Why, despite full of hot guys, did western comics fail to get a sizable female fanbase...

Because females in Japan like manga and anime. Outside of that it's less acceptable by mainstream. Nerd culture has gotten more popular but it's really just casuals just thinking they're nerds because they own all the MCU movies. Kind of like how some people think they're sports fanatics because they watch most of the games of their home team.

The art. Real life men like Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan are attractive and handsome, so it's easy to imagine why people like imagining them together. Manga/anime usually have an appealing artstyle. You have to have a stick-up-your-butt if you don't find a single character in BNHA attractive, even if you don't care for the story itself. But comic books? Let's just say the artists aren't drawing the characters with intent to be attractive. Pic related is just a random image I pulled from Google. By all right, you can say "Well, it's more realistic and gritty that way," but realism and grittiness isn't arousing to most. The "traditional comic book artstyle" is not sexy, and that's all there is to it.

Attached: 84e82b910368e198135463d809af252a.png (1536x2048, 3.1M)

>that being said, still not a reason to be jackasses to women who are interested in them
It's fine when they're not obnoxious about it. But it happens commonly because:
1. It's proven to get them attention, which many women have an unhealthy craving for.
2. They love shoving their personalities in your face, especially "quirky" ones. This is thanks to insecurity, desperation to seem original etc.

Ofc I'm generalizing, but it's prominent enough to complain about.

Attached: 1587251029416.jpg (792x1234, 480.43K)

As a ladyanon, I liked superhero comics as a teenager, but the stories got really stale really fast, and there wasn't much to them. It was just a bunch of fights, or weirdos standing around and trading bad dialog about situations I didn't care about. The relationship dynamics were threadbare and I couldn't relate to these all super powered people. Everyone dressed like a moron. The guys were square-jawed and too muscled and violent. Outside of a few characters like Doctor Strange and a few mold-breaking oneshots like 1602, I just didn't care about them.

But Marvel and DC were all they sold in the mall in the nineties. Once I was older and had a car, I visited my LCS and found the other shit - Strangers in Paradise, Bone, Sandman, Preacher, The Maxx were all favorites - and I've loved comics ever since. I read mostly indie stuff, webcomics, and manga now.

Superhero comics are ass ugly. The ladies watching superhero movies are in it for the hot actors, not the story or premise, just like the normie males who watch them are only watching for the special effects and fights. The superhero film genre is a delivery vessel for lizard brain pleasures.

Force pandering, doesn't really work.

Most male comic book characters aren't drawn to be appealing to women. Nightwing, Batman, Cap get it sometimes, but honestly people underestimate how much women are visual creatures as well.

Have you ever looked into the manga that are predominately read by women? Do that, and then compare them to most capeshit, and you will answer your question.

Tons of people substitute having a personality with having a shallow interest in shallow but common things. be it comics, vidya, literature.
Women are not free of this, neither are men.
But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, other times you will find an individual puffing away not because they truly enjoy the taste, but because they like the look it believes it imparts upon them.
Yes I'm ranting about "fake" geeks but its true, men and women can like things for shallow reasons and you cannot ignore that humans as social creatures all do this kind of shit to a degree.

Manga and anime make a point of having attractive characters with internal consistency, same is roughly true of film franchises and TV shows. Comics are dominated by capeshit that involves characters being dragged out through countless runs and passed around from sucky artist to sucky artist, with very little to latch onto other than whatever superficial gimmick the current writer's run is attempting. If you husbando a comic character you will get more pandering pleasure from fanart than the source material.

But western women like comics, they just usually like stuff like manga rather than capeshit

Not really, vidya girls are very notable minority

Access could be a problem. Earned or not, comic and game stores have kind of a reputation for being hostile to women.

Women don't sit around wondering why dudes aren't into their pasttimes. Your mom doesn't wanna read your punchy-man comics, bro, just deal with it.

That's fine, but I'm not demanding a new brand of perfume just for me. The idea that comics should shift to advocate a minute audience is silly but understandable, the idea that entertainment is the only industry being pushed to this is... interesting actually. I'm going to have to think about that.

The thing is, plenty of manga is appealing to men and women. It can be done.

>The "traditional comic book artstyle" is not sexy, and that's all there is to it.
This

Outside of a vanishingly tiny minority who mostly enjoy capeshit but would like them to stop being so juvenile and retarded, women aren't demanding major change to capeshit. Women read other types of comics and have since comics began.

It's comic executives that are trying to market to women by pandering to them - badly - because dudes aren't buying enough capeshit comics to keep the medium viable. Blame the comic executives or blame the dudes who got sick of comics and aren't buying them anymore. Most women really don't give a fuck and are reading other things.

>full of hot guys
lol no
The vast, vast majority of the time male characters are not drawn particularly attractively. Merely having muscles isn't going to do it.

It's not even just that they're unattractive, but their personalities are shit. I honestly don't get why anyone reads superhero comics, male or female. If OP is projecting, maybe dudes only read them to fap to the cheesecake?

If you want to capture the female eye, let female eyes do the art. You won't like the results though.

