The Dreamwidth Journal of zdashamber

Eh, sounds gross either way. It would be a real test of writing ability to write a reversal, though, because people would immediately be saying "Hey! What's this!"

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badgerbag.livejournal.com

Yeah -it's one of the things that A Brother's Price - that novel I keep raving about - did really well. They made a world where men getting raped by women is really scary and has serious personal/social consequences for the men, very believably. I think that men who read this book might even *get the idea* on some gut level.

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Sorry. Moore got my vote. I still haven't read LoXG or any of Moore's recent stuff (anything from the last decade), but as much as I love Neil Gaiman's stuff, The Watchmen and V for Vendetta are my two favorite graphic novels ever.

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::shrug:: Seems to me that Moore writes good stories, while Gaiman creates mythologies. I haven't heard of many people whose life philosophies have changed after reading Moore stuff; maybe I just run in different circles.

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I agree that Gaiman is more about Mythology-building (or more accurately, playing with existing myths) and its for that reason that he would easily be in my top five (since I'm a huge Mythology buff) but I just enjoy Moore's writing more. I've never known anyone to change their life philosophies over either writer (and I know a lot of huge Gaiman fans), but V for Vendetta changed my opinion of what comics could be. The Sandman stuff, while excellent, came in after Moore's run on Swamp Thing or Jamie Delano's Hellblazer, so it wasn't as groundbreaking. That's why Gaiman is a (close) second for me.

Besides, Moore also wrote my favorite Superman story ever: "For the Man Who Has Everything." The man may have become famous by creating the modern adult horror comic and deconstructing the superhero genre in Watchmen, but he also can write a damn good traditional superhero story.

It stinks that they put Gaiman in the same bracket as Moore, since the final round should have been Gaiman vs Moore....they are both easily far better writers than Bendis or Miller in the other bracket.

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colomon.livejournal.com

Boy, what a tough call. Moore wrote some great stuff, but it was all twenty years ago, and he's been lazily getting by on his rep ever since. Gaiman wrote more great stuff, more recently, but perhaps not quite as great. Well, differently great, anyway. And now he's mostly given up writing comics. Though if we're comparing output in the last five years, I enjoyed 1602 far more than anything I've seen from Moore.

I'm tempted to vote against Moore merely on the basis of the complete travesty of what DC did to V for Vendetta's art, but not certain it was his fault. (The art was designed to be printed on larger paper, and in black and white, and it looks amazingly better in that format.)

As for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I thought the first volume was a lot of fun, though I never liked the art, and in retrospect, it seems like ultra-anal fanfic. The second volume just plain sucked. I liked Top Ten far more than either. (Though I think that had a lot to do with Zander Cannon's art.)

Really, if it came right down to it, I think I'd be rather inclined to vote for Matt Wagner. (Who of course isn't a choice, as far as I can see.) In some hard to put my finger on way, his stuff feels like it is essentially "comic book", reveling in the medium and exploring it, whereas Moore and Gaiman feel like literary writers who decided to work in comic book form. I love Watchmen and Sandman, but I'm more likely to reread Mage and Grendel/Batman. (Most likely to reread Gaiman's text work, but that doesn't count!)

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If it came down to art, I'd be in a bit of a pickle. The art for The Kindly Ones, perhaps the most important book of the Sandman arc, was eye-gratingly bad.

Has any of Wagner's stuff been collected into books you'd recommend I buy?

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colomon.livejournal.com

Yeah, art is one area where Moore has been stunningly lucky, or something -- he has gotten so many great artists to work with. Whereas DC seemed to feel they could throw anyway at Sandman and it would do fine because of the writing.

Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered is now available in one volume, and Amazon actually has the paperback version for under $20, which is quite a steal. The sequel collection ("The Hero Defined") is only out in hardcover so far. The first one is widely considered a classic -- a bit dated and talky now, but great art and story. The second was considered a letdown by many people, I think, and I guess I can see what they don't like, but I totally disagree -- thought it was great, and am eagerly awaiting volume 3.

I've got no clue what the reprint status is one the various Grendel volumes now. My favorite arcs are the original "Devil by the Deed" (which ran in the back of the original issues of Mage), #13-15 of the series ("The Devil Inside", maybe?), and #16-18 of the series (which featured two police stories, each told in a highly stylized manor -- the first with 25 panels to every page!).

Batman/Grendel is probably my favorite, though -- it's the classic original Grendel, a great take on Batman, and wonderfully contrasts the two characters who are much alike, despite Grendel's being a villian. It's a cool story (though perhaps the end is a touch weak) but the way he tells it is just a tour-de-force of graphic storytelling. Without being all arty, mind you. It's all the sort of stuff he can do because he is the writer and the artist. (There was a second Batman/Grendel story which I thought was crap, though. Think it was called "Batman/Grendel II" or something like that.)

Gotta run, work calls.

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Definately check out Mage: The Hero Discovered, Madeline. It's a fantastic comic.

Like Colomon, I would be torn if I had to judge on current stuff. I haven't even been interested enough to pick up Moore's current stuff and I personally thought 1602 was a big let-down. If forced to choose a favorite writer based on the last 5 years, I'd probably go with Grant Morrison as my #1 favorite.

