Miraculous Ladybug, Cat Noir, Spider Man and Cat Woman

Bendy Insects with Dark Felines:

Someone at our house might be watching “Miraculous,” but I am not authorized to reveal who that might be. I gather the show is quite popular...but somehow embarrassing to the in-house viewer.

We are talking about “Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir” a French anime style show (“Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir”) starring an adolescent Parisian girl named Marinette. Her secret identity is the superhero Ladybug. Her schoolgirl crush is Adrien, whose secret identity, unsurprisingly, is her superhero counterpart, Cat Noir...

Or, en francais: 

Chat Noir.

“Miraculous” definitely traffics in some friendly superhero story elements, Marinette and Adrien are simultaneously awkward young people who can’t be cool around cute members of the opposite sex....and powerful spandex clad heroes easily able to dominate evil adults.

Marinette seems to have some qualities  in common with Peter Parker.....And Adrien bears a startling resemblance to characters who are stereotypically female in the american superhero universe.

Like the cat ladies, he sports a skintight shiny black catsuit, ears, tail and pointy finger tips. And most disturbingly, he wears a large blingy gold bell around his neck.

I’m conjecturing that the French audience has a more elastic understanding of what is allowed in male superhero costumes and thematics.

Gender elasticity in superhero land is certainly a good thing.

But apparently, I need to work on my drawing of bendy people in spandex suits.

Movie Popcorn

Holiday Weekend Movie Goers

We did finally make it to the other superhero movie over the fall break. At the beginning of every day over the long weekend, we would start by announcing that we would go see the DC movie that day, and then motivation would somehow prove to be insufficient. 

But today we finally made it to to the theater, and I finally have managed to photograph this napkin. 

Low expectations are often good when it comes to such things, however, so by the time we did see the movie, our younger son pronounced it not so bad after all. My expectations were perhaps not low enough for the movie or the napkin. 

But I heard that the movie theater popcorn was ok.

Silk Impresses the Avengers With Her Spidey Skills

There is always a bedtime crisis at our house: Usually there is some crucial piece of unknown pop culture information that can only be acquired online. This happens in the time period after all electronic devices have been forcibly removed from circulation in preparation for bed.

The information crisis from a few nights ago was, "What is the name of the female hero in the Spiderverse who wears a grey outfit and a red scarf?"  My younger son swore that remaining ignorant of the answer was going to make it impossible for him to go to sleep that night.

I know very little now beyond the fact that her name is Silk and that supposedly she was bitten by the same radioactive spider as Peter Parker and has more or less the same powers.

Except her web shooting ability is "organic." She shoots web out of her fingers, I guess. And wears a bandana. Because no one can recognize you if half of your face is covered. Just ask Batman.

There also seems to be some romantic issues going on between her and Mr. Parker in the comics. I observe this only based on my 90 seconds of searching on Google.

Given the limited female superhero representation in the Marvel cinematic universe, it seemed only fair to sub her in as a shield snatching spider-person in "Civil War" ....or "Homecoming" for that matter.

The Harry Canaries

Harry•Canary•Woodland-Fairy and Harry•Canary•Little-House-on-the-Prairie
They don't look like they are feeling lucky.
(PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing #16)

An explanation starting with what is probably the most obscure element: the canary on the right is DC Comics' Black Canary. She was one of my favorite characters back when the kids were watching "Young Justice" despite being clad in a strapless top and no pants, More than just a screamer,  she was smart and somehow able to defeat Super Boy in hand to hand combat. Based on a Google search yesterday, I gather that Black Canary is also a character in the current TV show "Arrow." I borrowed the black jacket from that show as the blue blazer she wore in "Young Justice" looked a bit too much like it belonged with the Laura Ingels Wilder style skirt on the bottom.

As for the Harrys: (Harries?)
For some reason that I cannot discover, my sons are almost phobic about the idea of seeing any of the Harry Potter movies. They also adamantly refused to listen to me read the first book to them. I've seen parts of several of the movies over the years on TV after the kids' bedtimes, but we remain mostly a Hogwarts-deprived household.  My younger son guessed that the Harry Potter head in this image was Velma from "Scooby Doo" which does not say a lot for my drawing. He told me that he could not recognize Mr. Potter because I had neglected to draw his forehead scar. Somehow, I don't think that was it.

