The Problem With Female Superhero Costumes

I like comic books quite a bit, they combine excellent storytelling with typically great artwork which makes them a win-win for me. The problem is that almost every time I open up a comic book I'm blasted in the face with a female character in the most sexualized and ridiculous costumes I've ever seen outside of a superhero spoof porno. Leather thongs and crime fighting just don't go together, and vacu-sealed catsuits are just plain silly. There are whole websites out there devoted to showcasing just how gross and ridiculous these outfits can get, my personal favorite is Eshergirls.tumblr.com. A quick Google search of "overly sexual female superheroes" will yield you over 3 MILLION search results, so this is something a lot of people are talking about.
And why are so many people talking about it? Because women are tired of being objectified, even while saving the world we can't seem to catch a break. Now I like to look sexy from time to time, but bringing criminals to justice isn't the time to be showcasing my breasts or really any part of my body for that matter. Look at Superman, Flash, Batman, Green Lantern, Cyclops, Magneto, or Spiderman. All male characters, and almost completely covered. None of them are showing off thin and very long legs, no backless unitards, no strapless bathing suits, and absolutely no boob windows. In face most of them have high collared shirts, long sleeves WITH elbow length gloves, some form of mask, and full pants. Now look at Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Zatanna, Emma Frost, and Powergirl. Most are pants free, all are wearing some form of what looks like a swimsuit, most have high heeled shoes or boots, no masks, and there's even a boob window! Now Emma's character gets just a tiny bit of slack since she can turn invulnerable to damage and has been known to use her "womanly charms" to get what she wants, which is a subject for another posting. But Black Canary and Zatanna aren't invulnerable, they could really use some armor or at the very least some pants covering their legs!
The current percentage of comic book readers who identify as female is somewhere around 25% last time I checked, which is significantly less than the percentage of gamers who identify as women (45% according to the Entertainment Software Association) and I would bet money that the constant and unnecessary objectification of female characters  accounts for a large reason of why women either get out of comics or won't read them in the first place. And this is a huge problem. What the comic book industry is basically telling women is that they don't want our money when they refuse to address this problem. And that bothers me, a lot. I want women to read comic books, hell I want everybody to read comic books, comic books are awesome!
I have seen some process over the last year, such as the Marvel comic Captain Marvel, whose main character no longer sports a swimsuit and is in a non-vacu-sealed body suit following the revamp lead by Kelly Sue DeConnick, or a not as overtly sexualized Black Widow following her popularity in the Marvel movies that have come out over the last few years. A character can be sexy without being sexualized, as both of these characters showcase. I hope each year we see a little bit more practicality and a little less "drawn for the male gaze" when it comes to female superheroes.

How to Make a Hand Painted Superhero Shirt

I attended Rose CIty Comic Con in 2013, which was my first foray into cosplay. Since I’m not a pro at sewing I picked an easier costume to make. One that wouldn’t be expensive to make or very time consuming since I have toddler as well. I finally settled on making a 1950’s Batman costume, consisting of a poodle skirt, petticoat, utility belt, and a shirt. In this series of posts I will explain just how I made my costume and how you can use these steps to make one yourself in whatever design you like. Today I will start with the simplest part, the shirt.

I already had a black t-shirt to use so I didn’t have to go out and buy one, but plain colored shirts are available almost anywhere. My personal preference is to buy them at Joann Fabrics since they are typically cheapest there and I always have a 40% off coupon for there. Just make sure you wash the shirt before hand. Cut a piece of cardboard (or buy one already sized for your t-shirt, many craft stores carry them) the correct size to place inside your shirt and tape the sleeves back and out of the way. Double check that everything is straight before you proceed any further, I’d hate for you to do all of this work only to end up with a wonky design.

Find the design you want to place on your shirt, choose something simple like a silhouette (I used the bat symbol for mine, the Flash’s lightning bolt or the Green Lantern’s symbol are also great and easy designs) and something that uses only one color. You can do a complex one with several colors if you want, but that’s a little more involved than this tutorial will be getting. Cut the design out and trace it onto your shirt. Because my shirt was black, I used white chalk, but if you have a light colored shirt you should use a washable fabric pencil, which are available at most fabric stores.

