[Eric Johnson]

Shade from Deviantart is doing a Kickstarter for a self-published comic book called “Sinsationals”.

Of interest to those on this forum, the heroines include a Wonder Woman Homage character, a super-muscular woman, and a giantess.

Kickstarter page with some cool promo art is here:
Sinsationals Kickstarter

[TC2]

Wow, I totally wanted to support this project. Nothing like seeing a gammazon, but…

1.) These characters look to be too much like rip offs. There’s not an ounce of originality in these characters.

2.) For some reason this feels very demeaning for women. It looks like gratuitous fan service, and I’m not really into women being treated as sex objects.

3.) Love the Hulk woman, but that one panel transformation was disappointing.

I don’t know, it’d be great to have a muscular female character, but the idea behind it seems very childish and almost porn related. I dunno, maybe I’m just being a prude.

[Eric Johnson]

1.) These characters look to be too much like rip offs. There’s not an ounce of originality in these characters.

2.) For some reason this feels very demeaning for women. It looks like gratuitous fan service, and I’m not really into women being treated as sex objects.

Valid points, and don’t think this comic will be for everyone, but I would say:

1) I think the characters are meant to be homages and archetypes. I think there’s a difference between that and a rip-off. In Astro City comic books, Samaritan is basically Superman with the serial numbers filed off, but he’s an variation on the theme, not a rip-off. Not saying this is going to be Astro City level quality of course, but it’s possible to do interesting things with characters that fit well known models.

2) I think it’s more supposed to be a deconstruction of the fanservice archetypes. As I understood it from Shade’s previous journal posts, all the main characters are supposed to be super-powered celebrities in that world to some degree because they fit the fetishes and fantasies they represent. Then they are called upon to save the world from a serious menace.

Admittedly, that could go either way. It could degenerate into low-brow humor and porn-y fanservice. Or it could have fun with the idea, and be sexy while showing there’s actual character development behind the fetish-serving archetypes the characters first appear as.

I think it will come down to how well it is written.

Personally, I can’t point any fingers if a comic writer for using a fetish as a starting point. My claim to fame over at AC comics is mostly doing stories featuring Marla “Humonga” Allison, who was created by Bill Black as a pretty one-dimensional character (“prima donna blonde starlet”) with giantess powers. I’ve tried to flesh out the character beyond the initial concept, and tried to tell good stories, even if the initial character was entirely based on sex appeal.

I have no idea how good a writer Shade is, or even if he tastes are such that he aspires to more than fanservice with this project. But it seems like he wants to play with and have fun with the idea behind these “fetish archetypes”, and that has potential. Whether he can deliver on that potential, remains to be seen.

[zimbra1]

> 1.) These characters look to be too much like rip offs. There’s not an ounce of originality in these characters.

He wouldn’t be the first person on this board to carry on the trope. Hopefully he won’t be the last. At the very least, the art looks legit.

[TC2]

Yes the art looks very legit. I’m sure he’ll hit his goal, and I’ll be glad to see a gammazon on paper. I just hope it doesn’t degrade women’s place in society. DC does enough of that already.

[Eric Johnson]

2.) For some reason this feels very demeaning for women. It looks like gratuitous fan service, and I’m not really into women being treated as sex objects.

on the subject of this concern, here’s a comment from Shade that he posted on Deviant Art

>>Part of the conceit of the title, though, will be that the characters are underestimated.
>>They’ll end up being more than just objects. The goal is to make them into characters
>> readers will care about and not just leer at. lol

Which of course, isn’t to say that some readers wouldn’t find the title offensive, because the characters *are* based on “fetish” archetypes, and start out in the fictional world as underestimated due to their sex appeal. But it does appear that the writer / artist is at least aiming to have there be something more than fanservice, but with fanservice as a starting point.

10 days left, for those thinking of supporting the Kickstarter.

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