Yeah, that's a big problem too. I just picked on that one point because it's such nonsense. The characters and storylines not being engaging to new readers is of course going to be a factor in not attracting people who aren't already invested. Really, unless someone is predisposed to liking exactly what capeshit is, with all its flaws, there's no reason to read it. They can get more satisfying stories about hot dudes punching things from other sources for less money.

Alternatively: let gay men do the art.
Ex. Travis Moore.

In my experience, there's not a lot of overlap between what gay men are attracted to in fiction, and what women are attracted to. That's kind of why yaoi exists.

If women liked superhero comics, you wouldn't like superhero comics. You wouldn't want to co-exist in a fandom with women. Be grateful for what you have.

There's actually a fair amount of overlap when the topic is young men in really good shape. Everyone can enjoy a good twunk. It's when you get into fetishes and subcultures that tastes get more divergent. On the other hand, noodly yaoi guys are less universally liked. This is probably why over the past decade there's been a gradual art shift to make BL look more masculine. It's just hotter, and with artists being more up front about their comics being intended to be sexytimes featuring sexy guys there's less of a need to fuck around with helpless girly uke self-inserts.

Yeah, but women who enjoy capeshit probably already skew to liking "manlier" men already. So I can't imagine it would be terribly different, especially when you're constrained by the genre itself. I'm simply speaking from an aesthetic sense.

Super Sons was very popular among female readers and male shotacons, but DC Comics decided to ruin that by aging up Jon and pairing Damian with Djinn. I genuinely think most comic book executives are out of touch, like they don't even know the concept of gay shipping exists.

Well, they know on some level, given their intense dedication to confirming over and over again that Tim and Kon are totally straight despite 25+ years of people ignoring them. They seem to still be fixated on keeping the gay away from specific properties out of residual fear that Wertham will rise from his grave.

>like they don't even know the concept of gay shipping exists
They know, they just choose to ignore it for the most part.

Because the word "Bishonen" only belongs to Japanese stuff, sadly.

Comic guys aren't drawn very hot to female taste, if you want the men to appeal to a female readership you need to hire more female artists. Some gay/bi male artists do good work though. Currently most potential female readers are reading manga. In general I'd say that most manga/anime men are not very attractive either (too neotenous) but its still more appealing than artwork where the men are too rugged and blocky looking.

It's not just about looks, and you assuming that is why male creators are so bad at appealing to women. Gay men are like straight men, and just want something fine to stick their dicks in. Most women - not all women, but a majority - are really turned on in fiction by male vulnerability.

That's what's missing in all these dudebro books. When they do try to show a male character's vulnerable side, it's not done in a sexy, exploitative manner. We don't get sexy rape backstories for the dudes, or men holding other men down in provocative poses, with detailed panels depicting their heaving asses, sweaty faces, full lips. What about the consequences when things go wrong? Women want to see men crying, looking weak, utterly destroyed. And in detail.

But this goes smack in the face of what superhero comics are about - male power fantasy.

You really can't have both. By design, it's not a genre that can appeal to the libido of most women while still remaining the thing that men love to read.

And that's perfectly fine. Men need power fantasies just like women need romance.

Doesn't this suggest the women were shotacons too?

Some women like shota for the same reason that some men like loli. Adult men and women are intimidating.

>Currently most potential female readers are reading manga
Which is mostly written and drawn by straight Japanese men so the other things you said don't really stand.

No? Manga creators are about fifty/fifty male and female, and most of the titles women read are created by women.

In my experience, most buyers of Supersons were females, so I would say the problem is the lack of shotas.

I think you're right about vulnerability being an important element that's often missing, though it's not impossible to include or to have guys still be hot without it. user mentioned Travis Moore, and he's a decent example of having it both ways. He drew Nightwing super hot, but it's not like he was always being presented as vulnerable or weak. Men can be hot if they're self-assured (without being obnoxious), vulnerable, badboys, unaware of their hotness etc. Various Batfamily guys are considered to be generally hot and occupy some of these types without routinely being put in compromising situations. But yes, a lot of times the way male characters are depicted on the page doesn't really jive with being sexy. When it does happen, it's accidental or because the artist is brute forcing it. See Hal Jordan and his butt.
Half the work could be accomplished just by letting guys not be total ken dolls up front and giving them better butts, which some artists already do. Anyone can tell when someone is afraid of body parts, be they on a man or a woman.

Attached: NIG.jpg (1080x560, 45.8K)

Besides Dick Grayson and his meme status I know Constantine is masively popular because he's such a fucking mess.

Bi here. The few times they are for more than people with unrealistic muscle fetishes, then most guys get annoyed and complain that they look weird. Maybe some of you are a little bi and it makes you uncomfortable, or maybe it's the same reason women complain about how most women are drawn in comics, because when you're not attracted to it then it's weird, but if you are it looks alright to you.

Also the themes in manga are what appeal to women in the west. Yes they get into shonan often too, but the characters are all cutesy and baby faced, not chiseled comic heroes, and that attracts a certain type of girl. Otherwise they read other genres first that are their gateway drug to Japanese media.

