lets talk about...
http://strippedbookfest.co.uk/post/61293894063/melinda-gebbie-a-genius-of-comic-art (http://strippedbookfest.co.uk/post/61293894063/melinda-gebbie-a-genius-of-comic-art)
I would comment on Lost Girls...if only I could pick up a copy without feeling like I was going to be arrested in the process.
Gebbie is a wise woman, and her stance on feminism both in and out of comics is a shining example to many. But I do find her insulting other authors both professionally and sexually a bit childish to truly take the woman seriously.
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 21 September, 2013, 04:30:48 PM
I would comment on Lost Girls...if only I could pick up a copy without feeling like I was going to be arrested in the process.
Get it off Amazon, that's how I got it thinking it would come in handy as reference material for one of my uni module essays focusing on fairly old children's tales. In case anybody wonders, it didn't come in handy and I wouldn't recommend it anyway. I guess it is mildly entertaining at times for bringing out the immature side of you ([spoiler]"tee-hee! Look at the rude picture of characters I recognise from old stories! I'm showing this page to my mates when we're next drinking in mine!"[/spoiler] but even that wears off (and fast). I actually gave it away. A friend tried insisting I take money for it but I refused.
Quote from: Charlie boy on 21 September, 2013, 07:54:16 PM
Get it off Amazon, that's how I got it thinking it would come in handy as reference material for one of my uni module essays focusing on fairly old children's tales. In case anybody wonders, it didn't come in handy and I wouldn't recommend it anyway.
My favourite Amazon reviews of Lost Girls (http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/086166180X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1) are
"It is sex on every page, which I just got fed up of. I was hoping for more of an adventure story. I thought they would group together to fight some evil person. How wrong I was." by a disconsolate
By Michael S, and the telling
"Quick and easy delivery" by
Bavas Andrea.
Emperor, formerly of these parts, has a summary up, but I'm mystified by the absence of Amazon review star
Dark Jimbo, who seems to have posted write ups of every comic I've ever bought from Amazon.
Well, I wouldn't recommend buying it first......But, I would suggest you borrow it from someone and if you like it....Then buy it.....It's ( I found ) quite a 'different' read from the usual..
Personally I didn't like it.......Not for the 'pornographic' content ( as apparently that was their intention anyway ), but I wouldn't recommend it as I just don't think it's particularly good.....
I found the artwork a bit 'hit or miss'.....Some of the pages were truly wonderful, and others looked as if every effort had been spared......A very 'mixed bag' as far as I was concerned...
Overall, I thought it wasn't really 'a story worth telling', despite both Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbies' best intentions.....
Cheers
Lost Girls is among a handful of Alan Moore stories I've yet to read. I'm not the type to get embarrased easily though, I'd happily walk into a busy bookshop and purhchase it! :lol:
Quote from: Mabs on 21 September, 2013, 09:36:19 PM
Lost Girls is among a handful of Alan Moore stories I've yet to read. I'm not the type to get embarrased easily though, I'd happily walk into a busy bookshop and purhchase it! :lol:
You won't really be missing out if it remains unread you know mate. And don't think about the embarrassment because if there is any, it's soon forgotten and replaced whenever you notice Lost Girls on your bookshelf and think "I wasted close to £30 on that..."
Quote from: Charlie boy on 21 September, 2013, 07:54:16 PM
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 21 September, 2013, 04:30:48 PM
I would comment on Lost Girls...if only I could pick up a copy without feeling like I was going to be arrested in the process.
Get it off Amazon, that's how I got it thinking it would come in handy as reference material for one of my uni module essays focusing on fairly old children's tales. In case anybody wonders, it didn't come in handy and I wouldn't recommend it anyway. I guess it is mildly entertaining at times for bringing out the immature side of you ([spoiler]"tee-hee! Look at the rude picture of characters I recognise from old stories! I'm showing this page to my mates when we're next drinking in mine!"[/spoiler] but even that wears off (and fast). I actually gave it away. A friend tried insisting I take money for it but I refused.
Its not the sex itself mate. Hell, im an extremely hard person to offend in that lighht. But what is essentialy glorified pheadophillia....no, not my cup of tea at all. One taboo to far.
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 22 September, 2013, 04:32:33 PMBut what is essentialy glorified pheadophillia...
You are of course entitled not to like the comic (it's not Alan's best), and indeed not to approve of its content, but I think you need to exercise some discretion re: applying inaccurate terms.
