House of Eratosthenes

Here’s something we’ve been wondering: How do superheroes have babies? Thanks to hours upon hours of analyzing fan-made diagrams on the Internet, we fully understand the ins and outs of superheroes making babies, but the birthing part is a little unclear to us. Mainly because most superheroines have so comically narrow torsos, you could barely fit a foot of intestines in there, to say nothing of forming an entire tiny human.

We realize that times and beauty standards have changed significantly and that we probably won’t see a plus-size female hero in a mainstream comic anytime soon. But, we would be equally happy with regular-size female heroes — or pretty much anyone who isn’t capable of taking cover behind a stop sign.

Of course, it’s nothing new to point out the unrealistic proportions of comic book characters — most male superheroes are already so muscular you’d swear they were smuggling steroid-infused watermelons under their skin, so who cares if comics exaggerate a few feminine traits here and there? Well, see, the thing is that giant muscles are primarily a male fantasy, while waists barely wider than your ankle are primarily … a male fantasy.

Yeah…ya know? I actually don’t think so. I’ve met just a couple of guys, ever, who wanted girlfriends who could “see her own toes without bending over,” which to me means, if I’m interpreting it right, no tits. Most guys don’t want that and don’t like that. Guys like curves and tits. I realize it’s February and that’s “argue about the depiction/selection of the female body, everywhere and all-the-time” month, but do we really have to argue about that? Guys liking curves and tits?

I really don’t think straight-guys started this trend, or if they did, it wasn’t out of a lustful fantasy. I think superheroines who are “capable of taking cover behind a stop sign” are just easier to draw. It is the lazy cartoonist’s version of the lazy scriptwriter’s “I’m getting way too old for this” or “I’m coming with you!” or “You’ve got to stop blaming yourself for what happened.”

It’s a vicious cycle. Cartoonists draw all females the same way, feminists (who would never dream of buying the comic book anyway) get extra ticked off about it, especially in February, so they shriek. The shrieking leads to pressure, and the pressure leads, just like pressure on a lump of coal making it into a diamond, to a tighter viewing frustum in which the female form can be safely depicted. Which leads to all the females being drawn the same way. Some more.

It’s a transformation that takes place slowly over time, like water wearing away at a rock. You doubt me? A quick look through history:

That’s from the seventies, when feminism was flexing its muscle and it was still okay to call it “Women’s Lib.” At least I think. Sometime around there. Note, there is room in her torso for some intestines, liver, kidneys, and maybe a womb. Healthy looking, if simplistic.

By the eighties, cartoonists had started to veer away from drawing women and men as formless blobs and developed a healthy curiosity about actual appearances of human bodies: Where are those muscles, which direction do they go, which ones stick out, how, and when? And Wonder Woman looked like this:

Again, room for a stomach, liver, lungs, all that good stuff.

With a few more years of feminist caterwauling, and the arrival of a new generation of cartoonists who evidently haven’t seen too many women naked, look what we have. She can now take cover behind that stop sign like all the rest of them. She’s got it all, except the guts or the room for them:

So yeah, all the female superheroes are drawn pretty much the same way now. Big round boobs that don’t resemble the real-life ones, born or bought, and a mop handle for all the rest of it.

But it isn’t because of male fantasies. Males have had fantasies for a good long time, for as long as humans have been reproducing. Also, fantasies lead to more creativity, not less of it, and what we’re seeing now is the death of creative energies. Not because of fantasies, but because of fear.

But, there are other items on the list that bolster this point. Like #1: “Every Female Character Sharing One Face.”

Yeeeeaaaaahhhh…I’ve been noticing this as well. And the example they provided is excellent, even eerie.

Who is this bitch anyway? There must be someone, somewhere, inspiring this, like CMSgt William Candy. The cartoonist’s mom? An ex-wife maybe? Or a soon-to-be-ex-wife?

Again, the question is what’s happening to creativity. If there’s a narrower range of products being developed, that’s an obvious decline, and not any kind of rise. Lustful fantasies, or any sort of fantasies, do not diminish creativity; they inspire it. Healthy or not, they stoke the flame. That is not what we’re seeing here at all.

Robert Crumb,Chris Sanders,bros Hernandez,Terry Moore,Phil Foglio
- kermitt | 02/14/2015 @ 12:04
[…] last, but not least, House Of Eratosthenes covers the 5 ridiculous ways comics depict female […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 02/15/2015 @ 07:56
That time sequence is really interesting — nice illustrations.

And there’s an interesting behavioral parallel, too. In the 70s, when it was still “Women’s Lib,” feminism’s goals were (for the most part) realistic, achievable, even necessary. And Wonder Woman looked like a normal person and acted like a female, though a super-powered one. Fast forward to the 90s, when no reasonable person could deny that “Feminism” was now a particularly toxic Marxist cult, and Wonder Woman looks like the caricature of an adult film star… and acts like a man. Like a caricature of a man, in fact. Fast forward to now, with our “slut walks,” and “strong, independent female character” means “biological female who looks like a child with a pron star’s body, but who acts like she’s trying to out-frat the entire Animal House”…. which, not coincidentally, is exactly the kind of behavior on display at slut walks.

PS the One Female Comic Book Character looks like actress Famke Janssen to me. Maybe the cartoonists have a crush….
- Severian | 02/15/2015 @ 12:54

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The Five Ridiculous Ways Comic Books Depict Female SuperheroesSaturday, February 14th, 2015

The Five Ridiculous Ways Comic Books Depict Female Superheroes
Saturday, February 14th, 2015