Just like you to mistake this perfectly consensual act of S&M tentacle-play for "tentacle rape". I guess a liberated female sexuality just frightens the pants off some people.

I must be a bad person, because every single time I've seen this cover, the first thing that pops up into my head is the Simpson's episode with the Elvira parody saying "Boooooobs!" and it makes me giggle. THEN I notice the tentacles.

Is that supposed to be Misty Knight in the red outfit? I didn't know she was Elvish.

Oh. My. Adam Hughes' head may already have exploded.

(The, um, stuff suggestively placed on Black Cat's cleavage is, uh, special...)

Marvel Comics -- They're Porn-tastic!

Sadly, it also occurs to me that "Hentai Month" would probably be an embarrassingly successful event for Marvel. *sigh*

I just showed this cover to a 16 year old girl and asked "If you saw this cover on the shelf, would you buy the book?" Her answer, "Yes. It looks interesting. I think women are beautiful and they should show it off whenever they can." Apparently the non-fan comic audience does see things entirely different than fans.

I do love some of the weird surprise outrage that a WOMAN drew this. Oes NO! Some women THINK ABOUT SEX! WEIRD Sex! It's not TRUE! It's IMPOSSIBLE!

Getting tied to a wall, knocked unconscious (Black Cat) and wounded (Misty Knight and Colleen Wing), and menaced by slimy tentacles constitutes "showing off?"

Nice try, Kiki, but one 16 year old of indeterminate psychology does not effective testimony make.

I showed it to my female boss (no prude by any stretch of the imagination), and her reaction was to laugh and say that this doesn't surprise her coming from geek culture. She called it, "fantasies for guys who masturbate more than they interact with actual women written by guys who masturbate more than they interact with actual women." She added that while she wasn't offended she thought it was disgusting and "sadly typical."

All of which proves what we already knew: Some people are going to be offended by it or at least think it's disgusting while others have no problem with it. But your point about they way the "non-fan comic audience" does or doesn't see things is completely invalid. We'd need actual, statistically valid survey work to determine anything remotely accurate on that score.

(I'm not overly moved that a woman drew this, if that's the case -- I'd go where the money is too, or maybe she gets off on this kind of thing. I still think it's an odd choice unless your purpose is to publish a particular sort of softcore porn disguised as heroic adventure. Wouldn't be my first choice, but apparently it has a dance and you can beat to it.)

Darn. There had been a fan art reply to this (Power Man and Iron Fist in the same situation) over at scans_daily juxtaposed with the original, but it seems to have been taken down. A pity. Luke just looked weary, but IIRC the look of worry on the Manga-ised Danny's face had been hilarious.

Chris M. wrote:
"Sadly, it also occurs to me that "Hentai Month" would probably be an embarrassingly successful event for Marvel. *sigh*"

please oh Please oh PLEASE don't give them ideas!

Brian @ Comics Should Be Good had an interesting point, that some of the outrage comes from that we comic fans know of the concept of tentacle porn...people who don't know about it would really just see a slimy alien.

Scavenger, that's true to some extent, but even if you strip out the hentai connotations, it's still a picture of three women in bondage being menaced, with a focal point on the women's breasts.

Jason -- no argument there...I just found it a surprisingly revealing point.

Does Brian @ Comics Should Be Good really have all that much of a point? What would a straight with no knowledge of hentai think of that image?

I decided to return to my decidedly anecdotal test subject, my boss, who had seen the image previously and reacted with disgust. I asked her what she thought was going on with those tentacles. Indeed, she did not assume that the tentacles were going to rape the women in question, but thought that the slimy tentacles were threatening to grope the breasts and exposed midriffs of the helpless women, "And that's just gross." She added, "I assume that's some kind of geek kink thing."

She added that one of the women had already had her cleavage tentacle-groped (Black Cat), as evidenced by the slime on her boobs, and that she thought it "clearly suggests male ejaculate." I can't argue with that either. (I haven't had the heart to explain hentai tentacle sex to her -- I think she'll be happier not knowing.)

So, as one might expect, the image can be viewed as worthy of disgust, if not outrage, even if you don't know about hentai tentacle sex.

Funny, I didn't even SEE the tentacles at first. When I saw it I just laughed and thought "It's the old Wonder Woman covers all over again."

Yeah, the tentacles don't "pop" into the foreground the way the boobies* do. This is a picture that reveals unseen depths on examination. I suppose that's the job of great art.

*Those aren't breasts. Breasts are organs that women have. This picture has boobies, which are what pinups have instead of breasts. Cf. "Witchblade" and the collected works of Jim Balent and Bill Ward.

Okay, found another copy of the Guy-Heroes-Victims-Of-Hentai pic in an article on it at blog@newsarama. So, for completenesses sake: http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/05/25/victims-for-hire/#more-3937

>>She called it, "fantasies for guys who masturbate more than they interact with actual women written by guys who masturbate more than they interact with actual women."

Gee, doesn't that describe just about every guy who ever lived? Even the guys who "interact" with women a LOT? Sometimes it's just so damned easier.

lol! Nicely played. Still, I'm pretty sure that she meant "interact" in the sense of "talk," not "boink." :-)