Quotepedophilia /pe·do·phil·ia/ (-fil´e-ah) a paraphilia in which an adult has recurrent, intense sexual urges or sexually arousing fantasies of engaging or repeatedly engages in sexual activity with a prepubertal child.
The Medical Dictionary (http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Pedophillia)
Can you show me the bit in
Lost Girls "in which an adult has recurrent... sexually arousing fantasies of engaging or repeatedly engages in sexual activity with a prepubertal child"?
Tell me, is Laurie Lee's
Cider With Rosie 'glorified pedophilia'? Philip Roth's
Portnoy's Complaint?
Romeo and Juliet? Any book or work of art that features fictional(-ised) underage people having a sexual identity or experience?
Harrumph.
Hypothetically speaking, couldn't some creepy old man pick up said comic and use it for 'recreational purposes' on accounts of certain images? It is of cause, not the first place said people would go, but I really don't think this material should be available on shop shelves for exactly that reason, nor do I think Moore should really cross the point. I don't care about age of consent laws in X country. State, its still squeaky.
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 22 September, 2013, 07:46:15 PM
Hypothetically speaking, couldn't some creepy old man pick up said comic and use it for 'recreational purposes' on accounts of certain images? It is of cause, not the first place said people would go, but I really don't think this material should be available on shop shelves for exactly that reason, nor do I think Moore should really cross the point. I don't care about age of consent laws in X country. State, its still squeaky.
I can't say for certain, but I think more paedophiles have wanked themselves silly to Cbeebies and the Early Learning Centre website than a relatively obscure comic book for grown-ups.
Thats probably indeed the case, I just think its perhaps a step to far to have the material available on the shelves of Waterstones. That being said, we buy a comic full of violence and sex weekly, so I guess I'm playing the hypocrite here.
Quote from: Charlie boy on 22 September, 2013, 02:26:14 PM
Quote from: Mabs on 21 September, 2013, 09:36:19 PM
Lost Girls is among a handful of Alan Moore stories I've yet to read. I'm not the type to get embarrased easily though, I'd happily walk into a busy bookshop and purhchase it! :lol:
You won't really be missing out if it remains unread you know mate. And don't think about the embarrassment because if there is any, it's soon forgotten and replaced whenever you notice Lost Girls on your bookshelf and think "I wasted close to £30 on that..."
Don't know about the £30 price tag, but it's going for really cheap right now on eBay. As a Moore completist, I feel I must have a look even if its more later down the line.
Well I liked it...
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 22 September, 2013, 07:46:15 PM
Hypothetically speaking, couldn't some creepy old man pick up said comic and use it for 'recreational purposes'... but I really don't think this material should be available on shop shelves for exactly that reason
Lost Girls cleverly re-imagines classic children's stories as tales of sexual awakening, which is practically a literary genre in itself, and then explores the nature of sexual desire with and between the
adult versions of the characters, all through a pretty exquisite art nouveau filter and an archly literate comic structure.
The Daily Mail prints pictures of 8-year old girls leaving gym class in their 'workout attire', describes them as 'leggy beauties', and captions said photos 'All eyes on me: The eight-year-old showed off her best model walk through the parking lot...'. Newspapers run obsessive 'countdowns' to the 18th birthdays of the Olsen Twins or Miley Cyrus or whoever, publish pictures of an underage Emma Watson's cleavage at premieres with the caption 'my, how Hermione's grown!', etc, et bloody cetera.
This is children being exploited for the sexual fantasies of adults.
If you're looking for the wank-fodder, and worse the tacit endorsement of pedophiles (never mind the hebephiles, which is pretty much the marketing niche of most of the tabloid press), you don't need to go wandering around the comics shelves.
Quote from: TordelBack on 22 September, 2013, 10:37:45 PM
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 22 September, 2013, 07:46:15 PM
Hypothetically speaking, couldn't some creepy old man pick up said comic and use it for 'recreational purposes'... but I really don't think this material should be available on shop shelves for exactly that reason
Lost Girls cleverly re-imagines classic children's stories as tales of sexual awakening, which is practically a literary genre in itself, and then explores the nature of sexual desire with and between the adult versions of the characters, all through a pretty exquisite art nouveau filter and an archly literate comic structure.