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I'm honestly torn like

colomon. Personally: I loved League, and V for Vendetta and Watchmen. I've read them all a couple times and can read them again. Ditto Sandman. Some of his newer stuff I'm not as overly familiar with. I cannot off-hand say, "Was there rape in those books?" I'm just not as sensitive perhaps? There was a sordid sort of relationship in the early parts of Promethea. And a google turns up a " graphic depiction of 'the Rape of Celine', an ancient Greek myth." that was blocked from inclusion in Promethea by DC. I can't think of anything like it in Top Ten or Supreme. I haven't read his Tom Strong stuff at all, though.

On the flip side, in the second League: Hyde rapes the Invisible Man, in case you were wanting a bit of justice.

Since, as a male, I'm less vulnerable and hence less sensitive to rape as a topic, I checked in with my wife. Here are some points that came out of that conversation. I'd like to add the disclaimer that these bulletted items are primarily comments by my wife, and not by me. I don't want to get lynched because I'm a white male "defending rape." I just thought I'd share her comments as well since I found them interesting and she wasn't likely to post herself.

- She hadn't really brought undue attention to the instances of rape in Moore's work. After some thought, she opined that the rape serves as something of a litmus test for the setting. It establishes the rules of how fucked up the universe is. What sort of world do you live in where the police will gang rape you? What sort of person is the Invisible Man? Plus, there's that note of realism: If you turn 100 men invisible, what will they do? Who will be well behaved? Who will take advantage of their power? They might not go on a rape spree, but how many would take a tour of a local locker room? (The wife further commented that she would definitely get into some trouble if she was invisible, but didn't specify what sort... But I did marry an evil woman, so...)

- She also pointed out that it's not exactly clear if Laurie in Watchmen is the child of rape. While reading of the attempted rape of her mother by the Comedian definitely influenced the type of person she was to become, it also comes out later that her mother had consensual relations with her attacker after the attempted rape. It's a startlingly complex relationship for a comic book.

- Talking of Gaiman, we recalled that rape is a pretty heavy theme in Sandman. In addition to a couple of story arcs (Dream's aggressive
"courtship" of Nada and the artist's repeated rape of the muse, Calliope), the entire major storyline is based on rape: Desire rapes one of the sleeping sickness victims while Dream is imprisoned, so that Dream will later be forced to kill family. It doesn't work out the way Desire planned, but it is the main storyline that threads its way through the series. Heck, it occurs to me now that in the first collection of Sandman Dr. Destiny mentally compells a diner full of people to have sex with each other. There may be others that I've forgotten. It's been years since I read the entire run.

Really, though, Moore and Gaiman have both done a lot of work that I haven't read. Moore has written everything from critically acclaimed works on the history of same-sex relationships to Swamp Thing. Gaiman's written a lot of weird "who the hell has ever read this" comic books plus several novels. None of which I've read. But from what I've read: rape is not an uncommon theme in either of their works. If you want to see Moore to go down because he uses rape in his stories, then Gaiman isn't really a superior choice.

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Ah, but the distinction I'm drawing is that Moore's female characters all exist in relation to rape. I can't think of a single female character in his books who isn't defined at some point by rape--and it's almost always not even how she's reacting, but how the males around her react to rape of women.

Gaiman has many female characters who are just as good as male characters, and his male characters suffer just about as much as his female characters (the kids in the boarding school when hell opens up? Eesh). Being female in Gaiman's worlds is not the same as being rapebait. I agree with your wife that rape can be a part of a story, demonstrating character. I insist that females are more than that, though.

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[D'oh. Somehow I wasn't logged in. Could you delete my previous post.]

I can see the distinction, but I'm not sure if I necessarily see it in Moore. I'll try to keep it in mind next time I give a read through. I can think of characters that Moore has written that have been male and suffered. V is arguably male. (As much as you can say anything certain about V.) He spent time in a concentration camp and had medical experiments done on him. Did he suffer less than Evey? In the second League series, Hyde rapes, maims and (if I remember correctly) eats the Invisible Man. Did he suffer more or less than Mina?

Or you can go to one of his other works. Supreme? No main female characters raped or affected by rape. (Though there are several jokes about the role of women in Silver Age comics.) I think the only rape that is mentioned in Supreme is when they go to the place where past incarnations of Supreme and his affiliated characters go when the world is "revised." There they meet the "tragic 80s" version of Supreme's love interest, who I think was raped. The whole thing intended as a jab at the 80s and how they tried to make things edgier. Promethea? It's been a while since I've read it, but again I'm not coming up with any characters defined by rape. Some lurid and bizarre sexual situations? Some unreasonable power balances between characters sexually involved? Yeah. But I'm not remembering any sexual assault. (Someone may pop up and prove me wrong. I don't remember Promethea particularly well, and all sorts of weird stuff happened.)

I will agree that I think there's a fine line between tasteful use of sexual situations (consensual or otherwise), and Moore's taste is sometimes a bit more questionable. Moore clearly goes for challenging and the gritty more while Gaiman plays much more in the realm of the mythic. But Moore's been writing comics for 30 years and it's hard to broadly classify all his women as being nothing more than "rapebait."