Unsurprisingly, the kids have not seen "Dirty Harry," but thanks to the magic of YouTube and various memes, they do know who he is, more or less. When I asked my older son about Dirty Harry, he said, "Are you feeling lucky?"

The woodland fairy is a generic concoction. I considered making the legs Tinker Bell-like, but decided that would be too boring. I wanted to draw some leaves I guess.

My sons have never seen "Little House on the Prairie," nor read any of the Laura Ingels Wilder books. The books were among my favorites at some point in my childhood. I remember that I was very disappointed and lost interest in the series around the time the Laura character got married, but that was many volumes in. These books are among the many that I have not managed to share with my sons. I could not even get them to listen to the "Chronicles of Narnia," so it seems unlikely that they would sit still for a description of churning butter.

There was some protest on Instagram about a previous image in this series that mixed genders- Bambi and Blondie. Just for the record, most of these have been determined by the sound of the rhyme more than any specific commentary beyond visual juxtaposition.

Charlie•Harley•Jacob Marley high fives Snoopy•Scooby•Sleeping Beauty

Just a boy and his dog:

(PuppyMonkeyBaby drawing #10)

Peanuts meets Harley Quinn from DC's "Batman Animated" and the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge's partner from "A Christmas Carol"
...and Scooby Doo and Disney's Princess Aurora.
 
I can't really explain this.
You can see the rest of the series and read an attempt at an explanation at this link.
But it probably won't help much

Grinch and Gamora

"This green bore is not my friend...."
Or: "Just because we are both green, doesn't mean we have anything in common."

I knew this one was a bad idea from the start, but it went even more wrong than I could have anticipated. 

While I do select what to draw on these napkins with my sons' interests foremost in mind, my own issues about being the mother of two over indulged white boys who consume a lot of mainstream pop culture material creeps into the mix in some not entirely positive ways.

I thought "Guardians of the Galaxy" was a pleasantly entertaining movie, but having watched some of it again recently, (released on DVD and iTunes this week) I am reminded that it suffers from some of the usual gender and racial "insensitivities." As Gamora is the only central female character, and ahem, the only "person of color" in the cast with a large part, she stands at the center of these problems.

In a minor example: one of the biggest laugh lines in the movie as far as my sons were concerned occurs when Drax, a very literal thinker, declares the rest of the Guardians to be his friends.  He says something like, "You, Quill, are my friend. This dumb tree is also my friend. And this green whore is also my friend..." In fact, the only promiscuous character in the group is Star Lord, but Drax refers to him by name rather than calling him more appropriately "this pink whore." While Gamora is "a warrior and an assassin," she is still saddled with a peekaboo outfit and intermittent sexual slurs.

The variously brightly hued people in "Guardians" made me think of the often used invocation of strangely colored people to dismiss the topic of race: i.e. phrases like, "I don't care if you are white, black, yellow or purple..."  This sort of phrase usually comes out of the mouths of white people who are in the midst of claiming that race does not matter to them or to the world at large....( see the blog stuffwhitepeoplesay.com for a clearer discussion of this)  There are a lot of green, yellow, magenta and blue people in the movie... but... they are still mostly white.
 
I am pretty sure that I am not succeeding in conveying the importance of these issues to my sons.  My hectoring just makes them tune out all the more:  "Do your homework! Pick up your room! Brush your teeth! Don't be an insensitive, overentitled, chauvinistic, racist asshole!"

What does all this have to do with the poor Grinch? you might ask.
I am not entirely sure, but I think he might be a victim here as well.

Guardians of the Galaxy Selfie

I had to put Rocket in the front as  I've lately had much more practice drawing raccoons than people, (green skinned or otherwise) and I think it shows.

Ansel had requested that I include all members of the Guardians on this one, which really exceeded my powers of plausible character arrangement. Apparently Ansel wanted to ask a classmate whether she liked the movie or not, and wanted a visual aid to help prompt the conversation. This was a slightly unusual request as he is most often only interested in the Rocket or Star Lord characters.