What
Tordelback says is true, it's a novel of sexual awakenings and discovery, and to be honest ( it's been a while since I read it ) I don't remember there being
any paedophilia in it,
Hawkmonger..........
There was certainly homosexuality, and lashings of straight sex as well, and loads of pages depicting genitalia .......which is all fine, but as a 'wank mag' and fodder for 'creepy old men'.......Nahhh...
I think your mistaken assumption ( that it had paedophilia in it ), has led you to say " it shouldn't be available on the shop shelf for that reason"....
As I said in an earlier post, don't buy a copy of it first, but do try and get one ( borrow one ) to read......then decide....
I didn't like it, but not because of the sexual content, I just didn't think
the story was worth telling despite both Author and Artists' best intentions....
Cheers..
Quote from: TordelBack on 22 September, 2013, 10:37:45 PMThe Daily Mail sends photographers to stalk and photograph 8-year old girls so it can publicly declare them attractive
Shortened that for you, TB. If you fancy creeping yourself out, you should go to the Mail's website and type "all grown up" into the search engine - I for one expected better of a newspaper founded by a Nazi.
It's worth noting that Moore gets accused of all kinds of deviance on a regular basis, which is arguably his own fault for giving us comics fans the benefit of the doubt that we can approach a topic sensibly and not do the equivalent of tittering because teacher said "breasts" in class. See also: "he's talking about gays and not going YUCK so he must be a bummer" and "his stories feature rape so he must get off on that sort of thing."
I recall there was a scene in My Neighbor Totorro where the dad shares a bath with his two underage daughters, but good luck lobbying accusations of that film being pedo-fodder - any fool knows it's pandering to furries.
Quote from: Sideshow Bob on 23 September, 2013, 12:44:32 AM
What Tordelback says is true, it's a novel of sexual awakenings and discovery, and to be honest ( it's been a while since I read it ) I don't remember there being any paedophilia in it,
From what I remember, there are scenes of paedophilia in it all right, the significant ones are scenes of a family engaging in incest but it's shown to us as part of the
comic within a comic conceit (The White Book) - making the point that any reactions of revulsion we (or the Daily Mail) may have towards it are purely
of the mind - that it's not
actual scenes of paedophilia and incest - it's simplistic, stylised line drawings of someone's fantasy of paedophilia and incest as related to us via a character reading it in a pictorial story-book while they're also engaging in an adult orgy in the main narrative.
The layering of this scene rather neatly encapsulates the whole aesthetic point of the comic: none of it is
real pornography but an up-market Tijuana Bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tijuana_bible) with pretensions about sexual-repression, and the idea that it would play its part in the orgy of death that would be the end-result of World War I.
The comic is really only as 'filthy' as your own mind finds in cartoon pictures.
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 22 September, 2013, 07:46:15 PM
Hypothetically speaking, couldn't some creepy old man pick up said comic and use it for 'recreational purposes' on accounts of certain images?
They could still do that with a childrens clothing catalogue and I assume that would be a lot more likely than any comic filled with caricatures. If people are having those abhorrent thoughts there's little we can do about it other than to keep them away from actual children and stop the
real sick images being produced and availed of.
Got me there Tordlelback! Though I'm far from an advocate for the Mail anyway. The under age sex in LG I do find a bit much for me to be honest though.
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 23 September, 2013, 02:00:56 AM
Quote from: Sideshow Bob on 23 September, 2013, 12:44:32 AM
What Tordelback says is true, it's a novel of sexual awakenings and discovery, and to be honest ( it's been a while since I read it ) I don't remember there being any paedophilia in it,
From what I remember, there are scenes of paedophilia in it all right, the significant ones are scenes of a family engaging in incest but it's shown to us as part of the comic within a comic conceit (The White Book) - making the point that any reactions of revulsion we (or the Daily Mail) may have towards it are purely of the mind - that it's not actual scenes of paedophilia and incest - it's simplistic, stylised line drawings of someone's fantasy of paedophilia and incest as related to us via a character reading it in a pictorial story-book while they're also engaging in an adult orgy in the main narrative.
Thanks for that
Mr Soap......
As I said it's been quite a while since I read it, and now you mention it, I can vaguely remember that part....
The problem with
Lost Girls for me, was nothing at all to do with the 'sexual' content at all, but just that the whole story was ( in my opinion ) pretty rubbish....A bit of a disappointment really, overall...
Cheers