[Dragon] Lord, the cheese...

[Janos Antero]

Celebrim: Possibly I did miss your point, but...

I don't see a difference in the style. I see a quality difference, as Royo is a far better artist, but either way, the skin shown is the same, and both are meant to ply upon the young beautiful women sex sells mentality.

It's a running joke at a Barns and Noble a few blocks away that everyone who buys the book buys it just for the cover, and mothers have complained about that one being the first thing you see getting off the escalator.

Both books use boobs to sell, to put it bluntly. There is no difference at all in my mind between an established artist painting a sexy woman to get attention, and an amateur artist. What your last post sounded like was that that an established artist can do it acceptably, but not a new one.

If I missed what you were trying to say, please let me know.

Note: I read the book and really enjoyed it, I am not really commenting on the book, author, or anyone associated with it.

 

[BLACKDIRGE]

You know, I am somewhat dissapointed with the amount of vile and/or mature content in Dragon. There simply is not enough

I mean really, all we get is one stinking issue on vile stuff. I need more damn it! If any of you read my charcter threads in the rogue gallery you'll know what I mean.

I am pleased as hell that Dragon now offers a more mature alternative and throw down my hard earned money with pleasure for a more mature (adult) magazine.

As for the cover art, since I am not easily offended it makes little difference to me what they put on their covers, I'll buy the magazine anyway.

Dirge

 

[Darrin Drader]

Considering the number of people who make their living by being perpetually offended, you must spend most of your waking hours being offended then. . . . hey, does that mean that since you're offended a lot, you even offend yourself?

Yes. I am the victim of a paradox of my own making.

 

[Celebrim]

JA: We are about to tread into deep waters.

First, I see both a difference in style and in quality. Royo's style is much darker, grainer, and often more abstract. That cover is unusual for him in several ways, not the least which is that it features three people looking straight out at the viewer in relatively bright light. However, despite this it is clearly of a different style than the exagerrated comic book 'action poses' and bright colors that inspire the Dragon cover.

I don't at all think he is trying to sell 'cheesecake' - that is to say women as mere sexual objects. And if you must accuse him of trying to sell cheesecake, let's not forget that one of those three figures is a scantily dressed man.

In fact, I disagree with the basic premise. I don't feel Royo's cover is using a 'sexy woman to get attention' [of a male audience]. Those women are not vulnerable or submissive looking, nor is thier assertiveness overt sexual aggression. That clues me to the fact that this book/painting is being marketed primarily to a female audience - the presence of the attendent scantily clad male is a big clue thier. And that shouldn't be all that surprising considering it is a female writer writing what I've have always assumed from the cover to be something of Anne McCaffery style fantasy gothic romance.

And if I am sterotyping the book without having read it, I excuse myself on the grounds that the person who put that cover on the book wanted me to judge the book by its cover. (Besides which I have Anne McCaffery and several like her on my bookshelf.)

I confess here to not having perfect understanding. My opinion is not fully formed. But here goes...

To a certain extent, I do give the talented artist more leeway with regards to subject matter. In part because the definition of pornography is so hard to pin down. Human sexual mores are so readily morphable, that they can be remapped to respond to virtually any sort of stimulus. There is almost nothing that can be represented which will not seem sexual to someone. We see sex in everything. Everything can be used as a sexual metaphor. I'm reminded of Madonna's comment that she wore crucifixes because 'they are so sexy...they have a bound naked man on them.' Should I ban the crucifix as pornography because one person with particularly broadly mapped sexual responces (or at least a understanding of how to market that) finds them stimulating in ways not intended by the artist?

For myself, I judge the obscenity of a thing by how clearly the artist intended to provoke a singularly sexual responce in the viewer. If the artist clearly spent alot of time trying to create a response other than the sexual in the work, then I'm much more likely to cut the artist some slack. That work of creating multilayered meaning is alot more clear when the artist is in fact talented. When the artist isn't that talented, and the subject matter is overtly sexual, about all that can come across is the sexual intent. No other aspect of the work will have any power.

There is more to it than that, but that is basically what pornography means for me.

