Tentacle sex, anyone?

[drice6900]

Joey Q's take on this cover from today's interview:

 

NEWSARAMA: How about the Heroes for Hire #13? This has caused some controversy of its own, with some people likening it to a very unsavory recurring element in some more adult-themed manga?

 

JQ: This one I can answer to. First, I think people are reading way too much into that cover than was ever intended. I heard terms such as “tentacle rape” being thrown around when that in no way is what’s happening, nor does it happen in the book. Those tentacles are the arms of the Brood who appears in the issue and is a major story point, the Brood have tentacles, sorry about that.

 

Secondly, the concept for that cover, soup to nuts came from a female artist. Thirdly, not being a deep follower of manga, I have no idea what recurring theme people are referring to or concerned with. While I appreciate the sentiment and the feelings that some may have about this, I honestly feel that there is way too much being read into this cover.

 

Also, HFH is a book that features two strong, lead female protagonist who kick major *spoon*; somehow folks have forgotten to focus on that.

[Raphael]

i'd buy a copy of this book merely because of the controversy now

[Fan4Fan]

Joey Q's take on this cover from today's interview:

 

NEWSARAMA: How about the Heroes for Hire #13? This has caused some controversy of its own, with some people likening it to a very unsavory recurring element in some more adult-themed manga?

 

JQ: This one I can answer to. First, I think people are reading way too much into that cover than was ever intended. I heard terms such as “tentacle rape” being thrown around when that in no way is what’s happening, nor does it happen in the book. Those tentacles are the arms of the Brood who appears in the issue and is a major story point, the Brood have tentacles, sorry about that.

 

Secondly, the concept for that cover, soup to nuts came from a female artist. Thirdly, not being a deep follower of manga, I have no idea what recurring theme people are referring to or concerned with. While I appreciate the sentiment and the feelings that some may have about this, I honestly feel that there is way too much being read into this cover.

 

Also, HFH is a book that features two strong, lead female protagonist who kick major *spoon*; somehow folks have forgotten to focus on that.

 

Joe must either pay even less attention to manga than I do (since having the strong female leads depicted thusly is part of the point) or is having one put over on him by the female artist (similar to what comic artists have been done since the beginning... trying to see what they can get away with).

[drice6900]

Joey Q's take on this cover from today's interview:

 

NEWSARAMA: How about the Heroes for Hire #13? This has caused some controversy of its own, with some people likening it to a very unsavory recurring element in some more adult-themed manga?

 

JQ: This one I can answer to. First, I think people are reading way too much into that cover than was ever intended. I heard terms such as “tentacle rape” being thrown around when that in no way is what’s happening, nor does it happen in the book. Those tentacles are the arms of the Brood who appears in the issue and is a major story point, the Brood have tentacles, sorry about that.

 

Secondly, the concept for that cover, soup to nuts came from a female artist. Thirdly, not being a deep follower of manga, I have no idea what recurring theme people are referring to or concerned with. While I appreciate the sentiment and the feelings that some may have about this, I honestly feel that there is way too much being read into this cover.

 

Also, HFH is a book that features two strong, lead female protagonist who kick major *spoon*; somehow folks have forgotten to focus on that.

 

Joe must either pay even less attention to manga than I do (since having the strong female leads depicted thusly is part of the point) or is having one put over on him by the female artist (similar to what comic artists have been done since the beginning... trying to see what they can get away with).

 

Yeah, most of the responses on Newsarama have a similar opinion - he has his head in the sand on this one.

[Fan4Fan]

Lea Hernandez cleans up the cover here!

[drice6900]

Lea Hernandez cleans up the cover here!

 

Ooo, this is gonna be good - she slams Joey Q there a few times

[jordanscott]

i still don't see what all the fuss is about.

 

mild implications to a genre maybe not ready to be displayed right next to the all ages books, sure...but that's about it.

 

they statement somebody made in Lea's blog that the only people that would be disappointed if a different cover tone was used would by mysoginists is downright stupid.

 

still...don't read HFH so won't be getting it anyway.

[drice6900]

Can I just say that Joey Q is a *spoon*? There, I said it. From this week's interview following up Tentacle Rape:

 

NRAMA: Ahem…

 

So to quickly follow-up on last week’s pot-stirring topic…

 

Despite your (Marvel’s) intentions or lack thereof in regards to the now infamous Heroes for Hire #13 cover, which last week you made clear was not or intended to suggest “tentacle rape” [groan], when something like this is created that some people can and obviously have interrupted it as suggesting or too close for comfort to something like that, do you ever consider making a change in acknowledgement of those who are upset by it, even if it wasn’t your intention?

 

Is that too slippery a slope to go down, to give in to public protest even when it wasn’t intended to be what they’re protesting?

 

JQ: That’s a great question. With regards to it becoming a slippery slope, well, the answer is simply yes it can become a slippery slope if you allow it to. But before I get into that, let me reiterate what I said last week and try to clarify it. While I understand how some can see what they see and while I do acknowledge the validity of what they’re seeing based on this Hentai stuff, in no way was this our intent or the artist’s. I certainly wasn’t aware of any small sub genre of Manga porn, but obviously there are folks much more verse in Manga than I’ll ever be and I can certainly see why they would see what they see, so to them I apologize if it struck a chord that it was completely unintended to strike.

 

Now, back to the slippery slope question, let me tell you a story.

 

A few months back I received a few email complaints about our Young Avengers/Runaways Civil War crossover issue, our Marvel Team-Up series and about the death of Black Goliath in Civil War proper.

 

With respect to Black Goliath, I had some readers protest the fact that a black character was killed off. In Young Avengers/Runaways the complaint came in from some readers who were upset that some of the gay characters were put into torturous peril by the villain of the story. In Marvel Team-Up, Freedom Ring, the lead of the story, who happens to be gay, dies in the series. Let me also add that the majority of those complaints came in from black and gay readers respectfully.

 

Now here’s the way I see it. I’m Hispanic, and there is a serious lack of Hispanic representation in comics today, so I’d personally love to see more Hispanics as lead characters or heroes in the future. However, by me asking for and desiring that kind of inclusion into the world of mainstream comics, I have to accept all that comes with that. Heroes are placed into dangerous situations, sometimes heroes get killed, sometimes they get placed into torturous peril and yes, sometimes they get attacked by the Brood. For me to ask for inclusion and then to find exception to the things that come with that inclusion is then in effect me asking for special treatment and exclusion from the process.

 

Now, as Editor-in-Chief, if I took every single exception that every single person had, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, what have you, into account and decided to make sure I wasn’t upsetting everyone of those applecarts, I wouldn’t be able to ever publish another comic again. So, yes, it can be a slippery slope if you allow it to become that. If you allow it to become that then you have to literally look out for every single thing that a reader may read into any image that is produced or every word that is written and that can be a horrific way to try to be creative.

 

So once again, no tentacle rape was intended, implied, or even in our thought processes as we were doing this cover nor was it in the thought process of the artist who created the cover. If some have chosen to see it that way there is nothing I can do except to say that I’m sorry.

 

And yes, if that was indeed what we intended the imagery to be, then shame on us, but that is not what happened and certainly not the case.

[Dr_Neff]

Anime tentacle porn is WAY more popular then Marvel Comics, money shot or not (but we are evolving)

[Dr_Neff]

And yes, if that was indeed what we intended the imagery to be, then shame on us, but that is not what happened and certainly not the case.

 

I think I had a similar note sent out when the Aria Giovannia photo with me was in OS