally twisted or contorted, and they aren't ridiculously posed. Relatively low on the cheesecake factor, I'd say, despite it being an inherently cheesecakey concept.

And good GOD, what is wrong with Harley's legs? Anatomy fail.

I'm not seeing the fail here. Her right knee is bent toward us, and it looks like she's wearing big metallic kneepads.

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kali921
2009-08-01 01:37 am UTC (link)

Well, considering the kind of cheesecake one is liable to see in comics, or how any number of other comic artists would probably do the "gotham girls pose on bikes" concept, this is really not all that cheesecakey. No one's cleavage or butts are hanging out, nobody's spine is unnaturally twisted or contorted, and they aren't ridiculously posed. Relatively low on the cheesecake factor, I'd say, despite it being an inherently cheesecakey concept.

I'd say Ivy's ass is hanging out, and she's in the very typical pose that automotive industry models use to sell bikes - and by my standards, it's still pretty cheesecakey for comics. Nguyen did a MUCH better job when he put Zealot on a motorcycle.

As for Harley, look at her left leg in relation to the right. Look at the shape of her thighs. Legs and pelvises don't work that way. Nothing works that way. It's jarring in a piece where otherwise more realistic anatomy is rendered. I love Nguyen, but this isn't his best work.

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	statham1986 2009-08-01 01:49 pm UTC (link)
	Except that isn't Nguyen you've linked to. That's Travis Charest, who worked with Joe Casey on Wildcats Vol.2. That said, I do know what you mean. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Curse you, Wildcats 3.0! kali921 2009-08-01 05:13 pm UTC (link)
	Whoops - I meant to link to a page in Wildcats 3.0 with Zealot riding hell for leather through Greece and slaughtering Coda left and right, but screw it, there's hardly any Wildcats love on the new S_D, so I'll just start posting excerpts instead. (Reply to this) (Parent)

parsimonia
2009-08-01 03:04 pm UTC (link)

Well, to me it looks as though her butt is covered, as least as much as a standard athletic swimsuit would cover it, and not the kind of wedgie-thong you see on a lot of characters.

But yeah, it does look a little weird, though I think it's the hip/tosro area that's off, and that may be due to the fact that it's all black and in the distance, so it kind of mutes any differentiation.

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