Yes, a big old mess is also a good type. He's competent though, right? His mess is more personal and relatable than, say, being a damsel in distress.

I laughed, but there is some truth to it. Popular fandoms often center around teens (and younger) and YA novels which are ostensibly for teen girls are often enjoyed by adult women who lust over the teenaged male characters. Some of the reasoning I've heard for preferring YA over adult fiction is interesting, the readers find YA to be more optimistic, to have bigger emotions and more firsts while adult fiction can be more depressing.

So maybe more young characters could attract a larger female readership. Whether you want to supply shotacons and fujos with this sort of content is another matter. I think it only survives because the broader culture doesn't pay much attention to it.

Yeah, but is Constantine capeshit? Women like and personally create all kinds of western comics, but I feel like OP is specifically talking about capeshit.

You're absolutely right about Dick Grayson though, and the Bat family in general. I know a few ladies really into the Bat family. Again though, observe, that's not about anyone's looks. It's about the idea of Bruce as a dad, about the character dynamics between the Robins, drama drama, vulnerability, emotions, and love.

That's what draws the chicks. Not the punchy-times and not even the spandex asses.

>He drew Nightwing super hot
That he did user, that he did....

Attached: nw356475e78567r5e67.png (536x482, 348.2K)

Considering almost all Super Sons R34 are done by women, yes.

Based and shotapilled.

Not the OP, but manga has a more visually appealing artstyle. More smooth, more rounder vs. cape comics, whose characters have more pronounced features, squarer jaws, and bulk. But it's not just manga—webcomics have become super popular too, especially with female readers. Like manga, the characters have a "softer" design. Basically what I'm saying is, the men in manga and webcomics are twinks/twunks. Even in BNHA, where the boys are all muscular, the (male) author's artstyle still manages to make them look marshmallow soft to the touch. Contrast this with cape artists who even draw teen characters like Robin as chiseled bodybuilders. Look at pic related to see what I mean.

I do agree there's more to it than just looks, but I don't think it's male vulnerability. I think it's character dynamic. One super popular ship in manga is Gon x Killua from Hunter x Hunter. These two characters support each other side-by-side, but they also have a competitive relationship that inspires them to train harder, making sure the other doesn't get too far ahead. Because if one does get too far ahead, then the other won't be strong enough to help them anymore, and neither Gon or Killua wants that. Compare this to, say, Batman and Superman. Their friendship is more like the type you'd expect co-workers to have—not that emotionally invested.

Here's a simple litmus test: take two male characters. Change one to a girl. Now, can you easily imagine the two hooking up in the future? If yes, then they're popular with female readers.

Attached: D9TBYIOXUAIcsK5.jpg (1738x1178, 874.83K)

It's both, really. There wouldn't be anywhere near as much explicit porn as there is (and it often completely excludes Bruce as a sexual entity) if they weren't interested in their bodies, but there wouldn't be much fanfic or art at all if they weren't interested in the characters. The bats are better than just about all other cape characters at appealing to everyone.

I like western comics, but the majority of men in them often aren't that appealing, certainly not enough to draw others in just based off their looks. The guy characters I started off reading for were ones like the Scarecrow or the Riddler, but most main characters aren't what I'm into, and I know a lot of others aren't as well.

Attached: GiganticNegativeBoilweevil-mobile.jpg (500x300, 28.34K)

I totally agree. I really think it is about vulnerability. Women want to see their male heroes competent and badass and all because it makes the tidbits of heart feel earned and sweeter in comparison. That's why I feel like the concept of the "batfamily" is so popular among female capeshit fans.

Because they are. All those shota doujins? Women.

But Sandman and Preacher are DC

Attached: Shirouthonk.jpg (440x400, 71.16K)

>You're absolutely right about Dick Grayson though, and the Bat family in general. I know a few ladies really into the Bat family. Again though, observe, that's not about anyone's looks. It's about the idea of Bruce as a dad, about the character dynamics between the Robins, drama drama, vulnerability, emotions, and love.
Femanon here. You hit the nail on the fucking head as to why so many women love Batfamily dynamics. If only DC would get the hint.

Gon and Killua are also shotas, lmao if DC and Marvel need to take the shotapill to get any women to read their stuff.

Maybe they'd be better off straight up adapting fanfic at this point. Not necessarily the fujo stuff either.

It couldn't be any worse than Ric Grayson.

Fuck, that's still going on??? Didio is gone, why does DC continue to make us suffer.

They were Vertigo, back in the ninetes, and the mall kiosk that sold comics by my house didn't carry them. It was capes only.

And you knew what I meant, don't be an autistic shit.

I think it recently came to an end or is about to, but it drove me away, so I'm not sure.

Capullo’s Bruce is one of the few example of hot men in comicbook.

Attached: 959DABAE-D383-49AC-AF7D-633354253732.jpg (480x640, 28.17K)

>Contrast this with cape artists who even draw teen characters like Robin as chiseled bodybuilders. Look at pic related to see what I mean.

That's just some shit art. Like a bad imitation of Bryan Hitch who is just as stiff and gross.

Tom Grummet was the kino Robin artist. Pat Gleason was good too.

