Female Takes on Jack Kirby

[Michael P]

Boxer is approaching Kirby's stuff from an ironic, detached, intellectual perspective.

More pseudo-intellectual, in my estimation.

[Donald M.]

More pseudo-intellectual, in my estimation.

Sure, but that's not the point. Point is, whatever little attention her opinions on Kirby may bring her is unlikely to be positive for her career. Or have any effect on her career at all. If someone finds themselves getting angry because some random female cartoonist doesn't like Kirby's stuff but doesn't get angry over how Kirby was screwed over by Marvel, they may want to stop and ask themselves why.

[Michael P]

Oh, the "publicity stunt" idea is ludicrous, of course.

[Gothos]

Exactly. So, why is this a thread again?

To see if any double-XX-chromosomers would like to provide a contrast to Boxer's view.

[worstblogever]

I think this thread is succeeding at teaching me why it might not be a good idea for a person of either gender to speak on behalf of their whole gender. So there's that.

[Donald M.]

To see if any double-XX-chromosomers would like to provide a contrast to Boxer's view.

Why? As far as I can tell, Boxer was speaking only for herself. The fact that she has ovaries doesn't mean she speaks for all ovary-carriers or that other ovary-carriers must provide counterpoint to her views.

[Gothos]

And you know what else? The crusty, rugged, craggy, weird looking guys don't really show up in Kirby's work until after his return from WW2. This dude spent time in the trenches. He actually killed people, was present at the liberation of a concentration camp. He experienced some trauma, and translated that into the artistic choices that he made. So when Boxer says she can't enter Kirby's world and that it is repulsive, she's right. She can't enter his world because she can't comprehend his trauma.

Speaking purely in terms of history now-- not taste-- I think you can find a lot of "weird-looking guys" in Golden Age Kirby, particularly prior to his going to war. The Simon/Kirby CAPTAIN AMERICA is replete with monsters, goons, hunchbacks, ghastly-looking Orientals, and demented-looking Germans. Kirby and Simon knew the power of grotesquerie for their kid-audience, and they waded into it with both arms flailing.

Now when they left scruffy Timely Comics for respectable DC, you didn't see nearly as many grotesques. DC editors reputedly liked to keep things looking neat and clean with all their head-bashings. Some grotesqueries still appear, but not as many.

If anything I might say that following WWII Kirby and Simon's remaining works are more mannered and less grotesque. Then Kirby struck out on his own, and a lot of his early Marvel work looks as clean and pristine as his late1950s DC work. *But* by the middle 1960s he does start to draw the male body as squatter and more muscular. Reed Richards starts out the sixties as a beanpole and ends up looking like a denizen of Muscle Beach.

I tend to think Boxer wouldn't have been able to relate to any Kirby work, regardless of how much trauma had transformed it. Some people just don't like big splashy action-epics, and though Kirby had a lot of subtleties, there's no question that furious, extroverted action is a big part of his legacy.

[thespianphryne]

To see if any double-XX-chromosomers would like to provide a contrast to Boxer's view.

What for? She's not speaking from the perspective of an XXer. She's speaking from the perspective of a parent who isn't into superhero comics and doesn't get it; and whose kid is into it. This should be obvious to a person with critical reading comprehension.

[Gothos]

I think this thread is succeeding at teaching me why it might not be a good idea for a person of either gender to speak on behalf of their whole gender. So there's that.

To me it's a given that nobody speaks for their entire gender.

But we can and do speak from concerns of gender.

Though sometimes you may get the same person practicing cognitive dissonance, as when one might say:

"I'm a guy/girl, so of course I like/don't like such-and-such"

Which can easily be coupled with objections if anyone else makes that statement:

"How dare you assume I'm going to like/dislike such-and-such because I'm a guy/girl!"

[Mecegirl]

To see if any double-XX-chromosomers would like to provide a contrast to Boxer's view.

Seriously...would it kill you to just use the term women. You sound at best crazy and at worst sexist.

[Gothos]

What for? She's not speaking from the perspective of an XXer. She's speaking from the perspective of a parent who isn't into superhero comics and doesn't get it; and whose kid is into it. This should be obvious to a person with critical reading comprehension.

Disagree; the remark about the Surfer as Giant Phallus shows that's she's giving a gender-centered reaction.

[thespianphryne]

That's precisely it. She doesn't like big, muscular, earthy, action comics. She never has. If what you're getting hung up on is that she doesn't want her son to like them as well, what's the big deal? It's no different than a Mets mom saying she's horrified by her son turning into a Yankees fan.

[Gothos]

Seriously...would it kill you to just use the term women. You sound at best crazy and at worst sexist.

Come on, don't make so much out of so little.

I was just playing on this post from Sabrina:

"As the owner of two X chromosomes..."

In a sense though you've just proved what I wrote before I saw your post: it's OK for her to say it, but if I say it, it's supposedly offensive.

[thespianphryne]

Disagree; the remark about the Surfer as Giant Phallus shows that's she's giving a gender-centered reaction.

Right you are. I completely forgot that Sigmund Freud was an XX-chromosomer. Silly me.

[thespianphryne]

Who is Sabrina?