http://www.toplessrobot.com/2013/09/dc_wants_a_fan_to_draw_a_page_of_harley_quinn_0.ph
You know, I didn’t start this page to be about DC hate. I swear. There may be a lot happening I don’t like, but I also have a strong love for a lot of things this company and things it’s creators have done. Lately, lines have been crossed that border on pure sickness and stupidity. I have defended DC against the charge of anti-gayness and homophobia. Still do, in fact. However, I can’t say a peep against the charge of misogyny. In searching for images on this site, I see things that make me cock my head like a dog hearing a squeaky toy for the first time. T&A exponential, all about comic-women. I can’t help but see this as someone’s deciding factor in determining what fans want. I don’t take issue with those images as fantasy fare. We Americans, as Louis CK puts it, have to jack off on everything, so it’s only to be expected, I guess. What does bother me is the idea of that bleeding onto and all over our comics. This concept has been taken to the hilt. It’s too damned obvious, to the point of almost comical absurdity. I find myself on boards making any statement about the direction the company and I am immediately met with vitriol . How can these folks not own up to this demon? Have you read Catwoman? Slutty-ness exponential. Wonder Woman is now becoming an arm-piece for Superman and usually looks more like a cosplayer than the actual con-attendees. Amanda Waller now looks like Halle Barry. It’s rampant, and still not acknowledged by the lovers of the newer canon. Myopia is a odd beast in and of itself. The character that sums up the current and pervasive attitude towards women is Harley Quinn, a beloved multi-media figure who has gone down a nonplussing road in these last two years, and here very recently to a startling degree.
Harley stole the show from day one. She came onto Batman: The Animated Series like a crazy Fury. The Joker’s obsessively attracted and thoroughly insane girl sidekick, with a great comedic voice provided by character inspiration Arleen Sorkin. Within a half year, Harley palled up with Poison Ivy and it turned fandom on it’s ear. In the second season, more episodes focused on her, and the element of comedy rose on the program. DC released a one-shot by series writer Paul Dini with art by cartoonist Bruce Timm called “Mad Love”, wherein we learn that Harley is actually former Arkham Asylum psychologist Harleen Quinzel, who decided to make a name for herself by writing an exposee on her patient. Through his manipulation, this student who apparently flirted her way to a Masters Degree becomes his number one fan and fashions a new identity to help out her “puddin'” and to hopefully become Mrs. J. We also see the abusive and scary side of the relationship and how his manipulation still dictates their dealings with each other. We root for Harley, and want her to get out and give up her criminal life, but we also don’t want her to go away. Next thing you know, Harley arrives in the DC Universe proper and lands her own title. I feel that Karl Kesel and Terry Dotson’s run with her title is exemplary. It’s all about Harley deciding that her union with her beloved could only result in her being murdered, so she strikes out on her own. Kesel writes into her mythos an eye-opening new detail and modus operandi. As a student, Harleen has a serious love interest, and the two of them are unknowingly spiked by a demented professor with the deadly smile-and-death inducing Joker venom as a twisted experiment. The effect is a bizarre dementia, and ends up with her man dead from a bullet; a silhouetted scene leaves us with the mystery of who of the two of them pulled the trigger. We also see through her eyes that Harley’s world is a cartoon and bears no culpable sense of right or wrong, which explains her jubilant and twisted demeanor. Her new reason for criminal activity is to put people in jeopardizing scenarios to make them fall in love and the result is demented and often hysterical. Of course, the next writer shoves Karl’s take down in the sinkhole where it remains unearthed. From there, she made it back to the small screen in “The Batman”, and went to another comic series, Gotham City Sirens, an overlooked jewel featuring Poison Ivy and Catwoman as her serendipitous team-mates. Then came the happy-fest known as The New 52.
Suicide Squad #1 introduces us to a totally new, totally different, and totally flabbergasting character named Harley Quinn. She no longer wears her jester-togs (which covered her entire body, yet she was still very sensual and sexy, a testament to talented artists/writers), but instead has strange red and black hair, an undeniably whorish and a corset-topped and skimpy outfit with a curious make up job. She’s a mean-spirited and totally psychopathic slut who has none of the sweetness and misguided nature of the original version. A new origin story is plastered in, with the Joker throwing Harley into the Ace Chemical vat he crawled out of as a clown, which was as necessary as knee-pads on Wonder Woman. I stuck with the Squad for five issues out of genuine morbid curiosity about her and the new sexed up Amanda Waller, and had to bail from the apoplexy. It’s been announced that Amanda Connor, Justin Gray, and Jimmy Palmiotti will be doing a new Harley book with a new Derby-girl inspired look. Hope springs eternal, but lately it’s a dried-out reality in the often blood-splattered and angry whorehouse of DC Creative. Then, there’s the Harley drawing contest. Check out the above link for details. It’s about suicide and nudity. Well, of course it is. I have no problem with her being crazy or sexy- that’s her to a perfect T. But naked and suicidal? You are a company that’s already on the defensive about misogyny. Are YOU insane, DC? How did you THINK this was going to go over? Any spite you incur is deserved for the reality vacuum you’ve sucked yourselves into. If you’re already accused by a lot of folks for negative depictions of women, what PR genius slept through this one?? You signed off on it, suffer the consequences. What troubles me even deeper is the juxtaposition of what you are telling us about female readers.
The stated reason I’ve seen in print is that the impetus for the Superman/Wonder Woman title is the idea that a superhuman romance title is to appeal to a female audience. First of all, are you telling me that’s still in your goal plan? Damn strange roads you’re taking to get there, DC. Second, what IS your stance on romance, anyway? Harley was about fun and love. Mad fun and crazy love, but nonetheless the appeal was the zany take on all of the above. We’ve seen Harl run from a situation when it was life threatening, and take up a new brand of chaos in previous tropes. Who thought this mutation was something anyone wanted? If you wanted romance for ‘the chick market’, why is Hawkman single? Why are Ralph and Sue Dibney dead? Why isn’t the Flash dating Iris? There are SO many mixed messages abounding the issues of love, marriage, and such it’s like a dumping of two jigsaw puzzles on the same table.
So, love, fun, and character essences are now on the file 13 list. As I said earlier, I don’t want this to become a hater blog about the classic company of comics. Like the Portishead (perfect Harley-band IMO) song says “Give Me A Reason To Love You…”. I’m running out of those, myself. Save Harley Quinn!
I WOULD MAD LOVE IT IF YOU’D LEAVE COMMENTS/ARGUMENTS/FEEDBACK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION, AND TAKE THE HANDY LITTLE POLL BELOW, PUDDIN’!
Saving Wonder Woman 