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I blame the tools
A minor rant on packaging of supplies for comics artists, with boobs.
This is the old packaging for the illustration board I usually use to draw the comic.
Simple, professional, and you don't have to feel goofy when you buy it, because you are totally a serious artist, and stuff.
And this is the boobified new packaging.
While I understand the marketing reasoning for going with the gigantic eyes and the water-balloon boobs, I'd never pick this up in a comic store, an art-supplies store, or from a convention table. But, of course, I'm not the demographic they're marketing to.
It's not a cheap product (though it looks cheap, now—ooh, see how I used the two connotations of the word—burn). I'd think if you need the more expensive stuff (it holds up pretty well to eraser abuse), you wouldn't need boobages to attract you to the product, you'd simply buy what you need. But maybe they'd like to get artists who don't consider themselves professional level to upgrade to the heavier stuff; one-ply Bristol Board being a gateway drug, and all. In fact, I don't know why they don't just indicate the ply of the paper by the size of the cup.
Good thing there's mail order. I guess.
This is the old packaging for the illustration board I usually use to draw the comic.Simple, professional, and you don't have to feel goofy when you buy it, because you are totally a serious artist, and stuff.
And this is the boobified new packaging.While I understand the marketing reasoning for going with the gigantic eyes and the water-balloon boobs, I'd never pick this up in a comic store, an art-supplies store, or from a convention table. But, of course, I'm not the demographic they're marketing to.
It's not a cheap product (though it looks cheap, now—ooh, see how I used the two connotations of the word—burn). I'd think if you need the more expensive stuff (it holds up pretty well to eraser abuse), you wouldn't need boobages to attract you to the product, you'd simply buy what you need. But maybe they'd like to get artists who don't consider themselves professional level to upgrade to the heavier stuff; one-ply Bristol Board being a gateway drug, and all. In fact, I don't know why they don't just indicate the ply of the paper by the size of the cup.
Good thing there's mail order. I guess.
[rant!]
It probably just comes down to the fact that it's dead easy to get someone stirred up with an image of violence or sex or the two in tandem. You'll get more box office for the gladiator bouts and the executions than for the new production of Sophocles or Euripides with genuine flying deus ex machina. And this is why we remember the names of the gladiators. Oh, wait, we don't. But then, who cares, when you need a quick box office boost to keep quarterly profits up. I dunno, I've worked at places that sold tens or hundreds of thousands of copies of books that didn't have a single wacky-pose woman in them. But that does take more effort than inflating a pair of boobies and parking an enraged muscle-man with big knives behind them (in case you can't tell from the scan above, that's what's going on behind the woman.)
I think what our nation's school libraries need is a book cover showing Lewis & Clark screaming war cries as they battle a giant bear that's threatening a scantily clad and cowering wasp-waisted Sacagawea. These books I have on drawing will have exactly the right poses.
Re: [rant!]
(Anonymous) 2007-10-14 04:16 pm (UTC)(link)Then again, a scantily-clad, wasp waisted Sacajawea, with milk-distended boobs (like the cover-girl on Heinlein's "Friday" (not to initiate another rant) would definitely have some adolescent appeal. I, on the other hand, would pass such a cover by with a sneer... after taking a good, long look so that I might despise the obvious pandering to an appropriate degree.
DRW, stalwartly un-amused by sexist pandering... after all, I could imagine a much more appealing babe, with substantially smaller boobs and her own sword.
Re: [rant!]
Re: [rant!]
(Anonymous) 2007-10-15 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)