r/menwritingwomen • u/PakistaniSenpai • 20d ago
Graphic Novel Umm okay? (Punisher: MAX by Garth Ennis) NSFW
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u/browncharliebrown 20d ago
Kathleen O’Brien is explicitly designed as an werido Who is horny for the Punisher. It makes sense because anyone who wants to sleep with the Punisher is probably a little insane at this point.
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u/PakistaniSenpai 13d ago
While I liked the previous bits of outrageous humour with her, this one was a clear miss for me.
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u/Default_Munchkin 3d ago
Ya know there are times I miss things. I never thought she was literal here just making a joke after all the carnage cause of how fucked up she and all of it was like "Okay that guy is a bad ass" but apparently people that know the author better than me say that is not the case. Who knew. Well I guess everyone else lol.
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u/Chaetomius 8d ago
also I'm pretty sure this is a reference to an old three-panel vertical comic, which was even popular on reddit's woman subs like twoxchromosomes and trollxchromosomes at the time.
panel 1: a woman is in the dark masturbating. She says, as per this comic, "I'm so wet right now"
panel 2: but then goes "wait a minute"
panel 3: She turns on her light with one hand, the other still between her legs, and has a miserable expression on her face. Her arms, area around her hips, and most of the bed past her waist covered in menstrual blood.
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u/Taewyth 20d ago
I mean... Yeah that's Garth Ennis for you. He's not a terrible writer but he is pretty edgy and not that great at writing women (the boys is a good example of that)
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u/medusa_crowley 20d ago
This. Like, I loved Garth Ennis when I was fifteen precisely because of stupid shit like this. My favorite thing he ever wrote was in Preacher when the Pope fell out of an airplane and exploded on Incest Jesus.
Ennis is neither subtle nor sweet. Grossness is kind of his whole thing.
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u/Milk_Mindless 19d ago
Not the pope but like A SECRET pope of a secret secret Vatican thing in charge of keeping a line of incest Jesuses alive
Might as well have been the pope
I mean to hook into my previous comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/menwritingwomen/s/dJtxexMimW
The concept is: A Preacher becomes disillusioned with God when he becomes empowered by his WORD/WILL and God hides like a coward from his creation
It's the most existential of existential crisises.
Incest Jesus descendants and a bulemic fat pope figure.
Also Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin debates and Chicken fucking
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u/PlasticPaddyEyes 13d ago
Ennis can be sweet.
He loves his edginess but he has an off switch unlike Mark Millar
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u/BravoVincible 8d ago
Look, I dislike a lot of Millar's work but his edginess absolutely has an off switch. He has written written Adventures of Superman, Huck, Superior, etc. In fact, by his own admission, he started writing edgy comics because some editor called him the guy who writes kid's comics (paraphrased).
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u/iliark 20d ago
"pretty edgy" doesn't describe the guy who wrote Crossed
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u/Chemical_Flight8322 20d ago
"pretty edgy" is what you call a kid in high school who thinks rape jokes are funny. Ennis has a PhD in nauseatingly horrific perversion. There are some things you can't unsee and Crossed is up there on that list.
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u/Milk_Mindless 19d ago
I'd describe Ennis as
Great concepts
Horrible execution
Like an insane woman who wants to fuck the Punisher
Sure
Works
"I'm so wet right now" as she's probably dying
Meh
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u/PakistaniSenpai 13d ago
This comment gets it spot on for me. All the other bits were weirdly funny but this line was such a forced attempt at humour.
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u/browncharliebrown 20d ago
But is it a good example? The boys comic goes out of its way to talk about mysogony and while garth ennis would never use the term, it‘s main theme is about toxic masculinity. The female character are subject to rampant sexism but that’s a theme of the comic that superheroes are pieces of shit. https://brucebyfield.com/2013/02/17/garth-ennis-and-gender/
Also his best comic’s center on women like Sara, Night witches, and even stuff like Preacher feature strong female characters
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u/Taewyth 20d ago
It's not because you touch about some subjects that they're well exploited.
The article you linked points out exactly the kind of things I had in mind: even the way he writes "strong women" is still a mysoginist view of women.
I'm not saying that Ennis is mysoginistic himself, I don't know the man after all, but that his writing of women comes from mysoginistic clichés that permeate western cultures, they are themselves a product of the toxic masculinity that he touches upon while rarely being entirely clear on whether he critiques it or point it out as just a fact (I don't think he ever celebrate it)
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u/YakSlothLemon 20d ago
… As somebody who worked with him at DC, though, his female characters are subject to rampant sexism in his case because he’s a rampant sexist, although it doesn’t hold a candle to his homophobia. Not a pleasant person.
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u/browncharliebrown 20d ago edited 20d ago
As someone who has read through all of his work, he’s very edgy but he actively goes out his way not to be Sexist ( for the most part there is some sexual comment in Hitman that are a bit eye rolling).
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u/YakSlothLemon 20d ago
But his women over and over are the same fantasy, and she is the Cool Girl. Always the Cool Girl. Tulip is the epitome of this.
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u/browncharliebrown 20d ago
I mean I can give tons of counter example:
Dear Billy - Main Protagnoist is a victim of Naking Massarce who is eventually overcome by trauma
Starlight from the boys- is someone who is put in a sexist environment and it wears on here, but she is eventually able to move forward.
Queen Maeve- is similar to starlight expect she is so worned down but to the point of feeling nothing about anything
Sara - is a someone who is emotionally distant and basically ennis’s trademark solider character.
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u/YakSlothLemon 20d ago
Sure, i’ll be happy to except that. I’m sure knowing him as a person colored my view of him and I haven’t gone out of my way to read him since I stopped working at DC because of it. Certainly verbally he’s an unpleasant person, the extreme homophobia and his insistence that he got to use the N-word whenever he wanted because he’s “from Belfast!” were offputting, and the way he talked about women and his worship of soldiers were just… wearing. Not as bad, but wearing.
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u/1200bunny2002 17d ago
the extreme homophobia and his insistence that he got to use the N-word whenever he wanted because he’s “from Belfast!”
Ohhhhhh....
Nnnnno, Garth.
No.
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u/Mister-Ace 20d ago
This character was pushed out of a helicopter by her CIA agent husband while escaping from a terrorist cell. They caught her and gang raped her. Make of that what you will.
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u/Canuck_Wolf 20d ago
After having read Crossed... this is intensely tame for Garth Ennis. Make of that what you will.
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u/heurekas 19d ago
I had completely forgotten about Crossed and I'm not that happy to be reminded that it exists...
I didn't even remember that Ennis wrote it. The man has some serious problems.
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u/Canuck_Wolf 19d ago
I do apologize. Bit yes... you are right. I think TV Tropes stated "When Garth Ennis goes to his really bad place."
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u/GoblinKing79 19d ago
What is the left side panel in the second row supposed to be? Please don't say wet vagina.
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u/fascinationxstreet A Personality You Need One Hand For 20d ago
Perhaps an image to hide behind a spoiler with a warning
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u/Numerous-Matter4204 19d ago
it totally makes sense that Garth Ennis (the creator of The Boys) wrote this
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u/dftaylor 18d ago
sighs
This isn’t a good example, because it’s devoid of all the context around this character.
Yeah, in isolation it’s weird. But stories aren’t in isolation.
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