Balham's Finest

Grimm Fairy Tales

They're producing it because people are buying it, so it's more an indictment of the consumer. I said this many years ago on here but I think some people buy these books and ogle cosplayers at cons because it's an 'innocent' and under the radar way of getting their soft porn fix. Ok, if we are going to psychoanalyze that somehow buying a J. Scott Campbell cover means you are trying to get your soft porn fix, then please analyze the mental issues of all the 30-50 year old men on here read comic books with men in tights trying to save the world. If you're genuinely interested in the answer to that question, you might want to read Supergods (Grant Morrison). I was speaking rhetorically. I completely agree about the covers that are nothing short of being straight porn but if we are going to generalize people we should really look at this hobby as a whole. You know, the whole throwing stones in a glass house analogy. Most people assume comic book readers are little nerds that have no life and sit in a basement all day trying to live out a fantasy since they have boring lives. In reality you have collectors that do or have fought in wars overseas, are police or firemen and live pretty eventful lives already proving that judgement wrong. I don't think anyone is making the argument that people buy GFT covers or JSC ones because they live boring lives though. Plenty of very interesting people read comics, as you say. And everybody likes to fantasise to a greater or lesser extent (about many different things, for that matter). I can't speak for anyone else, but to me, comics - like all fiction - are about escapism. Power fantasies of superheroes and whatever else are totally consistent with that. Sexual ones (and again, I'm including the whole spectrum of "sexual" when I say that) aren't - primarily because there are other, purpose-built, avenues for that kind of thing. That's the only point I'm trying to make. And that's why I at boob pockets. To me, that's nothing to do with what comics should be about. Others have a totally different view, and that's great - I'm not trying to impose mine on anyone.

Yes, but are comic books really the place for unattainable sexual fantasies? Isn't that what porn is for (and I include softcore, hardcore, men's magazines, the SI swimsuit special and everything inbetween in that)? I was under the impression that comics were supposed to be about great stories and art. It's not ALL pathetic or sad - but I have to confess I'm totally nonplussed by the GFT stuff. I've never heard anyone talk about the stories and a lot of the covers are frankly ridiculous. Sex Criminals contains hardcore and softcore porn, a completely unattainable sexual fantasy, and a great story and art. Now what? For what it's worth, the most provocative cover I own is probably Rifleman 10. The Zenescope stuff does nothing for me but if people like it they aren't sad. Maybe they just like it. That is a book specifically about sex. We are talking about the pervasiveness of female imagery throughout the industry as a whole. I didn't say people were sad if they like Zenescope books. My only point is that comics should - in my opinion - be focussed on story and art rather than tits and . Fair enough. And I agree actually. I just don't find the Society is Crumbling narrative to be very compelling. I think that narrative has been going on continuously for 6000 years and yet here we all are. We're on the same page I think. I am not saying that there is no place at all for sex and violence as commodities (to a point, obviously).

They're producing it because people are buying it, so it's more an indictment of the consumer. I said this many years ago on here but I think some people buy these books and ogle cosplayers at cons because it's an 'innocent' and under the radar way of getting their soft porn fix. Ok, if we are going to psychoanalyze that somehow buying a J. Scott Campbell cover means you are trying to get your soft porn fix, then please analyze the mental issues of all the 30-50 year old men on here read comic books with men in tights trying to save the world. If you're genuinely interested in the answer to that question, you might want to read Supergods (Grant Morrison).

Yes, but are comic books really the place for unattainable sexual fantasies? Isn't that what porn is for (and I include softcore, hardcore, men's magazines, the SI swimsuit special and everything inbetween in that)? I was under the impression that comics were supposed to be about great stories and art. It's not ALL pathetic or sad - but I have to confess I'm totally nonplussed by the GFT stuff. I've never heard anyone talk about the stories and a lot of the covers are frankly ridiculous. Sex Criminals contains hardcore and softcore porn, a completely unattainable sexual fantasy, and a great story and art. Now what? For what it's worth, the most provocative cover I own is probably Rifleman 10. The Zenescope stuff does nothing for me but if people like it they aren't sad. Maybe they just like it. That is a book specifically about sex. We are talking about the pervasiveness of female imagery throughout the industry as a whole. I didn't say people were sad if they like Zenescope books. My only point is that comics should - in my opinion - be focussed on story and art rather than tits and .

Yes, but are comic books really the place for unattainable sexual fantasies? Isn't that what porn is for (and I include softcore, hardcore, men's magazines, the SI swimsuit special and everything inbetween in that)? I was under the impression that comics were supposed to be about great stories and art. It's not ALL pathetic or sad - but I have to confess I'm totally nonplussed by the GFT stuff. I've never heard anyone talk about the stories and a lot of the covers are frankly ridiculous.

