Regal Warrior Princess

I remember when the original Wonder Woman series aired during it's first run - I was just old enough to understand the talk spreading far and wide about certain women's groups being upset about the exploitative images it engendered. It eventually blew over, no one really took the show very seriously and it was admittedly very light fair for the day. But the reaction from the women of my household was varied - my sister's (all older) liked the show well enough. My mother generally disregarded telelvision outright if it wasn't news or cooking related. It was not long before the show was forgotten by my family as well as the world.

I make no secret of the fact that I dislike most of the representations of Wonder Woman as merely a pinup - the character to me is mythic in some ways even though her history in fiction and comics has been checkered to say the least. I have done other versions of the character at conventions and events as sketches and some of them are posted here. What red blooded American man doesn't enjoy drawing women right?

But Wonder Woman - like Superman - has nothing to prove with the outfit she wears. Like many royal guards of monarchies worldwide, any combat regalia is almost completely ceremonial in nature if not in construction. Though Diana's raiment is definitely meant to be lethal it is at the same time very beautiful. The bracelets, sword, and lasso are pretty standard, but I knew I wanted to make something that covered nearly every inch of her body to make a subtle point - she can beautiful, powerful and sexy without having to bare significant amounts of flesh. Even with the DC redesign, she is by and large still wearing the makings of a fantasy pinup cosplay girl and not the garments of a mighty warrior princess.

I also wanted to make her quite a bit taller than anyone is really making her in the current books. At least one DC set of titles made her much larger than life - the Darwin Cooke work was impressive to me for at least making her character seem more brash. Lastly, I took the red white and blue pallette down to a bare minimum, for no better reason than to be subtle. I know comics as medium take to heart the advice of many publishers - you have to get the attention of people on the stands with bold colors and big designs. At some point everything blends together though. And for Diana, I think the wardrobe change would be very welcome to some women.

I have been noticing a lot more female watchers here on DA - I am unabashedly proud of that fact because it is a good reminder that the audience of comics reaches much farther than the boys club.

I am sure Wonder Woman will continue to prance around in varied designs themed on the beauty pageant getup she currently wears - Jim Lee might send hit squads of DC shock troops after me for saying that but it's true - ALL of the current designs for Diana still bear that stigma in the non-comics buying public and it's something I would love to see the character overcome - to grow out of her design adolescance.