Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Jack Kirby's Erotic Flirtations: The Sensual Side of the King of Comics [Sex]
When legendary artist Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics in 1970 and went to DC, he was lured there in part by the promise of doing work in new genres and new formats. He always envisioned comics going further than the pamphlet; he wanted to see glossy magazines and long-form books with enough variety to appeal to everyone. Most of his proposals fizzled out before he had the chance to put pen to paper, but one that he at least got started on was the stupendously titled Uncle Carmine's Fat City Comix (named after Carmine Infantino, DC's then-publisher).
Fat City was intended to be a tabloid-sized magazine filled with underground-style comix by various artists. For the proposal, Kirby took the opportunity to experiment with a genre that was catching on and that he had little affinity for: erotic comics. He drew two pages of a new strip he called Galaxy Green, about a space-faring group of superwomen who roamed the galaxy looking for men to mate with. The result was fairly tame, very strange, and utterly Kirby.
99 percent of all superhero comics ever made speak with Kirby's visual vocabulary. When his compositions and characters aren't being aped directly, they're being regurgitated either as expert internalization of technique or unconscious fourth-generation copies-of-copies-of-copies. In the great teeth-gnashing debates over sexiness in comics, the argument is often made that super-hero comics are sexual in nature because their art depends on idealization and stylization. When it comes to style in mainstream comics, Jack Kirby is The Source, but despite founding the modern style, creating super-heroines such as The Invisible Woman and The Wasp, and even co-inventing the romance comic, Kirby isn't well known for getting sexy with his art.
For the most part, Kirby wasn't the most comfortable creating overly sexualized content. He turned down offers to work on art for Playboy magazine, and there's a story that he once changed a female character's bikini into a one-suit because some fans who had seen the art pre-publication had gotten too excited. But Kirby was still Kirby, a man who processed all stimulus through his churning creative engine, and there were moments in his body of work when the erotic drifted to the foreground.
In the Galaxy Green art, you can feel Kirby's discomfort with shoehorning sex into the rhythms of his action. In one panel, you can see Kirby predict the now-common practice of tilting compositional angles and contorting female figures to show the maximum amount of boobs, butt, and crotch possible. It's worth noting that, while Kirby tried this technique in literally one panel and then tossed it out as too awkward, there are artists today who draw almost nothing but panels like this one:
Kirby abandoned overt eroticism after that two-page experiment, but his other work was not devoid of sex. In the early '70s, like all of visual media, comics got looser and bolder with its depiction of women, and Kirby's work was not immune. One of his most-loved and well-crafted characters from that period is Big Barda from the New Gods cycle. A warrior woman from Darkseid's evil army who switches sides and fights for right, Barda's strong-willed and fiercely protective personality was based mostly on Roz Kirby, Jack's wife. But visually, Barda was inspired directly by a series of photos of singer Lainie Kazan that Kirby had seen in Playboy.Kazan was a fit woman with a larger physique, and Kirby liked the notion of creating a female super-hero with that kind of build, or as Mark Evanier puts it, "a super-heroine who looked like she could do the feats of strength that Wonder Woman or Supergirl did with more dainty physiques."
In Kirby's drawings of Barda, you can see him taking pleasure in exploring the female form more explicitly than in his past works. I suspect one of the reasons he was able to do so without the discomfort of something like Galaxy Green was because, to Kirby, Barda was as full and important as any of his characters -- maybe even more so, given her close ties to Roz. To Kirby, Barda was a strong woman who was also sexy, as opposed to a sex object for which he had to devise some plausible characteristics or storyline.
Kirby's art wasn't known for its sex appeal, but it's fascinating to look at the small elements of eroticism that show up in the work of the man who defined super-hero art, especially since the super-hero art of today is filled to the brim with sex. It's additionally interesting to note that, while Kirby decked Barda out in a two-piece for lounging around, her outfit becomes all business as soon as she needs to throw down. One more lesson we might learn from the King.
Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/24/jack-kirbys-erotic-flirtations-the-sensual-side-of-the-king-of/#ixzz1nKiAlg2P
Face-Recognizing Billboard Shows Ads to Women Only
Sporting a Y chromosome? A new high-tech, outdoor billboard being tested in London won’t let you see its advertisement.
Developed by Plan UK, a non-profit organization that helps children in third-world countries, the billboard will promote the group’s “Because I’m a Girl” campaign. The effort is designed to help sponsor girls in developing countries receive a proper education. Men won’t be able to see the full ad, and will be directed to the organization’s website instead, to show men “a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away.” The fairer sex, on the other hand, will see a full 40-second video promoting Plan UK’s cause.
Located in London’s West End, the ad is equipped with a high-definition camera that is used to scan passers-by’s facial features, determining their gender with a 90% success rate. The display, which cost an estimated £30,000 ($47,000), will run for two weeks in an effort to raise £250,000 ($391,700) via donations over the next four months.
Erica Ho is a contributor at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @ericamho and Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/23/face-recognizing-billboard-shows-ad-to-women-only/#ixzz1nKdscoF7
‘The Raid: Redemption’ Trailer: Elite Cops vs. A Building Full of Killers
We’ve been keeping our eye on genre films gaining notice on the independent circuit, and today’s recommended viewing is the trailer for an action film that looks pretty sweet; and by “sweet” we mean insanely epic and awesome. If your blood pumps hot at the sight of a great action scene, you definitely need to watch this.
The film is called The Raid: Redemption, and its premise is deliciously simple: 20 elite cops raid the building of a notorious crime lord and must search the 15-story structure for their target. But the crime lord knows the cops are there, and has plenty of nasty surprises in store for them. Mayhem, martial arts, and a lot of gun play quickly ensue.
Check out the trailer for The Raid: Redemption, followed by a poster and a detailed synopsis, which delves deeper in the plot of the film:
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As a rookie member of an elite special-forces team, Rama (Iko Uwais) is instructed to hang back during a covert mission involving the extraction of a brutal crime lord from a rundown fifteen-story apartment block. But when a spotter blows their cover, boss Tama (Ray Sahetaphy) offers lifelong sanctuary to every killer, rapist and thief in the building in exchange fortheir heads. Now Rama must stand in for the team’s fallen leader (Joe Taslim) and use every iota of his fighting strength – winding through every floor and every room to complete the mission and escape with his life.
Now check out some info about the film’s director, Gareth Huw Evans:
Recently named one of 2012′s “Directors To Watch” by Variety – Gareth Huw Evans reteams onTHE RAID with Iko Uwais, the star and fight choreographer of the cult sensation MARENTAU – which first brought the Indonesian martial art of Pencak Silat to global attention. Already a word-of-mouth sensation at the Toronto Film Festival, where it played to sold out crowds, the film is now poised to reach global audiences with a propulsive new score by alternativerocker/composers Mike Shinoda of “Linkin Park” and Joe Trepanese of “M83″.
Basically, this movie looks badass. That one shot at the end of Rama bouncing a crook’s head against the wall like a ping-pong ball is enough to get me in the theater – and I’m certainly not the only action fan out there saying that. There are shades of Smockin’ Aces and the Brazilian hit film Elite Squad in this basic setup for The Raid, but if it entertains as well as those aforementioned films did (certainly looks like it will), action fans should be appeased.
The Raid: Redemption will be released in select theaters on March 23, 2012.
Source: Sony Pictures Classics
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