They're producing it because people are buying it, so it's more an indictment of the consumer. I said this many years ago on here but I think some people buy these books and ogle cosplayers at cons because it's an 'innocent' and under the radar way of getting their soft porn fix. I completely agree with this - although in the case of the more risque GFT covers, I'm not sure how under the radar it is...

I know this question wasn't directed at me, but here's my pet peeve with the types of cover you're talking about: boob pockets. What I mean by that is that female characters are typically drawn wearing costumes that are skintight over the whole of their boobs - costumes that would only actually look like that if they had made to measure built-in pockets for boobs to be tucked in. You never see clothes that look like that in real life, because they don't exist. Certainly the female characters in the movies don't appear like that. It's basically just an excuse to draw naked women and pretend they have clothes on. Now for the record, I'm not disgusted or outraged or anything else over these covers. If people want to publish them and buy them, then fine by me. But it does make me a bit every time I see them. Here's a random example of what I'm talking about. What do you think these outfits would look like on the hanger?

Surely everyone who's capable of posting a reply to your question would by definition be unaffected? I suppose you could argue that it would prevent people from browsing the FS forums and then becoming encouraged to register to buy/sell, but I'm not sure how many people do that - or at least how many people would register ONLY on the basis of those threads, and not because of any other, non-blocked part of the site.

Again - they are not saying he can't sell them, just that he can't post badly-censored pictures of them.

But they're not saying he can't sell the book. They just don't want badly-censored pictures of it up. I don't see that's a double standard at all.

Surely someone has to make that their avatar. Someone with red hair? Someone who has a link to the invention of the term "junk donkey"? If only there was a boardie who fit that profile.

For people who aren't interested in the PIF, sure. But for those who are, it's not a non-issue. Lots of people voted and there was quite a lot of discussion around the new rules.

- people offer books for free to the participants in the thread (first to claim gets them). There are no fixed rules about the value of what is offered - the person who claims then has to put up their own offer - in the past, some very generous offers have been claimed, with the boardie who claimed them following up with junk books (hence "junk donkey"). - this caused lots of resentment. Several people became disillusioned and stopped participating in the thread. - (very) recently, the thread rules were changed to try to mitigate this problem. 10 people voted against the rule change - the inference being that these are the "junk donkeys" who will now be prevented from scooping up the good offers and not reciprocating appropriately.

The 6-month waiting period was already agreed on, but due to not wanting to attempt pushing through too many new rules at once, it was put on the back-burner for now. But it will definitely be proposed in a forum poll soon. Good. Like I said, I support that. It'd be a lot more effective than 50 posts (or 100, or 250, for that matter).

Then why even have the stupid rule? Especially if someone can just be encouraged to take an hour and make 50 single word posts to get around it. If that wouldn't be considered circumventing the spirit of the rule...then I don't know what would....because it makes the rule absolutely worthless. And who said it was newsworthy? You seem to be making more drama out of this than anybody else is. Once it was discovered and pointed out, it was obvious what he was doing...and he was getting a few jabs for it. Plain and simple. The fact that he then went and requested a name change afterwards just made it suspicious. And as I said above...that could be a coincidence...but the timing was a bit odd. No intention to create drama - just offering a different viewpoint. One which does not appear to have gone down well. I agree it's obvious what he's doing. I don't agree that that means he's by definition a scammer/shill/junk donkey ALTHOUGH THAT IS POSSIBLE. I have no idea what the origin of the 50 post rule was. I do know that there's been a discussion on it recently - many people (including me) agree that it's not very effective. It may well be changed to a higher level and/or 6 months membership (or some other length of time). I'd support that.

