Tag Archives: comic books

Department of Illegal Superheros

Laurie says:

I saw this Illegal Superhero installation last week at the Galeria De La Raza. My friend SJ took the photos. (I was the photographer without camera.) It appealed both to my political and my comic book sensibility.

The artist, Neil Rivas, said this in the Huffington Post last year

I started thinking about all these comic book heroes and how growing up it wasn’t a big deal where these superheroes were from and where they would end up, what borders they crossed,” Rivas said. “That experience and then the heated debate surrounding immigration policy in the U.S., it just made sense to me that I would tackle that issue and challenge the dichotomy of good and evil and, more specifically, immigration policy through these comic book characters… If humans can be considered illegal according to our immigration laws, then that must be applied to superheroes as well.


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It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Fat Superman!

Debbie says:

First of all, Laurie and I are both back in town and we should be blogging at least a little bit more frequently. Thanks for your patience.

Second, I was completely charmed by this post from Men in Full, whose mission is to bring out and admire images of fat men.

a picture of a fat Superman, in costume, shown from behind

Apparently, this was a health-club advertising image, but the actual Superman comics also treated the theme:

Fatness, body morphing, and inflation were played for laughs in the early 1960s “Golden Age” of DC Comics. While the body changes were portrayed as negative and everything gets fixed in the end, the tone was still light and amusing, not like today’s hyperventilating rhetoric.

Men in Full has thought a lot about fat superhero and fat pirate imagery, none of which I had ever been aware of, let alone given a moment’s thought to.

I don’t have a lot to add to her post, but I will say that there’s a radical opportunity here: it’s time to start some zines with fat superheroes who don’t get fixed in the end. I’m ready for fat Wonder Woman!

Edited to add: I asked about fat Wonder Woman and Body Impolitic reader BCHolmes found this.

Thanks, BC!