It's not uncommon to see though, superhero artists are notoriously bad at kids. Reminds me of the muscled baby Jesuses in Renaissance paintings.

>Why did comics fail to capture the female eye?
From what I've read Marvel's female fans since the 60s were primarily into Iron Man and the occasional Thor. I remember this one letter from a female fan thirsting over Thor pretty hard.

Constantine has the benefit of being a well-dressed charmer with a sexy accent who also hates himself and has a ton of psychological baggage. It’s a similar reason why Tony Stark is the most popular Marvel character among females; it appeals to this fantasy of wanting to “fix” a handsome, charismatic, leader-type guy who genuinely means well but is so badly emotionally scarred that he’s unable to sustain a single healthy relationship and is prone to angst-fueled meltdowns and binge drinking.

people talk about "female appeal" or some shit like that, but my reasons as to me reading manga and not superhero stuff can be summarized in these events:

trying to read Manga + anime:

>hear about anime (yu yu hakusho in this case)
>want to read the manga
>find online manga site
>after skipping 1 or 2 chapters im already where i was while reading the manga
>continue reading/watching, no more continuity problems
>nice fights
>gets me interested in watching more anime

VS trying to read Cartoon/movie + comic

>watch some of the x-men cartoons and loved the movies (apocalypse mostly)
>want to read the comics
>decide to start by apocalypse, just want some cool action
>go to comic reading site
>there are a shitton of characters i don't know
>its a completely different(?) story
>"what the fuck"
>go to wiki as last hope
>doesn't help at all
>give up

to be fair, i can't stand newer anime either, i probably just like the violence

Attached: entropy.gif (164x240, 2.53M)

You're definitely right, but I think what you said applies to all readers, not just female ones. But despite the horrible continuity issues and readability of comic books, they still retain a good number of male readers. OP just wanted to know why this doesn't seem to be the case with female readers.

A lot of work for little to none reward. People just want to grab a book, have a begining, middle and end. I usually recommend graphic novels for this reason with much more success.

This is popular with women, explain that to me.

Attached: df1ac9d6e0d12d9f4006acd8bc77d2af.jpg (1458x2488, 320.16K)

They had tons of femal readers when they did Romance comics

>women
You mean underage Tumblr girls going through their 2012 quirky phase

Exactly, the kind of person who would buy comic books.

Maybe if we're talking about Memepool but as it stands they're more likely to be watching anime, especially if its something like Lucky Star.

Not enough feelings and relationships. Women aren’t like men.

Looking at cute guys is always great but that’s not enough for us to go full mindless lust like guys do when you see a cute anime girl.

>Who is he?
>What’s he about?
>What’s he thinking?
>What’s his relationship to X or Y or Z?

That’s what gets us invested

Yes but they mostly create homo shota doujins, which is even more based.

>women

*little girls and woman-children

They’re still in that androgynous stage of life where prettyboys have more appeal

Not enough cute guys doing fun things together, forcing female characters between male friends. Sorry if this aint feminist sounding but its the truth, its how WSJ make money off fangirls.

Attached: A12C40C7-C093-48D2-8945-A13F2266B3E2.jpg (529x688, 102.54K)

>Tall
>Cute face
>Emo boy haircut
>Sings and has a cool guitar
>Falls into evil but is still good at heart, and gets redeemed
He's a mashup of every trope a 14 year old girl would love in a male character

Even feminists will praise male characters having emotionally satisfying interactions with each other on the grounds that it's moving away from bad stereotypes about gender roles, so there's always political cover for cute boys doing cute things. Comics should embrace it.

Hi, fellow faggot

Femanons in the thread, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most of you realistically into stuff that has either sexy male MCs, "grounded, realistic situations" as plots, and human relationships over the crazy comic-book fight stuff and superpowers seen in comics?

Or are you just legitimately more interested in the emotional and sexual appeal of characters than the zany plots?

I'm just going by what my gf has told me about what she thinks about comics vs manga/anime in general.

Probably why Spider-Verse Peter was so popular too.

I enjoy both. Ideally I would get both superpowers/fights and human relationship drama in the same book, though.

I'm a weird one, I always go bored with slice of life and grounded drama. I like larger than life plots and characters.

the artstyle doesn't look appealing, and the characters are not rendered in a way that makes them look expressive. I only ever find these characters attractive in fanart or movies

male costumes aren't particularily sexy either, no male fanservice

lack of emotion, partly due to the nature of the characters themselves. They aren't really designed to look that appealing, but to look cool in fight scenes. Manga have huge eyes, and tends to have better "reactions" between characters emotionally as they interact.

Even if a character is a big burly bear, which I find attractive, I need them to register as a feeling human being to feel attraction. Expressiveness, and eyes help that. Next, I want to see their body, show some skin. An 8 pack isn't actually required.

If more comics had pic related style, it would be popular with female viewers, on account of the appealing face. Faces like the guys in Gothan high look horrible. In some scenes their eyes looked scribbled on. That will never be able to compete with the blushing vulnerable reaction shots you get in manga. although manga gets to far with twinky lookinnng underage looking girl-boy characters. I like expressive masciline looking types and it isnt well catered to in any medium

Attached: 26073942_388900858246913_6212110589490102272_n.jpg (1080x1080, 96.84K)

room of swords has fanservice for both male and women, and its handled far more evenly. you mainly get onesided stuff in traditional comics.