When I asked Ansel what was so cool about Star Lord, he told me that he really liked the way that Star Lord's long coat flapped when he jumped. I certainly like that quality in a role model for my 7 year old son more than I like his unrealistic physique or his way with women.

I don't have to ask what he likes about the raccoon.

Bat Family Pile-on

We had been in sort of a latent phase regarding Batman recently.  We hadn't been rereading any of the two bookshelves worth of DC materials stashed in the boys' bedroom.

That was, until we received the recently released "Batman Li'l Gotham" compilation by Dereck Fridolfs and Dustin Nguyen.  This holiday themed all-ages series features all of the Robins and associated Bat characters drawn as big headed kids.  For our sons, it has an appeal similar to the "Tiny Titans" series where characters from different timelines and stories are all affably hanging out together.  And it is quite beautifully drawn and painted.

After a long discussion of which Robin was which during bedtime reading last night, I had the delusional idea that I was going to draw a whole bunch of Robin-kids goofing around.

This sort of drawing with multiple characters/multiple costumes was definitely a mistake for me to think I was going to be able to pull off after I should have already been in bed last night. 

Hamster Hunger Games

I think we might be reaching the end of the secret life of Fluffy series.  

But there have been murmurings  from Ansel's female classmates that my portrayals of the female rodent have not been, well, feminine enough.  Ansel told me, disgusted, that there had been questions as to why there had not been a princess hamster.  I was rather allergic to the princess theme myself back in my own lower school days... although I hope that I did not display the hysterical disgust that my proto misogynist sons often offer up. 

With the long holiday weekend to mull over what sort of character would appeal both to my masculine violence focused son and his princessy classmates, the best I could come up with was Katniss. 

We have not seen the movie.... nor do my sons want to see it, but they are of course aware of the promotional campaign and of other kids' interest.  

Ansel was not impressed with the napkin.  Archer's playdate guest today found the idea that I had "turned Katniss into a rat" pretty amusing, but not quite in the way I might have hoped.

Astrid, Toothless and Hiccup in Teen Titans Costumes

Halloween with Dragons #4:  Starfire and Robin with a Dragon wearing a Batman mask.

While the kids are much less fixated on Teen Titans Robin and Batman right now than they have been in the past (see all the Robin napkins, or the Batman napkins) I was pretty sure that Hiccup in a Robin costume was going to be an acceptable concept.

While Ansel chuckled when he looked at this, he did ask me what Toothless was wearing, so obviously I failed to sell the Batman mask.

Wonder Woman Birthday Cake

Taking a break from drawing on napkins for the weekend, I had a rare opportunity to squirt excessive frosting on to a cake for an adult birthday.  The underlying carrot cake was professionally produced by someone else, and arrived immaculately coated in pristine cream cheese frosting...very, very, soft cream cheese frosting.

As I had to refrain from touching the surface of the cake, it was an all squirting exercise... leading to a outsider-ish corduroy face quality.  It was supposed to be a portrait of the napkin recipients' very sun tanned aunt as Wonder Woman for her 50th, but the resemblance to the aunt or the super heroine was approximate at best. I botched the lettering as well....

But it did have a lot of frosting!
And the cake underneath tasted pretty good.

Camera lens distortion makes for a super chest view in the image above.

Teen Titans Raven with Teen Titans Go! Raven

Teen Titans Raven with Teen Titans Go! Raven:

Given the climate of Kindergarten chauvanism, Ansel rarely takes napkins that only feature female superheroes.
 
The sarcastic juvenile Raven on the right is much more age appropriate, but I am afraid that it was the chest on the adult version on the left that sold this napkin today

Raven appears in various levels of bodily exposure and facial obfuscation in the many iterations of the Teen Titans.  We have been reading the "New 52" Teen Titans, sort of.  I find it hard to follow, and my sons are mostly interested in what everyone is wearing and whether there are any new weapons for Red Robin. 

I considered adding a word bubble for the Raven on the right... something like "Nice outfit." or "Say Hi to Dad for me." but decided it was better to leave it alone. 

