Hey there! It is another week, so begins another journey into the possibly gratuitous. The latest selection was one I had to consider. The title is Shanna the She-Devil, and though she isn't a bad girl, she appears to be drawn that way. I have been wavering about whether to use this cover or not because of the outfit Shanna wears, but then my eyes were drawn to the crotch area.
What the hell is going on there? Is that a string or a leaf or what is the deal? Evidently my eyes are going bad, or the picture is supposed to make you draw your own conclusion. What am I missing here?
Otherwise, nice dive into the dinosaur's mouth. I give it a six for grace and skill.
Tell me this, and be sincere. What is it about chicks and prehistoric critters that seems to drive the fellas so crazy?
While we ponder that question, tell me this as well: Is this Gratuitous?
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8 comments:
"Tell me this, and be sincere. What is it about chicks and prehistoric critters that seems to drive the fellas so crazy? "
Not this fella. I've never quite understood what the big deal was with jungle women. The body odor alone must be unbearable.
Fella here and Not crazy about the chicks and dinos. (ok, maybe Rogue in Savage Land...I mean, c'mon, it's Rogue :) but for the most part, it doesn't do much for me.
As for this one, I can't put my finger on it, but it does seem gratuitous. Besides, if she was serious about killing the dino, she'd be jumping in head first leading with the blade, not doing a butt first cannonball into Beastie's mouth.
And oh, I hope that's a leaf...
Honestly? I think it's a second-hand fetish.
Think about it; there were tons of women who had a thing for Tarzan thanks to all the Johnny Weissmuller movies and as such a lot of them developed fantasies about being taken into the woods by the manly man who kills lions with his bare hands for some jungle love.
Oh-e-oh-e-oh.
Men never really had an exact couterpart until Will Eisner created Sheena, Queen of the Jungle - who later got her own TV series back in the 50s. Sheena was played by model/actress Irish McCalla who was - in my estimation - very hot.
And so a bunch of men began fantasizing about the idea of a woman who looked model-goregous but could still help you wrestle gators and tame the wilderness.
So really - the jungle girl fantasy is nothing more than a specific sub-fetish of the male dream of finding a girl who can be one of the guys and yet still be a total knockout.
I could write a paper...
Concurring with the above poster. Shanna is a tribute to Sheena, and the Jungle Girl Archetype in all her many incarnations is... well, too inherently ass-kicking a male fantasy for me not to love her.
Does she want the T-Rex to swallow her? I think that's a leaf...
I'm borderline, but I'm voting:
NOT GRATUITOUS.
(Then again, if I had a prehistoric Vore fetish, I'm sure my hands would be shaking too hard for me to type this... But we CAN leave such specialized fetishes out of our consideration when deciding whether or not covers are gratuitous, correct?)
What is fascinating here is that it doesn't seem that the cover is being voted as gratuitous, but that the chicks with prehistoric critters angle was picked up on immediately.
After reading your feedback, it is obvious that this fascinations begins and ends with Frank Cho. :-)
JK!!
I appreciate the male response, and the excellent opinions. Thank you!
I looked at your scan, trying to figure out what's bugging you about it. It just looks like a geestring to me.
Gratuitous? I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I guess the premise in general is gratuitous in a sense, as pop-culture fantasy fiction tends to be.
But if you mean, is it overly sexualized, then, no, not any more than the Tarzan/Sheena trope in general. It is, however, an over-the-top & ridiculous action scene. ERB might be proud.
Easy... this is approaching tentacle porn
I think her costume is gratuitous, but there's nothing about this cover specifically that's gratuitous, so take that as you will.
It's pretty silly anyway.
As for the whole jungle girl fetish thing, don't overthink it. I don't think anything about it specifically is appealing so much as it's a buxom, toned woman in a skimpy outfit combined with dinosaurs and the fighting thereof. Two male fantasies for the price of one.
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