Attached: room of swords.jpg (1280x1541, 298.68K)

hard to get invested in something that can and often does change on the whims of the next author/arc

Attached: 1579680710796.jpg (142x275, 11.36K)

You can have both. Larger than life supers with zany powers and big fight scenes have more interesting emotional conflict and greater appeal than a bunch of dudes working at a coffee shop for instance..

Frankly the scenes of emotional and social interactions make the over the top fantasy shit all the more thrilling when it happens

What about zany powers and big fight scenes in the coffee shop?
>on no, it's the Decaffeinator!

Woah, this is the first time I've seen Room of Swords mentioned on Zig Forums. Absolutely based taste, user.

Gyrus a cute.

Attached: tumblr_pd9hq8YKWp1slo4b3o1_400.png (400x534, 259.2K)

If you think women aren't visual and none of them ever got off on 90s Brad Pitt's abs...

I’m firmly of the stance that artwork with the aesthetic appeal to please and attract women currently only exists in fanart. OK that is an exaggeration but *most of it*. The majority of western comic book bartists do not draw appealing men. And I concur that the majority of Asian artists (even female) don’t really appeal to me as a western woman either. Female westaboos tend to have the best male faces in my opinion (speaking in generalities), stronger jawlines and noses.

Where I must disagree is that a male character needs to have big expressive eyes to be attractive. Corto Maltese is one of the most attractive male comic book characters I can think of and he doesn’t have big eyes. I guess he’s a good example of how you can simplify details of the face while keeping otherwise masculine features.

>and more firsts while adult fiction can be more depressing.
Yeah who wants to see a comic about a 40-something man in a bar talking about his divorce.

It occurs to me that women might enjoy the Secret Identity angle more than men (who have otherwise moved on from this trope for many supers) because it gives plenty of moments where characters can decompress and have those character moments that non stop action might not have room for.

As a femanon I’ll say women definitely are visual but I’d be hesitant to say they’d read as visual as men. A comic book with sexy guys with the personalities of wood still wouldn’t appeal to many. At least make them himbos or something.

Yeah I’d say that young romance is more carefree (even if the story has the teens fighting dragons or something). Adult relationships can be interesting but the same sense of opportunity and optimism isn’t there compared to teen characters, adult relationships entail the increased closing of possibilities and a lot of the choices people have to make aren’t fun. Divorce, dead bedrooms, children etc. Sometimes I’ll read a book (with older characters) and they’ll talk about things like “how are we going t afford the wedding?” Or “he wanted a bajillion kids and now he’s not attracted to me” or bitching about in-laws and it takes me out of the story because it’s too real. So maybe I’ve been too hard on women who read YA, when I think about the adult fiction I read the elements these people could dislike are more apparent.

Anyway, something like webtoons is probably gonna be the future of female comic readership in the west.

thanksI was both of these anons btw. I wanted to mention room of swords because I feel like it benefits from the fact that there is both a male and female co authoring. The way they handle fanservice seems so intentioned too, seeing as they include pretty even for male and female characters and you can tell they put thought into that and its nice. I really like future gyrus' costume design, as it exposes skin in a sexy way. I love middrifs on guys too.
>Where I must disagree is that a male character needs to have big expressive eyes to be attractive.

yeah i guess I kind of generalized there to paint the picture, eyes tend to be manga's go to for expression. I wanted to draw a parallel with how unexpressive and stiff I found gotham high's characters, and really western comics in general. Expressions in west stuff always come off as vague, and like they're struggling to make the character recognizable, let alone capture any vivid emotion or sense of complex atmosphere. That might be an issue of immersion to because many times the fightscenes are sequencially unsatisfying. One punch man for example has far more immersive fightscenes than west comics I've seen, so I feel like it tends to extend into other areas like quieter expression and mood. Manga tends to do better at giving you a sense of intimacy and sensualism with the characters. I agree w/ all ur points

Attached: gotham high.png (331x336, 181.07K)

Is that really the style they went for with Gotham High? It’s a high school AU how do you mess up?

check out dorohedoro, almost everyman in the main cast is perfect. huge amounts of constant perfection. I don't know how Q does it.

The relationships and fun moments between the character only makes the violence more fun and engaging. The problem of sexy male MC has its roots in that if he is not interesting we will just give him a glance, rate him, and then keep checking out stuff that we may actually want to look over for a longer amount of time. It's not that we dont want action and violence, it's just thats so much better when you get more backgrounds and information about characters motivations and dreams. Zany situations are only fun if there are dynamics between the characters that make the drama have different layers of funny reactions. For that reason I love running gags.

Just think about it as some sort of autism for biographical data.

