Week of 7/1/2009

A week has passed, more or less, and it's time once again to peruse the shelves at our favorite comic shop, or in this case, website. Specifically, I've been browsing the comics for the Week of July 1, 2009, keeping an eye out for any that jump out and poke me in the eye. In a bad way.

Here, then, are the

Five most offensive comic book covers for the Wednesday of July 1, 2009

5. Exiles #4

People like Jeff Parker, and I can understand why. He's a nice guy with a good sense of humor. And I am certain that he had nothing to do with this cover, although I won't guarantee that the interior isn't similarly problematic. However, a glance through the online preview doesn't suggest that the comic actually features three dead women, one of whom is being held up by her hair.

What's up with the fact that Marvel thinks this is the way to sell comics? I know people who like Jeff Parker and may be buying this for his writing; I'm pretty certain that they're not made more likely to buy the comic by the dead women on the cover. Parker is known for his clever stories and his characterizations, not for killing superheroes (or are those villains? I'm not sure where Scarlet Witch falls these days).

No, I'm pretty sure the cover isn't meant to attract Jeff Parker fans. I think Jeff Parker fans will already be buying the book, and I think Marvel knows this, and I think they put that cover on specifically to attract a different group of readers. The interior art is nothing like the cover art; the cover is gritty and angry and all about violence and death. The interior art is bright and clean and a bit cartoony. I don't think that people who are attracted to the cover would necessarily be attracted to the interior art.

I think Marvel's editors made a calculated decision. "People who like Jeff Parker," one of them said to another, "Are already going to buy this book. We need a cover that's going to sell copies to people who don't care about Jeff Parker."

"Yeah!" agreed a second editor. "But who doesn't care about Jeff Parker?"

"The question," pointed out the first editor, "Isn't 'who doesn't care about Jeff Parker?', but what do people who like Jeff Parker not care about?"

"Um," the second editor said, "Huh?"

"Look, it's like this," the first editor said, rubbing his hands together deviously, "We put some picture that fits with the story on the cover, and who's going to buy the book? People who were going to buy it anyway! What we want to do it put some shit on the cover that's going to suck in a whole other demographic!"

"What's a demographic?" the second editor asked.

"Guys who wanna see dead chicks held up by their hair! Yeah, that's a demographic!" the first editor said, drooling a little.

I'm pretty sure that's how it went down.

Now I'll probably be proved totally wrong when Jeff Parker kills off a total of seven women, who are then used as projectiles in a huge trebuchet jointly constructed by Professor Xavier and Magneto - constructed not as a weapon, mind, you, but as a device for getting rid of the unwanted bodies of dead superheroines.

4. Greek Street

From the solicitation text, I'm guessing this is based on a Greek myth. A Greek myth about a scary tattooed woman in a bikini. Because if she wasn't in a bikini, how could you see her scary tattoos?

But seriously, the guy on the cover is running down the street in a thick hoodie and jeans.

Perhaps I am not giving the person who wrote the cover enough credit, though. Perhaps the cover is actually carefully plotted and for reasons of internal logic, it is quite hot over in the corner of the cover where the woman is, while it's chilly and rainy over where the guy is running down the street. Yes, I think that must be the case.

3. Secret Six #11

Artemis has evidently been enslaved in a see-through bathing suit, in the rain, with a circle of gawkers ogling her. I think there's a good chance that William Moulton Marston would approve of this cover, considering his well-documented love of covers featuring Wonder Woman in bondage.

I just sort of feel like, in Marston's drawings, Wonder Woman's usually not in a see-through bathing suit.

2. Witchblade #128

Witchblade, Marc Silvestri's most exploitative creation, is all about offensive covers. This one is pretty ordinary by Witchbladian standards. The whole concept of the comic is, wouldn't it be cool if this chick with big boobs had armor that magically groped her while she was fighting monsters and stuff? I mean, that's pretty much the whole comic in a nutshell.

And amazingly, it has lasted 128 issues.

1. Marvel Divas #1

Has enough been said about this?

The only thing I'll add is that, actually, I don't think I find it quite as offensive as last week's #3 cover.

Which means, come to think of it, that Barack the Barbarian is still the most offensive cover yet covered in this blog. Two weeks running! Woo-hoo! Kudos to Devil's Due.