Good Day NY with Superman, Wonder Woman and Bobby from Teen Titans

The napkins- along with the napkin recipients and napkin draw-er appeared on Good Day New York on Fox this morning.  Watch the video here:

I was a little apprehensive about the idea of live TV after the kids' less than enthusiastic response to the CBS camera crew last week, but they definitely rose to the occasion. We were slotted in between two spit polish members of the honor guard demonstrating how to fold the American flag, and several metrosexual men demonstrating how to wear shorts.

The producers has requested that I draw the hosts dressed as Superman and Wonder Woman. My kids wanted a large menacing teddy bear named Bobby from an old Teen Titans episode. Since the kids are in between school and camp today I was able to spend two napkins worth of time trying to get a reasonable likeness of Greg and Rosanna.  Results were poor, but they seemed happy with their super physiques.

I had much more success with Bobby.

Brittany and Alvin Cosplay as Starfire and Robin

There is something very discomforting about the Chipettes.  They make Alvin and his "brothers" look strangely realistic by comparison.  A chipmunk wearing a sweatshirt seems so much more reasonable when one is looking at a pony-tailed one wearing a sequined dress.

Teen Titans Robin was cool, but Ansel's response this morning to the floating rodent in a miniskirt and a crop top was literally, "eh."

Teen Titans Raven as a Weimaraner

Both kids are eagerly anticipating the new "Teen Titans Go!" series airing tomorrow night.  Even when they are disenchanted with Batman, they are usually still interested in the Titans.

Ansel had neglected to put in a napkin request last night, so I thought Raven as a dog might be a safe bet.  We already have Robin as a Pug, Cyborg as a Bulldog and Starfire as a long haired Dachshund.  Beast Boy seemed problematically redundant.

But Raven was a no-go this morning.  Too girly.

Wonder Woman Pitbull

Ansel was a big fan of Wonder Woman in the days before he received the message that boys should not like female superheroes in flashy outfits.

There was even a Halloween somewhere between 2 and 3 years of age where we discussed the possibility of a him wearing a boy version of a Wonder Woman costume. (There are plenty of female spin-offs of male heroes- Batgirl and Supergirl to name the obvious, but not so much in the other direction.  Where is "Wonder Boy"?)

I thought Diana ought to be represented by a pitbull as she is more physically powerful than many other  supers.  And her disposition is sometimes rather on the tenacious side.  That said, I am no authority as we don't follow her very closely around here because that would threaten our collective masculinity.

Looking at the napkin this morning, both boys chuckled uncomfortably.  Ansel told me that my choice of a Pitbull was inappropriate.  It took me a while to determine that his concern was that the word "Pitbull" sounds too much like "nipple"....and I guess when we are talking about Wonder Woman, breast related words naturally come to his mind.

Teen Titans' Starfire Dachshund

I finally pushed the super canine series past Ansel's comfort zone:  This one was just too girly and lacked a masculine mask.

I gave careful consideration last night to what sort of dog was going to do the Teen Titans' Starfire's flowing orange hair and tawny complexion justice, but the kids were not impressed.

I decided to use the Teen Titans television show design of Starfire's costume rather than the sublimely-ridiculous-on-a-dog (and just plain ridiculous on a human) comic book version of her costume.  While it would not be particularly sexy on a dachshund, the reference seemed a bit strong for Kindergarten.  

I find I am suffering from an urge to draw Wonder Woman as a Pit Bull, but I know that will not go over well.

Ansel took an old napkin to school this morning.

Robin and Batgirl from "Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood" for Ansel

Ansel picked an image from the book in which Tim is supposedly removing a bullet that he has shot into Cassandra's shoulder.  Luckily, we have avoided a depiction of the wound, as well as the need to draw Robin's hands, so it is pretty unclear what is really going on.  I wonder if Ansel will provide the gory details at lunch today?

Power Girl for Ansel

Ansel requested Power Girl from Jim Lee's cover of "Infinite Crisis"....
I reduced her bustline a bit to make her a bit more appropriate for a preschool lunch.

Wonder Woman and Batman as Kids for Ansel