Bad girl art

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For information on bad girl art on movie posters see bad girl movies.
Shi, often considered the intelligent badgirl.
Shi, often considered the intelligent badgirl.

Bad girl art, in the world of comic books, is the counterpart of good girl art. Comic book Bad Girls are typically tough and violent superheroines. However, while the Good Girls had their heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, Bad Girl Art had its heyday in the far less widely disseminated comic book market of the 1980s and 1990s.

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[edit] Bad Girls and Good Girls

Bad Girl comic characters differ from Good Girls, first, in their characterization. Perhaps the original comic Bad Girl -before the term was even thought up- was Vampirella, whose comics started in the 1970s. When Frank Miller created Elektra, and gave her a complex relationship going beyond the realm of mere villainy to the title hero Daredevil he also influenced the comic bad girl stereotype. Though the often accepted initial influence for starting the Bad Girl trend was Brian Pulido's Lady Death and his Chaos! line of comics. These books featured all typical characteristics including full figured women, mystical backgrounds and exuberant art paired with decent writing.

Lady Death created by Brian Pulido, often thought of as the queen of the Bad Girl trend.
Lady Death created by Brian Pulido, often thought of as the queen of the Bad Girl trend.
Witchblade, as of late, is considered to be the reformed Bad Girl
Witchblade, as of late, is considered to be the reformed Bad Girl

Bad Girls, unlike Good Girls, were seldom found in the role of a damsel in distress. Instead, Bad Girls were typically motivated by background stories in which they had been the victims of abuse or domestic violence; others had their loved ones murdered by the villains. Their basic motive was revenge against their abuser and against those who had abused others in a similar way. These themes of revenge made the character's moral code ambiguous, and often made it hard to characterize the character as either a heroine or a villainess leading "Bad Girl" to become the female equivalent of "anti-hero".

Magic, mythology and occult themes were also frequently found in their background stories. Popular backstories for Bad Girls, were that they were demon hunters, fallen/rogue angels, vampires or wielders of a supernaturally bestowed weapon or power. Often, much effort went into creating the character's "cool" mystical/mythological backstory creating an actual well thought out background, which later with little effort going towards making future stories of that caliber.

Their artistic illustrations are closely linked with the highly manneristic and finely inked style of art that is associated with the original "Image Comics" house style. Most such characters are scantily clad. Most of these heroines are very busty and with elongated legs that are often thicker than their waists. These characters frequently wield a large gun or sword, and wear skulls or mystic symbols in their clothing.

Marc Silvestri along with the other early Image Comics artists like Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane's early work are a large influence on the style. Together with the creations of writer Brian Pulido for Chaos!comics a new era started. Artists like Michael Turner continue this style.

Bad Girl comics had their heyday in 1990s. During the peak of the period of the style's popularity, Mike Deodato drew Wonder Woman, a classic Good Girl, in a style that owed much to the visual style of the Bad Girl books. Jim Balent's Catwoman was also revisioned in this style. The books and style remained as popular as ever until manga and anime grew becoming the new industry-wide trend, causing the old trend of bad girls and anti-heroes to be pushed to the far back.

[edit] The revitalization

Red Sonja is another reformed Bad Girl
Red Sonja is another reformed Bad Girl

In recent years, bad girl and T&A (an abbreviation for "Tits and Arse"; a medium that focusses upon the sexual attributes of women) titles have been revitalized with one major difference: top notch writers delivering character driven stories. The revitalization began when Top Cow, a studio notorious for its T&A stylings, attached Ron Marz and non-T&A artists Mike Choi to its main bad girl book Witchblade. The book was now getting acclaim and wonderful reviews, and other companies took notice.

Many former Bad Girl characters were now being written in a new character driven style. Dynamite Entertainment began to publish Red Sonja focusing on character and using T&A poses only in joke. "Tales of Wonder", which now owns the majority of the Chaos! Comics's characters- put out a new Purgatori comics via Devil's Due Publishing following this new trend. Meanwhile, Bad Girl-queen Lady Death, while remaining true to her roots, has an alternate all-ages version coming out as Medieval Lady Death and even in the classic version it has been toned down a bit. Also notable is the original Bad Girl, Vampirella. While she still keeps the costume, writer Mike Carey and artist Mike Lily put little to no focus on it as they attempt to rework her into an introspective character. Finally, famed T&A artist Michael Turner launched his company Aspen MLT and, much to everyone's surprise, chose to go with substance over style in his relaunch of Fathom and the rest of his line.

No can know if this revitalization trend will continue but if it holds its current success rate, then it seems this new generation of reformed bad girl books may be here to stay.

[edit] The characters

Angela
Angela

While some hesitate to admit it, the bad girl market is still going strong with both reformed and T&A bad girls selling quite well[citation needed]. Characters such as:

Vampirella, commonly accepted to be the original Bad Girl.
Vampirella, commonly accepted to be the original Bad Girl.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Femforce: Bad Girl Backlash by Rebekah Black, Stephanie Sanderson, Leah Adezio, Bill Black, and Mark Heike. (AC Comics, 1996) A comic book making fun of the Bad Girl trend, by the publishers of the Femforce comic book series.
  • Trina Robbins, The Great Women Superheroes (Kitchen Sink Press, 1996) ISBN 0-87816-481-2
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