Kitty Pryde and the camisole

[philippos42]

Not long ago, I had a conversation about how comic book artists draw women.

More precisely, yesterday an acquaintance made a crack about superheroine bust sizes. And I said some variation on what I often say, that's just an artist's shorthand, whatever. Also some artists are kind of silly. I usually take it in stride.

Today, I was looking at these scans from Legendary Star-Lord. I am suddenly bugged by Kitty's bust size in this issue. Has Medina been drawing her that way along and I just now noticed because of the outfit? Is she sticking out her chest?

I got weirdly angry about it.

So, I looked at some other scans. Yes, Medina draws her that way. The concept art for the new GotG doesn't so much, I think. It's a stupid minor thing.

Her chest is not badly drawn. It's realistic enough. It's roughly in line with other artists. It just suddenly seemed "off" to me. I dug out some All-New Doop issues. Yeah, OK, not that different; I guess I was remembering wrong.

So, a smart remark about cartoon breasts in general somehow led me to get bothered on an artist who's actually drawing them well?

Argh.

Comics.

Comments

[esteefee]

Sometimes just drawing focus to something makes you see it and then you can't unsee it. Strange phenomenon. But yeah. I've never not been able to see the back-arching disproportionate balloons these artists prefer and not think, wuh?

[philippos42]

What gets me here is that Medina draws Kitty with reasonably shaped breasts, and not even "large" compared to any of his other characters. They're both credibly proportioned and consistent with other recent artists. But I apparently think of Kitty, even adult Kitty, as flatter-chested for some reason.

Of course, teen Kitty in Davis's Excalibur was small-breasted, compared to the other women on the team who had somewhat exaggerated breasts, but she was still pretty young, too. I've occasionally read X-Men comics since then, and I guess I've not really thought much at all about her filling out a bit as she got older.

But somehow my brain suddenly insists she is supposed to have small breasts by real-world standards, not the slightly inflated standards of comics. And seeing her not in superhero costume but in civvies suddenly made me check, and wonder if that portrayal was right.

[esteefee]

Yeah, Teen Kitty didn't grow into an E cup. I don't think it's just the civvies.