Interpersonal Issues

A minor but crucial correction. The title of the strip, as printed, is Superman’s Girl Friend (actually the capitalisation is ambiguous, but the space between Girl and Friend is not).

There was a time when watching ex-libertarians grope their way toward higher brain function was diverting, and I would’ve been at least amused at the image of Will Wilkinson blinking in the glare of the sun and marvelling like a newborn foal at the discovery of these things called “social forces,” and that unfair things can actually happen to people. But really, it’s not funny anymore. It’s just sad. It’s like encountering a man in his thirties who’s believed all his life that he was washing his laundry with the power of his mind, and has just now figured out that his mom was actually doing it all that time. How ever did she perform such arcane feats without his faith in the infinite power of Will? Perhaps if she could at least meet him halfway and admit that his telepathic powers helped loosen the cap on the detergent bottle, we might be able to get somewhere.

The Superman’s Girl Friend covers are sad, too, but they’re at least amusingly sad in that they don’t involve thought processes directly connected to politics. (My personal favourite is probably the cover with Lois Lane off in the jungle leading a “leopard pack” that appears to consist of a leopard and some form of gorilla.)

I don’t suppose that the CT audience needs this link (in fact I may have first heard of it here) but here it is anyway:

superdickery.com/

A significant majority of comics where Superman acts like a dick are Lois Lanes. What this says about mid-20th century America I leave as an exercise to the reader.

As for libertraianism: Did I read this correctly? Wilkinson quotes Welch saying, in defense of personal responsibility:

“You could go to a state school (or community college) instead of an over-inflated prestige mill. . .”

We CAN? That’s wonderful! Except that for a long time the “we” didn’t include women or blacks or what have you, and if the Tea Baggers have their way, it won’t include anybody, since the educational system will be completely privatized.

And I can only assume that as Welch wrote this line, he was making the same face that Superman was making as he watched Lois Lane marry Titanman.

What strikes me about old comic covers is the average state of mental retardation the readers were assumed to possess.

“The title issue is interesting. I guess the ambiguity was a response to the fact that Superman’s relationship to Lois was completely unique. Our culture has no word for this sort of relationship.”

I think we’re all agreed though: He will never marry her!

John, I know you’re teaching soon, and may not be able to read this, but do not buy this for me in advance for Christmas. Even if there’s, like, reverse super-shipping, where they pay you to buy the book. Are you truly ready to throw down for Lois Lane, Superman’s Girl Friend?

Sexism in old comic books: deeply annoying Belle since…when does Devil Dinosaur take place? Like, the beginning of all time. No, honestly, extra annoying starting more like 2 months ago. I know what you’re thinking, CT reader, (cough*male*cough); surely these books are simply too idiotic to be irritating on any seriously felt subjects? No. No, they’re not. Thanks for asking, though. That was really sweet of you. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Now is where John is thinking to himself, how is Belle likely to react when it is revealed to the world that she herself reads Savage Sword of Conan collections from the mid-70s all the time. I mean, really. Consider it revealed. Whatever, Conan is fucking awesome, dude; that’s different.

There’s something sort of perversely awe-inspiring about the examples from old comics (and new) that manage to be multiply offensive on almost too many levels to count. Marvel’s Mandrill, for instance: a baboon super-pimp with sexual hypnosis powers (but they only work on The Laydeez) who started life as a black baby born to white parents, palled around with an albino vampiress and hatched schemes to rule the world like the Dolemite-style organization of hypnotized commando babes called Black Spectre. Nope… nothing to see there.

I dunno, phosphorious. If I had been incessantly romanced by some guy with x-ray eyes, I might start thinking about skin cancer, too.

Also, Kate Beaton’s take. I don’t recall if she’s weighed in on Conan, though.

…ugh. hard to come away from all this without the impression that Lois Lane was functionally a recurring abuse-for-pleasure victim. (The net emotional content of that last image says everything, doesn’t it? If it doesn’t, maybe this does.)

so, uh, ok, this stuff is getting anthologized and reprinted instead of Project 77 why exactly?

Dr. Slack: Just click on the links and then delete the final slash (“/”) in the URL to get them to work.

I think my favorite is #53: “Me kiss a conceited showoff like you? I’d rather kiss Dracula!” You go, girl! Although I think John is profoundly right, there is no way reading those comics could be near as enjoyable as imagining their contents by reading the covers. And props to mds at 20. God I love Kate Beaton! Also, @17 — ISTR reading about 7 years ago, the average age of a comic reader then (i.e. 2004) was 32.

To counteract the gushiness of the above, I’ll observe that the cover of #51, which I recall owning once upon a time, reminded me, upon seeing it again, of Gail Simone’s depressing but acute _Women in Refrigerators_.

Maybe Matt Welch just pulled a boner ?
http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=303:batmans-boner&catid=32:seduction-index&Itemid=36

The attraction of these covers is nostalgia for a kindler, gentler sexism, isn’t it? My impression (as a total outsider) is that modern superhero comics are not only just as sexist, but express the sexism in nastier ways. See Alyssa Rosenberg’s “Should Feminists Give Up On Comics?” or Sara Lima and Laura Hudson on the DC comics redesign.

Seconding Dr. Slack here, and adding on:

First, Will and Matt Y and too many others frankly don’t have much to say; they generally reprocess existing pieces, using words and phrases from their (in Matt Y’s case) philosophy classes. This isn’t too surprising of course; 90% of pundits in the MSM only have original thoughts on Feb 29, and would be shocked if they were held to account by reality.

Second, anybody talking about OWS people needing to take responsibility for their decisions had better be holding a rope, on the other end of which is a Wall St banker twisting slowly in the wind. The whole point is that Wall St broke the law, defrauded people on the scale of trillions of $$, and broke the economy for a generation – if we’re lucky. And that’s after spending 20-odd years sucking the lifeblood of the developed world into junk finance.

They’re like the Tea Party liars, who talked big sh*t about no bailouts and such, but work against putting a choke chain on Wall St to make sure that they don’t crash the world yet again.

“not only just as sexist, but express the sexism in nastier ways”

Wait, you mean those giant breasts aren’t made of solid muscle?

… 17, I am curious what evidence we have for who was actually reading comic books in the 1950s/60s.

… 17, I am curious what evidence we have for who was actually reading comic books in the 1950s/60s.

I was reading them, but I don’t know who was buying them. There was an informal circulating library among the 11–14-year-oldpupils at my (all-boys) grammar school in the 60s.

They were expensive, see?

Maybe it was an odd school… I recall a sudden craze sweeping the quad in about 1963 for war-surplus heliographs.

My girl lives at the Comic Book store and unfortunately she is still freaked out by regular superhero comic books even though she loves the idea of superheroes–so believe it or not there could be a market. I let her read Archie comics. Talk about sexism. Someday I’ll probably let her read Phillip Roth and John Updike too.