I like weird and crazy stuff, I just like it best when it has character development behind it. Otherwise it feels hallow.
I think zanyness combined with clearly defined male characters with fun dynamics is part of the reason why stuff like Osomatsu-san got so popular with fujos. The boys is Osomatu-san look nothing like your standard "sexy" anime boys, but they have a lot of personality and play off each other in funny ways, so women latch onto them

I was gonna write something about overly rendered coloring in Western comic books and was looking up Babs Tarr stuff as an example of female artists with softer, simpler (more appealing) coloring when I saw this.

It is the barest suggestion of bulge. This works for me. Am I just a weirdo pervert? So many comic book men are drawn with flat crotches or have the artist try to avoid detailing the butt very much while the ladies have their costumes vacuum sealed to their cheeks. Is a little equality too much to ask for?

Attached: babstarrnightwing.jpg (564x1002, 88.17K)

Think about it logically. They bought Supersons because they want to have children!

Attached: 1581203371732.jpg (720x888, 97.22K)

I find that having nothing at all down there is more distracting than a minor indication that a dude has a penis. It's an uncanny effect. It would be nice to have anatomy that more accurately reflected what's going on down there when someone is in clothes that tight and stretchy, but as long as there's at least an indication you can handwave that maybe the guy is wearing compression shorts for support. Total flatness is very weird.

I wonder if there is any specific rational for the crotch flatness, do they think readers won't want to see it or does it make the artist uncomfortable?

I'm not the biggest fan of how he stylizes faces but Adam Warren deserves props for giving all his readers something to enjoy. He draws amazing bodies; Thug Boy has a great body, a great backside and a great bulge lol. He's also a well written character and a supportive boyfriend. Fred Perry is also pretty good at turning his whole cast into arm candy. Both are in my personal high-tier of artists, Adam Warren especially.

picture didn't upload for some reason

Attached: thhugboy.jpg (1019x1319, 169.49K)

There's a strong element of American prudishness involved. You can see it in other places too, like aversion to showing men's lower bodies in certain sports. I mentioned Ken dolls earlier in the thread, and there's a mildly interesting history behind whether and how much of an indication of a dick he should have. Even the toy company recognized that the ideal way to present him was not total flatness.

Bcuz in general, women have shit taste. Not trying to defend comics wherr men are drawn like they are on roids and almost emotionless. Comics were ment to be a male power fantasy. That's one extreme side.
The other extreme side is most modern women (fangirls) are fujo retards. Their power fantasy is to self insert into girly-looking fragile gay man and be protected by another less but still girly looking man. They absolutely hate the idea of man they like to be with a woman. They turn every character gay even if thise characters are straight. Most online manga and comics made by females are yaoi and gay.

Cape comics don't have any real stakes or consistency in character building. Interpersonal relationships in the narrative are essentially meaningless as they can change completely when a writer switch happens, and will often just be retconned or phased out for editorial convenience. This is a big part of what kills cape comics' appeal to everyone, but it does so especially for women.

Women make up a sizeable portion of western manga sales, though. So it's clearly not the medium, but rather the content.

Because somewhere in the 60-70s it became uncool to read comics. Comics were childish or nerdish.
And we know that women tend to run for social image, so they abondoned comics.
After the comic code the love and romance comics became tame and clashed with the sexual revolution and they kinda switched comics with fashion and gossip magazines.
Everything the female readers love in mangas were already there in american comics. But it only lasted till the comic code made them stale because they feared it would be seen as a sex comic.

Attached: Girl Romances.jpg (570x810, 155.87K)

Romance comics were always tame and rarely reflected reality since they were written by 50 year old men who just did it for a paycheck.

because angry smelly incel virgins demanding their attention

And inb4 argument over why the Simpsons shows Bart's personal areas at a disturbingly high rate.

I'm not buying the explanations in this thread. BnHA is stupid and shallow as fuck yet fujos make up half the fanbase. Naruto and Bleach are dumb as fuck yet female weebs obsess over it.

Attached: 1581177359688.png (2408x1200, 1.2M)

Because despite DC and Marvel trying to appeal to women with SJW/Feminist preaching and tumblr characters, what women actually want to read about is hot men being emotional/kissing/crying/fucking. Which is why they read manga, where they are catered to.

Comic artists don't like drawing chiseled, muscled men or giving them bulges because they get uncomfortable and think it will make them gay or else they're afraid that gays will read the comic and beat off to it. It's kind of like those artists who go out of their way to not show characters' bare feet because they hate foot fetishists.

Not really, they were much more like today soap operas or screwball comedies at that time.

Attached: RCO005.jpg (1048x1600, 739.26K)

There is a difference if you have comics that read like Greace or something from a christianity chanel!

Attached: RCO006.jpg (1040x1600, 749.87K)

Attached: RCO009.jpg (988x1600, 683.96K)

Attached: RCO010.jpg (1021x1600, 762.45K)

It extends to cartoons as well where male characters never have a bulge.

Attached: r8.jpg (720x404, 54.62K)

Attached: RCO011.jpg (1059x1600, 791.64K)

Attached: RCO012.jpg (1002x1600, 704.69K)

The original PP run was drawn by a female artist which may be why it got away with some of that.

