OK, hanging isn’t actually in this but I was on a role with the “H’s.
It’s like Christmas!
DC’s just given me so much to talk about this week, haven’t they? Let’s start with Harleen Quinzell. DC, for whatever reason since they’re losing more writers than artists, decided to have an art contest, where the winner would have their page show up in an issue of a Harley Quinn comic. That’s cool and all and if my art skills were more decent I’d have tried it…at least until I read what the scene was.
Twitter was all abuzz because one panel you had to draw featured Harley naked in a bathtub, which is sadly nothing new for DC. But I looked at it a bit more and came to this realization:
Because today’s DC is too serious to do suicide humor.
Here’s the actual contest page, from DC’s site”
PAGE 15
4 panels
PANEL 1
Harley is on top of a building, holding a large DETACHED cellphone tower in her hands as lightning is striking just about everywhere except her tower. She is looking at us like she cannot believe what she is doing. Beside herself. Not happy.PANEL 2
Harley is sitting in an alligator pond, on a little island with a suit of raw chicken on, rolling her eyes like once again, she cannot believe where she has found herself. We see the alligators ignoring her.PANEL 3
Harley is sitting in an open whale mouth, tickling the inside of the whale’s mouth with a feather. She is ecstatic and happy, like this is the most fun ever.PANEL 4
Harley sitting naked in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before the inevitable death. Her expression is one of “oh well, guess that’s it for me” and she has resigned herself to the moment that is going to happen.
Four panels? What is this, a mini-comic? Jake & Leon is four panels, but that’s a gag strip webcomic. Captain PSA has more panels per page and that’s also a gag strip webcomic, although not done as often. And the page is four panels long, not that you do four panels of the page according to this script. What the heck? Sorry, minor art nerd moment.
Now don’t get me wrong. Suicide humor can be funny. Go watch uncensored Looney Tunes or Woody Woodpecker shorts, or that scene in Groundhog Day. It’s a touchy subject to be sure but it’s not completely impossible. And I’ll post a comment by the writer that puts it into context. But really that was the problem, the lack of context. Here’s what writer Jimmy Palmiotti said on Facebook as posted by Robot 6:
That the tryout Harley Quinn page went out without an overall description of tone and dialogue is all my fault,” he wrote this morning on his Facebook page. “I should have put it clearly in the description that it was supposed to be a dream sequence with Amanda [Conner] and I talking to Harley and giving her a hard time. I should have also mentioned we were thinking a Mad magazine/Looney Tunes approach was what we were looking for. We thought it was obvious with the whale and chicken suit, and so on, but learned it was not. I am sorry for those who took offense, our intentions were always to make this a fun and silly book that broke the 4th wall, and head into issue 1 with a ongoing story/adventure that is a lot like the past Powergirl series we did. I hope all the people thinking the worst of us can now understand that insulting or making fun of any kind was never our intention. I also hope that they can all stop blaming DC Comics for this since It was my screw up. The idea for the page to find new talent is an amazing one and we hope that can be the positive that comes forward from today on … that we get some new talent working in our field because of this unique opportunity.”
Personally I think they need more talented writers, and that’s not a swipe at Palmiotti. While I took issue with one scene in Power Girl that made me drop the title, it was otherwise a good comic and I mostly enjoyed the Terra miniseries that led to another good character for the New 52 to wipe out. And you might figure that the methods Harley selected would be a dream but DC’s version of the cartoon character has been that she sees the world as a cartoon so it wouldn’t be surprising that she would actually try any of those and fail at it. She’s kind of nuts.
Also, Daily Dot (which has been boosting my incoming traffic a bit because of the cover that gets used for the “Hawkeye Initiative” articles) notes that the timing was bad as it was just before National Suicide Prevention Week, which in DC’s defense they might not have been aware of. Suicide is a touchy subject for the obvious reasons and the context didn’t help any. It does also look like it’s an excuse to get Harley naked in a bathtub but that isn’t always used for fanservice.
Ah, the things I post to increase readership.
Oh, shut up. That was from a Saturday morning cartoon from the 80’s. And they tried to kill her with a snake. Also, the tub rolls on wheels. I don’t care what CR said, that show was great and I want a full-series DVD release!
I’m not trying to defend anything. That Daily Dot article I linked to earlier posted some of the fan reaction and in light of DC’s treatment of female characters lately I still agree with them. Catwoman’s sexuality has been boosted beyond what it used to be and she was a character who wore it well. Batwoman uses her sexuality, but we’ll talk about her tomorrow. Starfire, however, way too far, and we’ve all talked Ed Benes’ drawing of women to death. (Imagine Frank Miller drawn by Ed Benes. No female character would be spared!) While Palmiotti’s clarification helps, and I can see why using a different artist might make the daydreaming sequence stand out a bit from the “real world”, this may have been the wrong scene to go with. At least until DC cleans up their act a bit and…I’ll save that for Thursday. Like I said, DC’s given me a lot to talk about the next few days.
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