I know from experience that my wife is not callous to rape (I won't go into partciulars here), so I'm wondering how much of this is just difference of interpretation.

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I was thinking about the rape thing and it occurs to me that:

1) I never defined Silk Spectre (of Watchmen) by the fact that she was a product of a rape. It never affected my view of her character at all. The affect this had on the story was to show just how screwed up the heroes were and in particular, The Comedian. A big point of The Watchmen is asking "what kind of a person puts on a costume and fights crime?" and in Watchmen, the answer was mainly people who are screwed up. Silk Spectre is one of the truly strong characters in Watchmen and I though Moore did a good job of writing her as one of the truly sane people in an insane world.

2) Evey almost getting raped at the beginning of V for Vendetta sets up the fact that the world is screwed up and these horrible people have been given an insane amount of power. While this does start the story off with Evey as a victim, she grows so much stronger by the end of the story and (BIG SPOILERS!!!) replaces V in the end.

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But for both 1 and 2, it goes back to my question: why does he always go for the rape to demonstrate badness? Why's his range so small?

The thing that I haven't obvertly brought up yet is that it seems to me is that the whole rape thing is just a symptom of how his female characters are treated. So far as I recall, Silk Spectre does nothing but provide Dr. Manhattan with someone to talk to. Ditto Evey, who gets manipulated and used pretty much the whole book long. And Mina's effective actions end as soon as the League is together.

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(Just checking to see how the discussion had proceeded.)

The wife and I chatted more about the subject over dinner on Tuesday, but I don't think I could adequately convey her thoughts. If it's something you're interested in discussing with her about, you should talk to her at the con. She's definitely a well-read individual, English degree and all that. And she's pretty savvy to feminist issues. I would not presume to try and distill her knowledge into a post.

I'm responding to this particular item because it brought to mind a question: How would express the awfulness in the world differently? Take "VfV" for example: What would you do to truly express the corruption of the police in a couple of pages of comic book?

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aiyume.livejournal.com

For me, this is a really tough call. Frankly, I'm not sure that there would be a "Neil Gaiman" as we know him without Alan Moore's work.

I must confess I have not read more than one issue of LXG, but I do have some opinions on Moore's other work. The attempted rape of Evey at the beginning of V for Vendetta not only sets up her character's starting point at the beginning of the book, but also shows in three short pages exactly how corrupt the world is. That these are the equivalent of FBI thraetening her shows how bad Britain has become.

Both she and Abby (from Swamp Thing) start out weak and gain strength through their experiences. From Hell was based on a history of Jack the Ripper, so I'm not sure that it's fair to take it as entirely fictional piece, though certainly his choice to work with it says something.

Ah, but the distinction I'm drawing is that Moore's female characters all exist in relation to rape. I can't think of a single female character in his books who isn't defined at some point by rape--and it's almost always not even how she's reacting, but how the males around her react to rape of women.

You list only two works, then say that the female characters all exist in relation to rape. I'm not sure that's fair. If someone only read volumes 2 and 3 of Sandman, one might come to the same conclusion. (I could argue that Raina's(?) transformation into Element Girl is a rape of sorts, even if it's not sexual.)

I'm not saying that you would or should enjoy all of Alan Moore's work or that you even need to read more of it to "give him a chance." Rape exists in the real world, and to hide it away in fiction seems counterproductive. But I'll close with a quote from this discussion in the Sequential Art forums:

Moore obviously uses sex a lot in his stories, but I find that he shows mutually loving and respectful relationships in the most positive light possible (witness Abby & Alec in SWAMP THING, for example) and violence towards women in the most negative light possible (those that commit rape in his comics are NOT heroes, they are the worst kind of savages).

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You list only two works, then say that the female characters all exist in relation to rape. I'm not sure that's fair.

I listed the females from three of his books, the three that so far as I know are most acclaimed. Swamp Thing may edge LXG out, but from what you write, it sounds like it fits the pattern.

Rape exists in the real world, and to hide it away in fiction seems counterproductive.

I'm disappointed... I thought I'd covered this. In fact, you quoted the passage where I covered it.

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gtpooh.livejournal.com

I'm not taking sides in this issue. I think that they both do a wonderful job and have enjoyed everything I've read by both of them. But I have three thoughts:

I think it is important to keep a writer in his/her political and historical context. Moore was writing when women were just starting to really flex their power. . .to demand equality. His pov of going to be as different from Gaiman's as yours is from mine about some things. 20 something women take for granted things that women my age had to fight for. , younger men behave differently toward women than men my age. Why do you think a married a younger man? :)
As many as 50% of all women endure rape. It is one of the shames of our society. Any author who writes social commentary who fails to address this fails. It's not like he was writing about it to titilate. He writes to horrify. Rape is horrible.
A woman IS defined by rape. Even as full of opportunities to grow as my life has been, it has been the violation by men I trusted that has been the most difficult. How a woman survives and recovers or does not recover from rape IS who she is.

Just a few thoughts from an old woman. :)

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