Attached: RCO013.jpg (1041x1600, 733.67K)

Attached: RCO014.jpg (1043x1600, 709.97K)

Women can be pedos/lolicons too you know. I guess it may not be as obvious with them while if a male artist drew Katie in her panties, the editor would go "Heyheyhey that's kinda pervy dontcha think?"

Because women don't masturbate to drawings, you dummy.

I think that it is rather rare, since women tend for stronger men to provide a family.
While men tend to look for healthy fertility.
So men tend to recognize young womenmore as women recogize strenght more.

Indeed, they tend to masturbate to writting more.

The only time I see bulges is in obvious gay shit though.

didn't someone catalog Lisa panty shots in the Simpsons and found most of them were in episodes with a female animation director?

That's like saying you only see boobs in obvious lesbian shit. Bulges appeal to straight women like tits appeal to straight men.

>that's like saying you only see boobs in obvious lesbian shit.
No. Big bulges obsession is something fags have it's not that common in stuff drawn by women

So that's why her books smell so funny

No one here is specifying crazy eggplants hiding in dudes' jeans.

I just want some modest bulges dude, lighten up

Sure if you're talking about humongous bulges, but as someone who browses porn made by women and for women daily, I can tell you that yes, women absolutely like bulges. Not drawing or even hinting at the bulge in skintight clothes is just weird and makes the men in canon capeshit look less appealing to women.

I'm sorry but it's porn from trannies for trannies.

It's more like having no bulge is anatomically incorrect.

why is it so hard to accept that straight women like penis?

Sure they do, but only real ones, inside.

I know but most straight male artists don't like drawing them because they think it's gay.

Melissa de La cruz is not known for knowing batman, it is very easy for her to fuck it up, with the entire story being a shitshow

Damn you’re not like other girls are you wow you’re just like us woah

Attached: 8C52EF09-46AD-42C7-9A11-AAD9ECF33419.gif (320x240, 1.99M)

Sure. That's why they keep writing and reading about fictional dicks inside fictional men's asses on top of drawing them.
>Inb4 every single porn fanfic writer and reader is a tranny

Wrong. Real men are disgusting, so are their disgusting 3D penises.

>T. Carpet muncher

Women like good looking and idealized guys as much as men like big breasted and fit women, so visuals is definitely a part of it, but it's got overall more to do with the contents of the stories and dynamics of the characters.
Women latch onto family-oriented stories, where emotion and love and/or hate between characters is a prominent feature. Like anons above have mentioned, Bat-family is extremely popular with female readers, and when there is no 'family', they will create it themselves (Mprg, making up fictional ass-babies, making all of their favourite characters live together and act as a family unit etc.) The concept of family and deep intimate and vulnerable relationships between characters is just more alluring to female audiences than whatever else capeshit likes to focus on most of the time.

Women generally arent sex obsessed cumbrains. If the story isnt interesting, or doesnt involve a lot of romance, shirtless men alone arent going to keep their attention.

Forgot to add, romance novels are popular with women, in spite of only having one image of a sexy man on the cover, if any. Stories and characters matter. Comic books are mostly dudebro male power fantasies where fucking people up and fucking women are the main content.

Cos modern comics marketed towards girls are nothing more than feminist ego trip. If you view capeshit as "male power fantasy" you'll see that that male heroes always have hot girlfriends/ hot villainesses/ hot female side characters. Yet modern comics marketed towards girls are all about "Muh strong independent women who need no man". Why should the girls be interested?

You still need stories females are interested in. You don't want to appeal to fem-coomers, otherwise it'll always just be gay boys in dramatic romance. But most girls, at least in my experience, are into mystery shit and psychological stuff, as far as genres that fit into comics. I seldom see a girl into anything that prominently displays a muscular character, whether it's male or female.

Some of that might just be personal bias, but I strongly believe in the mystery thing. Whether it's comics, manga or tv, if a girl is into something that isn't romance or comedy, it has at least some element of mystery to it. It's why the most popular capeshit among women is Batman.

>mostly written and drawn by straight Japanese men
lmao

females can't read

Kimetsu has some muscular (by bishonen standarts) boys and it's popular among girls. I believe that genre has nothing to do with popularity among females, instead you have to include lots of character interractions and slice of life. I believe thats why Supersons were so popular, the whole book was basically about character dynamics.

>Kimetsu has some muscular (by bishonen standarts) boys and it's popular among girls.
Weren't those girls revealed to be middle-aged women in Nipland?

I mean, still female so it counts

Attached: Hashibira-Inosuke-Kimetsu-no-Yaiba-Anime-melo-5306137.png (811x1475, 1.58M)

>How Marvel wrote comics trying to cater to female movie fans

Opens up Spiderman issue touting new female superhero with Spider powers:

>"Silk is a Korean woman with spider powers just like Peter except with organic webbing. Also she cannot contain her pussy juices when around Peter and has an uncontrollable need to fuck him even to the point were she can barely fight while his cock is in the room."