You need fabric paint in order to paint on fabric, any brand will work, I used some by Tulip that I already had. For my bat symbol I layered my colors to get a good solid coverage. I started with yellow, then laid a non-metallic gold over that, then finally a metallic gold was laid down. Give each layer plenty of time to dry so you don’t smudge your work. If you make a mistake use a wet q-tip to quickly wipe away the excess paint, but depending on the color of your shirt you may have some staining so go slowly and carefully. Once you’ve finished the final layer let it dry for at least a few hours, I let mine sit overnight.

Now this is the most important part, you need to set the paint so it won’t crack and come off when you wash it. This is achieved several different ways, but my personal favorite (and also the easiest) is to heat set it with an iron. Some people suggest ironing straight over the painted section, but I always worry about melting the paint or burning it so I highly recommend using a thin towel or piece of cloth over the painted area to protect it. Alternatively you could turn the shirt inside out and iron on the wrong side of the fabric. All you do is set your iron to medium/hot with NO steam and iron over it for 3-5 minutes, being careful to keep the iron moving so you don’t burn your fabric.

And voila! You have a custom t-shirt for half the price of buying it online, perfect for whatever event you need it for. While setting it makes it machine washable, I recommend against running it through the dryer to prolong the life of your item. I actually hand wash and then lay flat to dry my Batman shirt just to insure that it stays looking nice for a very long time. In the event it does become damaged just use your leftover paint to correct the damage and reheat set it.

Stay tuned for part two in the series, how to make a Batman poodle skirt.

Comic Book Review: Pretty Deadly

There are few thing I'm guaranteed to like in this world, but weird tales and beautiful artwork will always win my heart. So it came as no surprise that the newest Image comic by Kelly Sue DeConnick (Ghost, Captain Marvel, Avengers Assemble, and probably more that I've forgotten) and Emma Rios (Hexed, Stranged, and many others), with Jordie Bellaire, Clayton Cowles, Sigrid Ellis, is a personal favorite of mine. Imagine taking all the best elements from a wild west tale and heavily infusing it with myth and lore and deep, dark magic. What comes out is Pretty Deadly, a comic following the tale of Deathface Ginny, Death's daughter, and her quest for revenge against the man responsible for her Mother’s imprisonment and death. But judging from the bomb dropped in issue #3, this won’t be as simple or straight forward as Ginny thinks it will be.

Each issue delves deeper into the mythology woven into each character, and DeConnick is at her best here with writing that draws you in and won’t let go until you are gasping for air. From the deadly Big Alice to the mysterious Sissy, each character is fully formed and invites the reader to guess what their role will be in Ginny’s life. Non-human characters play a part in the tale as well, the narrator is a rabbit skeleton, presumably the rabbit Ginny is shown killing as a child in issue #1, and his companion is a butterfly eager to hear the tale. What their role will be in later issues is unknown, but I quite enjoy the storytelling format the comics are presented in.

The artwork is spectacular, enough so that even if I didn't love the story, I would buy them just to look at the art. Emma Rios has a particular style that is easy to pick out, and her use of color really shines in Pretty Deadly. There are various image motifs that are used throughout the comics in interesting ways, such as a spray of butterflies instead of blood at the end of a particular fight scene. The dead animal motif is one I feel lends itself quite well to the story, not only in the skeleton rabbit narrator but in Death himself having an animal skull instead of the stereotypical human skull face. The mix of beautiful imagery and the gruesome macabre gives the comics a particular feel to them, one I quite enjoyed.

Only three issues have been released so far, with the fourth coming to your local comic book shop on January 22, 2014. They are on a once a month schedule, which is the only thing I don’t like about Pretty Deadly. Once I finish one I’m dying for the next, and I hope you give them a try.

Story: 5/5

Art: 5/5

Character Development: 5/5

Overall: 5/5