This is good.  On SLOG just now I saw both of these posts, nearly side-by-side…

"No More Superhero Decadence"

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 12 at 12:25 PM

Via the very good comic newsblog Robot 6: Bill Willingham, who is a conservative superhero comic book writer probably best known for his Sandman ripoff series Fables, has a post up calling for superheroes to act more heroic. Unsurprisingly, to Willingham, "heroic" means "conservative," and his statement that superheroes have been getting more "decadent" means that they’re acting more liberal.

It’s time to make public a decision I’ve already made in private. I’m going to shamelessly steal a line from Rush Limbaugh, who said, concerning a different matter, “Go ahead and have your recession if you insist, but you’ll have to pardon me if I choose not to participate.” And from now on that’s my position on superhero comics. Go ahead and have your Age of Superhero Decadence, if you insist, but you’ll have to pardon me if I no longer choose to participate.

Holy seduction of the innocent Batman!  And…speaking of which…the post above was followed almost immediately by this one…

Look! Tied to That Bench!

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 12 at 11:25 AM

Slog tipper Rich, who knows that I am a Superman fan, writes:

I read about this on io9 this morning and figured that if you didn’t already know about it then you had to find out immediately.

Secret Identity showcases rare and recently discovered erotic artwork by the most seminal artist in comics—Superman’s co-creator Joe Shuster. Created in the early 1950s when Shuster was down on his luck after trying to reclaim the copyright for Superman, he illustrated these images for an obscure series of magazines called Nights of Horror, sold under the counter until they were banned by the U.S. Supreme Court…

Paul Constant, the author of both posts you may note, goes on to say that fetish art is nothing new in comics, and that the artwork behind some pretty well known comic book titles was penned by guys who did all kinds of stuff on the side that would never have passed muster with the comic code authority.  The creator of Wonder Woman was said to have kept a stash of S&M artwork handy so he could…ahem…figure out different ways to truss up his heroine in each new episode.  Well…we all need models.

Does anyone see the problem with right wing jackasses who draw comic books for adolescent males that are full of pictures of muscular heroes and buxom women in tights that might as well have been painted on flexing their stuff in and out of the usual comic book danger and bondage scenes bellyaching about decadence?  The difference between the guy chained to that table up there and Superman is the guy on the table is wearing pants.

[Update…] Look…I’m not saying that everyone who reads super hero comics is subconsciously into S&M.  I’m sure not.  But even back when I was a kid I knew I liked the eye candy, even if I wasn’t quite sure why.  The sexuality in those comics isn’t exactly coincidental and it strains credulity light years past the breaking point to think that someone who sits down every day to draw those characters for a living doesn’t know it full well.  Constant quotes Willingham as saying he was particularly proud of a recent Robin comic he did, patriotically dropping him into Afghanistan to fight the evil terrorist empire…

Borrowing some wisdom from the famous parable of the mote in one fellow’s eye, and the whole beam in another’s, it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to make any call for our industry to clean up its act, until I’ve first cleaned up my own. I’ve already made some progress down that road. In my run writing the Robin series (of Batman fame), I made sure both Batman and Robin were portrayed as good, steadfast heroes, with unshakable personal codes and a firm grasp of their mission. I even got to do a story where Robin parachuted into Afghanistan with a group of very patriotic military superheroes on a full-scale, C130 gunship-supported combat mission.

Okay Willingham…you want to clean up your industry?  I have a suggestion.  Replace Robin’s tights with a nice Sunday-go-to-meeting suit and see how many issues you sell.  Go ahead.  Geeze…even allowing for the costume change recent artists have put him through…probably because the classic costume makes them uncomfortable for some strange reason…that kid has shown almost as much thigh as Wonder Woman in his career.  And speaking of Wonder Woman…you going to clean her up too?  Put her in a decent womanly dress and back in the home where she belongs and not out fighting the forces of evil? Her and all the other comic book babes wearing almost as much as Hooter’s waitresses and Playboy bunnies that your industry has been waving in the faces of teenage boys for decades now?  Well that’ll sure make the cash registers work overtime.

Decadence.  Decadence.  Right wing nutcases that babble about decadence make you just want to scream.  Or laugh out loud I dunno…  Decadence isn’t sex as entertainment.  It isn’t violence as entertainment.  It isn’t opening the door to the inner human heart, and all its passions sublime and gross and charging admission.  It’s doing it without heart.  It’s cheapening it.  That’s what you never want to sell to kids.  Not that sex is thrilling but that it’s cheap.  Not that the struggle between darkness and light is exalting but that it’s vapid.  It’s not making the sacred profane, it’s making it boring.  That’s decadence. 

I made sure both Batman and Robin were portrayed as good, steadfast heroes, with unshakable personal codes and a firm grasp of their mission. I even got to do a story where Robin parachuted into Afghanistan with a group of very patriotic military superheroes on a full-scale, C130 gunship-supported combat mission.

Decadence.