Why in the world would you try to encourage people to rail against Kav? He may annoy some people with his posting style, but at least he's making an effort to contribute to the boards and engage in genuine conversation. You've been here long enough to know that nobody is "railing", "ragging" and "bashing" this guy and treating him like a scammer. But if someone is going to try to circumvent the spirit of a rule (without technically breaking it)...then they should expect to take a few jabs. Especially after 50 posts of "nice book". Beyonder took notice of this effort on the 26th at 8 p.m.....and by 9 a.m the next day, the name change had been requested and granted. Coincidence? Possibly...but a pretty strange one. Appearances to the contrary aside, I don't really feel strongly enough about this Cemetary guy to engage in a big debate over semantics, but just quickly: I don't know that what he's doing is circumventing the spirit of the PIF rules at all. It's not uncommon for new boardies to be encouraged to go elsewhere and up their post counts so that they can participate. "New boardie posts a load of rubbish and changes his name" is hardly newsworthy, is it? Forgive me if I read the earlier comments as people thinking they were cleverly unearthing some kind of scam. Oh, and on Kav - I was (flippantly) encouraging people to rage against inconsequential posts, not against him in particular. Although I will confess to being annoyed by the frequency of his posts, if not the style. New member signs up and bumps 25 marketplace threads with the same "amazing books" comment. Changes name and does the exact same thing again. Are you really jumping in to defend this behaviour? Really? Good lord. Read my posts and then ask yourself if I am defending his behaviour. He hasn't even broken any rule - there's nothing to defend! All I was trying to say is that it's not DEFINITELY evidence of foul play or bad intentions on his part. Look, he may well come over to the PIF thread, take a nice offer and junk the place up - in which case you can pat yourself on the back. Until something like that happens, I just ask myself whether it's really worth commenting on. Clearly a lot of people feel like it is. Fine - like I said, I really don't feel that strongly about it. Go to town. If your concern is that you think the posting requirement should be raised for the PIF thread (or changed to a membership duration, as joe suggested), then there's a discussion thread where that point could easily and productively be made.

Why in the world would you try to encourage people to rail against Kav? He may annoy some people with his posting style, but at least he's making an effort to contribute to the boards and engage in genuine conversation. You've been here long enough to know that nobody is "railing", "ragging" and "bashing" this guy and treating him like a scammer. But if someone is going to try to circumvent the spirit of a rule (without technically breaking it)...then they should expect to take a few jabs. Especially after 50 posts of "nice book". Beyonder took notice of this effort on the 26th at 8 p.m.....and by 9 a.m the next day, the name change had been requested and granted. Coincidence? Possibly...but a pretty strange one. Appearances to the contrary aside, I don't really feel strongly enough about this Cemetary guy to engage in a big debate over semantics, but just quickly: I don't know that what he's doing is circumventing the spirit of the PIF rules at all. It's not uncommon for new boardies to be encouraged to go elsewhere and up their post counts so that they can participate. "New boardie posts a load of rubbish and changes his name" is hardly newsworthy, is it? Forgive me if I read the earlier comments as people thinking they were cleverly unearthing some kind of scam. Oh, and on Kav - I was (flippantly) encouraging people to rage against inconsequential posts, not against him in particular. Although I will confess to being annoyed by the frequency of his posts, if not the style.

We'll see. The new rules should help to mitigate this a bit though.

you do realize he has already changed his name once, and all signs point to him being a shill So what if he changed his name? Lots of people do that just after joining the boards. Like I said, if he actually does something wrong, or tries to, then by all means bash away.

Why are people ragging on this guy? He wants to get to 50 posts - it's not like he's hiding it. If he's posting inane things in order to do so, that puts him in company with about 99% of the boardies here. You're acting like he's some kind of scammer. He wants to participate in the PIF thread, and he knows what the requirements are. Look, if he ends up joining in and junk-donkeying up the joint then by all means bash him. Otherwise, give it a rest. If you really want to rail against inconsequential posts, go and stalk Kav or something.

Interesting statement. Is there really that much dip in your attention span between 1 month and 2 months, for example? What about 1 month and 6 weeks. I mean, can you imagine a popular TV series being on monthly, instead of weekly? That would never fly - people would claim to not have the attention span. Just makes me wonder what the magic is in the 1 month timeframe for comics - seems a bit arbitrary. i.e. if we can manage 1 month anyway, then why not longer? I think it comes down to habits. I've been reading these things over 40 years and I've come to expect monthly. Spoiled ? Maybe so, but I'm surely a creature of habit. I think that's probably it. I guess the habit is stronger for some than others. I can wait years for some of my favourite authors' new novels, and it doesn't diminish my enjoyment at all. Same for films, I guess. But just to play devil's advocate, isn't Planetary one of your favourite series? How did you cope with the schedule on that? The reason I ask is that I think density of the writing matters a lot - if there's more to keep you going/to think about, you can wait longer - maybe you read the book three or four times in between issues. But you look at a book like Walking Dead and it's so light (imo) that it's sometimes hard not to feel a little ripped off after you've spent 3 minutes reading an issue. If that book got delayed I would expect it to plummet in poularity.

Interesting statement. Is there really that much dip in your attention span between 1 month and 2 months, for example? What about 1 month and 6 weeks. I mean, can you imagine a popular TV series being on monthly, instead of weekly? That would never fly - people would claim to not have the attention span. Just makes me wonder what the magic is in the 1 month timeframe for comics - seems a bit arbitrary. i.e. if we can manage 1 month anyway, then why not longer?