This is a version of Juliet Starling I drew and colored not too long back. I've never really cared for her to be honest, bubble-headed bimbos to me are just plain annoying. Sexualized characters in general are something that I've had a love-hate relationship pretty much my whole fandom life. I love them and I hate myself for that. But recently I've noticed a trend.
Many women it seems are not shunning the sexualized characters, they are instead embracing them.
As a comic artist one of the things I've struggled with is how to draw my female characters. I've worried that making sexualized characters will repulse audiences rather than attract them. Still, in a world of super heroes it is best to go with idealized images, but where is the happy medium? Where is the balance? I decided to put my ear to the ground and hear what women had to say. To say I was surprised would be an understatement.
Many women I've spoken to and listened to aren't afraid or hateful of the sexualized female character provided there is more to the character than just tits and ass. Women I've spoken to often stress the importance of backstory, personality development and how well they can literally kick ass. Unlike myself and many of my male ilk the women I've interacted with look well beyond just the image on the page and that made me feel pretty damn good.
As it turns out those things are very important to me as well. I've never liked reading Penthouse letters or any of that other type of erotica because to me it was just fluff. There was no story or a weak one at best. Comics of the past often suffered from this same fatal flaw. A one or two page progression that did little, if anything to layout who the character was and why they were in the story was all we could hope for.
When I rediscovered Randy Queen's Darkchylde recently it suddenly all made sense to me.
This was a sexualized female character with one HELL of a story to tell. Not to mention some monster powers that would make Stephan King take a bow. I fell in love with Darkchaylde not because she has a great bod but because her story is dark, twisted and really well done. So with all that mind I decided that maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe I can make a really compelling sexualized character that people will love.
Time will tell.