Monday 21 February 2011

Talk Nerdy to Me

Recently I discovered a super power of my own, one shared by every one of my fellow nerdy ladies: the abiliy to turn any male geek in the vicinity into jelly.

I was at a party a couple of weeks ago where I got chatting to a guy. I mentioned comics in passing and his face lit up. We tiptoed around the area, sticking to the cool and acceptible bits. Are you DC or Marvel? What about Vertigo? Isn't Alan Moore great? Then he got a little nervous, clearly gearing up to a question that would either charm me or send me running for the hills in fear of his uber-geekiness. Finally he plucked up the courage to ask if I was aware of The Doom Patrol. Bless him. "Of course," I replied, "but I was always more of a Titans fan." At that his knees literally gave up on supporting his weight.

It's not the first time it's happened and I doubt it will be the last. One guy declared me to be his future wife when he learnt of my love of the Justice League cartoon. Another dated me purely because I watched Smallville. Most recently a man became a wee bit enamoured when he learnt I knew Blade Runner and Alien.

Now, I'm not saying my gift will ever allow me to pull a footballer, but that suits me fine. So long as I can go cruising for some hot geeks at Kapow in April. Because, in my humble straight-girl opinion, there is nothing sexier than a woman who knows what she likes and isn't ashamed of it, even if one or two people would snigger at it. And a woman in a home made costume having fun with a character she loves is so much hotter than any number of models who are paid to dress as Princess Leia and pose for photos while trying not to look bored.

So, as convention season looms and sales of brightly-coloured spandex sky rockets, I say to my fellow lady-nerds: Go get 'em, tiger. Just remember that with great power over awestruck male minds comes great responsibility.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Hot Pixels

Coming out of Tangled recently with two friends, we were happily discussing the merits of the film. But the one thing it took us a few drinks to work up the courage to mention was that, actually, is it just me or is Flynn Ryder the hottest Disney hero since Aladdin? Answer - well, yes, actually, he is. Look at him.


But the thing that got me thinking was that we were ashamed to admit that a cartoon character could be oddly fanciable. Which is weird, because for years men have quite happily discussed the merits of various animated hotties. I once walked in on a group of my male friends having a heated discussion about who is fitter: Belle or Jasmin (it was Jasmin, by the way). Ever since Jessica Rabbit was just drawn that way, hell, even before that, with comic book and manga heroines, men have been openly lusting after 2D babes.


But women can't quite get away with it. I once admitted to having a crush on Gambit in the 90s X-Men cartoon series as a kid and just got blank looks from my female friends. Is it because women are expected to look beyond appearences when they develop a crush, whereas men are happy with a decent pair of animated breasts? Or is it because most animators are men and they don't see why they would need to draw sexy males? It's a chicken and egg situation: do artists not sexualise male characters as much as female characters because women aren't attracted to cartoons, or are women not attracted to cartoon men because the artisits don't bother making them sexy?


Maybe Disney isn't the best example - it's Disney, it's not meant to be sexy. But it's a long-standing thing in comics that women can fight crime in a thong and contort themselves into bizarre positions where both boobs and bum are pointing at the reader, but the men are covered up like monks. Yes, every so often Bruce Wayne gets out his hairy chest, and yes, all the men are drawn as a physical ideal in the same way the women are, but the women are drawn sexy, and the men are drawn heroic. I have no problem with sexy heroines - if I looked like Starfire, I'd wear a crazy purple cut-away swimsuit all the time too. But I wish the artists would bring just a little more sex appeal to the male characters.


Now, Nicola Scott, she knows what she's doing.


If more heroes were drawn like this, more women would admit to fancying cartoons. That's all I'm saying.