 

[Janos Antero]

Hrm, in looking at the cover I got a very different interpretation. Unfortunately since I've read and very much enjoy it, that may have also biased me, regardless though I'll plunge ahead for debate's sake.

No offense intended to you personally (as your opinions sound well thought out, and I do respect your right of opinion itself), but I do find judging pornographic nature based on the quality of the artwork itself very subjective and hypocritical. I think a better way to word the cover than I originally used was to sell sex itself, by showing three attractive scantily clad women. I do see the central woman as a strong character type (Genvissa is her name btw), but also a very sexually oriented, grab you type.

I think dominant sultry women can still sell sex, and the blatantly strong woman in sexy attire is an image that has been captured and used more than once. The girl on the left of the cover strikes me as a very typical soft submissive woman. The very young look, trying hard to be tough, but very afraid stereotype.

Both are in very sexually suggestive poses, with bare thigh stuck out, one hand framing a hip, another framing/playing with her hair, and the body angles designed to best show off figures. Even Brutus, the guy in the photo strikes me as cast from the same darkly sexual simmering look that the two ladies have.

The picture screams sex to me in a major way, and begs to be picked up and examined even more than the Dragon cover, because the quality of the artwork enhances the sex of the photo. I find the Sara Doughlass cover to be twice as sexy, and therefore selling me sex twice as much as the Dragon any day. Hell the cover of the book induced me to buy it, whereas the Dragon I think I'll pass on judging just by the artwork.

It just seems odd that pandering in high quality is acceptable, but pandering in low quality isn't. Except that is just what the art world does, which infuriates me to no end. To me a nude painting in a world famous museum is just as pornographic as anything in an issue of Playboy. It is a double standard.

The painting may have other redeeming qualities in and of itself, and it is art as well as pornography, but that doesn't make it any less pornographic/sexual than the Playboy. The fact that those who rabidly hate Playboy can still go enjoy an art museum and say a nude painting isn't pornographic because it has other qualities is silly.

Pornography isn't an either/or situation. A good piece of artwork can be pornographic AND have redeeming qualities. But I digress...

Basically in my opinion, you can't make exceptions in catagorization based on taste, because taste is subjective. To call one pornography, and the other art... bad! If people object to this cover of Dragon, I think they should also object to any and all other such works too in fantasy, or at the very least, their particular niche of the fantasy genre.

I just don't think poor quality shouldn't determine social acceptability.

I can understand objecting to pornography in DnD in it's entirity, but that brings me back to what I was attempting to say earlier, remove ALL suggestive materials from DnD, or the genre, rather than singling out a single medium of the game.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I can understand objecting to pornography in DnD in it's entirity, but that brings me back to what I was attempting to say earlier, remove ALL suggestive materials from DnD, or the genre, rather than singling out a single medium of the game.

No offense, but that will never happen. And I wouldn't want it to. It would make the hobby just as drab, uninteresting, and politically correct as the rest of corporate America. No thanks!

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

I wanted to take Dragon to work with me to read at lunch. I realized, no joke, no kidding, I could get fired for it. Having that cover out of my personal briefbag at work would, in fact, violate our Sexual Harassment policy.

 

[Janos Antero]

Baraendur:

Oh I wasn't really suggesting doing it, frankly I'd be very put out if they actually did remove it. The point I was really trying to make was that I see it as an all or nothing sort of issue, and it seems Dragon is being singled out in this case for something that is inherent in the entire game.

 

[John Crichton]

I wanted to take Dragon to work with me to read at lunch. I realized, no joke, no kidding, I could get fired for it. Having that cover out of my personal briefbag at work would, in fact, violate our Sexual Harassment policy.

You must have a terribly strict policy. Of course someone would really have to be gunning for you to get nailed for such an offense. That cover is no worse than any issue of Cosmo.

 

[Terraism]

You must have a terribly strict policy. Of course someone would really have to be gunning for you to get nailed for such an offense. That cover is no worse than any issue of Cosmo.

Which I'd also prefer not to see... but then, I'm a terrible prude.