Okay, opens up X-23, she's supposed to be female Wolverine, he's like the most popular character:

>"A borderline mentally stunted easily manipulated listless hobo serial killer who turns to prostitution to-"

Nevermind, lets just catch up on the backstory of Marvel's flagship female character Captain Marvel:

>"And then Carol spontaneously gives birth to a child after rapid pregnancy, the child grows to adult in days, she incest marries her child/husband, leaves the team, is hypno raped over and over, discarded after he's done raping her into a coma-"

Maybe the X-Men? Ton of good female characters:

>"The X-Men are off limits until we fix this Fox Pictures mess!"

How could a girl would not be wooed by this strategy?

I mean, there was a certain female writer who retconned the rape of a certain female character, and no one on Zig Forums liked it

Ay same, I'm a huge strangefag as well
I do gravitate to magic in general though, if Fate was written well more often I would be a way bigger fan of him, but between the constant passing of mantles among various reasons it's hard

>the readers find YA to be more optimistic, to have bigger emotions and more firsts
But this is more depressing than any adult fiction could ever hope to be, simply by virtue of recognizing that you will never have something like that in life.

Because for all its flaws, BNHA is good at getting you invested in the characters. Appealing designs that are immediately recognizable and expressive, combined with simple but clearly defined motivations and archetypes that have layers built up on top over time so that the major characters grow without having to overwhelm the reader with exposition about a class of 20 people all in one go.

Think Bakugo: he was actually not very as a character for the early issues of BNHA because he was just an asshole. But his popularity EXPLODED with the fanbase once we got a peek into his perspective later on and we realized why he acts the way he does and what he is really trying to accomplish. That took him from just a loud asshole bully to someone that has a clear inferiority complex and is trying to be what he thinks the greatest hero is, but his idea of what being a great hero means is so flawed that its just not working. Bakugo literally doesn't understand why people treat him like a joke.

Because america failed at comics

Attached: TheDeathOfAmericanComics.png (1160x921, 83.19K)

The sexy man on the cover is just the symbol for women that they know what they are buying.

>x-23 was used by a mysterious organisation, ran away after she didnt follow the rules and didnt wanted to kill people while posing as a child prostitute
That is called a tragic origin, women always can relate to her either as "men used me", "i have to prostitute myself for them" or "i ran away, trying to find a life and do everything for a living"
Dont tell me that women doesnt like X-23!

The point he is making is that the female character that are supposed to be appealing to women have spent decades being written as fap-bait for men and thats not going to draw in female readership.

And the point i am making is that many are not that fap-bait as he thinks.

Besides many "fap-bait" can be seen as tragic characters.
Silk, his the better cloned Peter, but thanks to some sort of romantic pheromones she has a liability. That is manga writing women gobble up.

Captain Marvel, she is that used by men and villians that she now rises up and defeat her patriarchal oppressors.
Another good point women could love her and even better related heavier to her.

The same with Spiderwoman or She-Hulk.
Or if you want to reverse it, not much different as other male jobber characters.

>into stuff that has either sexy male MCs, "grounded, realistic situations" as plots, and human relationships over the crazy comic-book fight stuff and superpowers seen in comics?
Most women will gravitate towards anything that expresses human relationships and manages to tie it into the story well, even if it's a fight-fest otherwise. Most superhero comics are unappealing because they don't have enough focus on human dynamics and just move on to one plot/fight scene/exposition after another. Visual sex appeal by itself is not an instant draw for women, especially given that women (from what I've seen) have more varied tastes in body shape then men do. Personalities, backstories, conflicts, emotional states are just as if not more important, and it's the combination of these factors that win you the female audience.
Personally I like older, burlier men, a lot like the kind superhero comics have. But most of them don't appeal to me because they're too rigid in appearance and limited in personality, more like moving statues than people. The plots of these stories, too focused on the immediate conflict, don't help them.
tldr, if you want to appeal to women write more expressive male characters and more strongly tie human dynamics into your plot regardless of genre.

Because the writing is shit and the only people reading are grognards with nothing better to do who refuse to get a new hobby.

Women, like all new fans of comics, pick up an issue of Squirrel Girl #1, realize they just spent five dollars on fifteen minutes of shit, and do something better with their time and money.

>Silk, his the better cloned Peter, but thanks to some sort of romantic pheromones she has a liability. That is manga writing women gobble up.

Details matter. The fact that you have to reduce things down to the extremely vague category of "has a liability" to sidestep around the glaring puerile wank that is "this female character is defined by how INCREDIBLY, SHOW-STOPPINGLY HORNY SHE GETS" really underscores how disingenuous you are being.

Fucking hell, even Darkness from Konosuba does this shit better. At least when Darkness gets too hot and bothered in the middle of a fight its explicitly shown as being weird and disturbing and played for comedy. And Darkness is given actual character development where her desire to be a defender of the people is genuine, but her weird fantasies keep getting in the way and she has to choose between the two.
Is it a one-note joke? Sure. But the key difference here is that Darkness is a joke character from a parody show, and Silk is something we are supposed to take seriously. You are supposed to laugh or cringe at Darkness's antics, but there isn't any way to read Silk's character other than as masturbation fodder.

You gotta make it relatable to that YA crowd. Rework Silks horniness into sperging out when attractive guys are around and you get half of the YA female protagonists defining character traits already.