The Four Color Media Monitor: Some history of comic book boob sizes

Price Charting wrote some history (also available at PR Newswire) on the art of breast sizes as seen over the past decades before recent PC hysteria led to some embarrassments in the mainstream that resulted in censorship that was virtually demeaning to women. As they tell here:

While loading tens of thousands of comic book covers to PriceCharting’s new online comics price guide, we noticed that the portrayal of female characters seemed to become much more racy as the decades passed. Curiosity got the best of us so we ran a study to understand just what has changed about the female form in comics over time....you know, for science.

[...] Since the early era of female-dominant comics the amount of cover attention placed on the bust has steadily increased. The decade beginning 2010 was the most prominent decade for breasts as nearly 30% of the cover width was occupied by bosoms. Cover artists took great liberty with breasts in the decade beginning 2010 as both [% of Cover] and [% Cleavage] peaked during that time frame. Perhaps artists have since felt the pressure to “normalize” the look of their female characters, as both metrics have begun to recede moving into the 2020s.

And that's what's most unfortunate - it's not just that they were pressured, but that they were shamed and villified over it. The SJWs in the MSM would turn against masters like Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, George Perez and plenty of other past veterans if they were still around, and come to think of it, they did. J. Scott Campbell is just one of the modern victims. And these are the same SJWs who acted as apologists for turning Steve "Captain America" Rogers into a Hydra-Nazi at least 5 years ago, if it matters.

The comic publishers who engaged in sex-negative censorship may have cut out some of their antics, but they're still there, as is the MSM's offensive support for such toxic mentalities that are hurtful to women. And of course, this is the same MSM that throws women under the bus for the sake of transsexual ideology, and won't defend women's dignity. Based on which, don't be shocked if one day, they'll condemn William Marston altogether for creating Wonder Woman during the Golden Age. There are plenty of leftists who've done so already. I hope independent artists will make sure in the meantime to provide all the sex-positive examples mainstream may have shunned in their laughable attempts to "follow trends" instead of entertainment value.

Please also be sure to read more articles on Price Charting here.

Labels: censorship issues, dc comics, good artists, history, indie publishers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, politics, science

No kidding about that. And it's not just with comics, either. We had similar situations happening with video games like with Dead or Alive and even Mortal Kombat and SoulCalibur (and they get plenty bashed regarding physical appearances by the MSM back in the 2000s and 1990s). Heck, if Baby Blues is of any indication, even Barbie was demonized to some extent for her bod (and that was geared towards girls anyways):

https://www.gocomics.com/babyblues/1997/01/04

https://www.gocomics.com/babyblues/1997/01/05

I've actually seen plenty of girls with Barbie's figure, Kasumi's figure, Tina Armstrong's figure, Lara Croft's figure, Lady Death's figure, Red Sonja's figure, etc., etc., while working at the Sandy Springs GoodWill and at the Buckhead Publix (and from what I could gauge, they seemed fairly natural as well from casual observation since they swayed), so it isn't warped or freak of nature, it's actually a tad bit more common than Wanda seems to think (even if still rare). Kind of surprised she's ignorant of that, since she was supposed to be a PR person before she became a stay-at-home mom.

Come to think of it, Beauty and the Beast engaged in similar demonization regarding that kind back in 1991 with the triplets (or at the film credits rather crassly calls them, the Bimbettes) https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bimbettes What's worse is that they don't actually give the triplets any actual negative characteristics befitting the moral of the tale, not jealousy of Belle or being mean-spirited or anything like that. If anything, they implied they were internally ugly precisely BECAUSE they were externally beautiful. Kind of find it hard to believe they had inferior outer beauty to Belle when they look like Dead or Alive characters or Power Girl or what have you.

We really need an article about the whole demonization of female beauty that's been going on for the past few decades (maybe as early as the 1990s), because it's been going on for way too dang long. Obviously, comics would be the primary bit, but any other media can work if they engaged in similar stuff. Heck, a study indicated that video game girls at least don't cause misogyny or body issues: https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/07/01/study-finds-video-games-with-sexualized-content-do-not-cause-misogynistic-attitudes-or-body-image-issues/ Granted, I never understood how making girls beautiful as heck is in any way misogynistic (I thought misogyny meant revulsion towards women, meaning if anything seeing a beautiful girl, any girl for that matter, would make one an OSR [Opposite Sex Rejector], or, you know, making them ugly as heck.), but still... Oh, and make sure to address something like this video here, since I suspect THAT might have caused a lot of the whole anti-female beauty thing going on as well (certainly did with me before I saw the light recently): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fZA5nUlokA And if you recognize the actress playing the main character, it's Cat Grant from Supergirl. I think it might need to be as long as the Gerard Jones retrospective article you made a little while back, either that or a multi-parter, because this definitely is fairly big and needs to be addressed stat.

Posted by eotness | 7:51 AM