The Four Color Media Monitor: Will Slott and Brevoort still defend Milo Manara after this?

Coming just a few days after the alleged controversy of how Italian artist Milo Manara drew Spider-Woman's butt, he gave an interview to Fumetto Logica about the subject, and along the way, he said something that'll no doubt leave Dan Slott and Tom Brevoort feeling stunned. The translation by CBR isn't perfect, but I think it can be figured out:

"On the erotic side, on the other hand, I found the thing a little surprising," he continued. "Apart from the fact that there is a compulsory prerequisite to do: it seems to me that both in the United States and in the rest of the world there are things much more important and serious you have to deal with. The facts of Ferguson, or the drama of Ebola. That there are people that if the take for things like… unless there is, in these times, a hypersensitivity to images more or less erotic, due to this continuous comparison that we are called to do with Islam. We know that the censure of the woman's body should not be a characteristic our, western. It is also this that I am surprised enough."

It's difficult to understand, but I think he's suggesting the dissenters are taking a risk of calling for censorship like Muslims do of lovely female imagery. And as much as Slott and Brevoort, Marvel's most vehement apologists for Islam, must want to defend the cover art, knowing their politics, I wouldn't be surprised if they're now red in the face with embarrassment after what Manara told the Italian site. Just 4 days ago, Slott said:

If someone can find me the post where I defended the choice to use the variant cover, I'd love to see it. I've been defending the artist.
— Dan Slott (@DanSlott) August 20, 2014

But now, he must be real sorry he did, LOL. Make what you will of that cover; my only real beef with it is that Manara drew Jessica Drew's buttocks to look stretched apart, which makes the picture annoying to look at and diminishes the appeal. But, his comments about Islam are bound to make Marvel's upper echelons blush if they're apologists, and make Brevoort feel pretty sore too. Which is just what they deserve for all the contempt they've heaped upon the public.

Update: here's an article related to the cover controversy, about liberals who censor petty details in comics.

Labels: bad editors, islam and jihad, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, politics, women of marvel

Slott and Brevoort have both been repeating the mantra, "If you hire Manara, you get erotica, so don't act surprised." But the issue was never really that Manara drew an erotic cover; it was that Marvel hired an artist, one who was known for erotica, in the first place.

There probably would have been no controversy if Manara had been hired to draw for an adult-only magazine. But that image of Spider Woman with her backside three feet up in the air is inappropriate for a super hero comic book that might be displayed on the same shelf next to Scooby-Doo and Spongebob Squarepants.

And it is an ironic double standard: leftists decry censorship, condone pornography, and call for freedom of speech. They accuse the "religious right" (i.e., conservative Christians) of bigotry and intolerance. But then they want to prosecute you for "hate speech" if you disagree with them about anything. And if you point out that Islam, like fundamentalist Christianity, disapproves of homosexuality, extramarital sex in general, and pornography, then they accuse you of "racism" and "Islamophobia."

Posted by Anonymous | 9:51 AM