Broken Frontier

I’ll start this off by saying that I swear I didn’t know that my column was a week late. But then I received an email from the EIC here saying, "Uh.. Joanne...where are you?" The answer is, I was in my own little world, wondering why my bank account seems to be allergic to money and how much I hate March.

February sucks, but I really hate March.

I’m sorry if your birthday is in March or you celebrate some fantastic family event during this month, but it still sucks. Every retailer in the US and Canada will agree with me. This is when customers go into hibernation and we’re stuck shovelling way too much snow and giving up on all the normal foods we like to buy in exchange for cheaper food like no-name canned pasta and grilled processed cheese sandwiches.

March represents the time right before comic convention season and it just drags. I’ve personally been about to blow myself up several times since January 1st. So last week, to keep myself from going completely insane, I sorted my clothes. (The exciting life I lead...) Spring is coming, so I thought that if I put my winter clothes away in boxes and filled my dresser with all my spring clothes, it would make me forget all the snow, the cold and my lack of cash. It didn’t work, but I did come across something rather interesting.

My fangirl t-shirts.

You know, the ones that have the logos of your favorite comics? I found my Strangers In Paradise black t-shirt featuring Francine with a black eye. My X-Men t-shirt, done by Marc Silvestri, long before his Darkness days. I also found a Concrete t-shirt that I bought for my husband almost 8 years ago. After finding several more, I then came across my latest acquisition, my Arsenic Lullabies baby tee. (I wear this as often as I can to comic conventions, if you’ve read the series, you know why!)

I starting thinking about how I’ve stopped wearing guys t-shirts as they look really dumb on me and how I wished I had a Transformers t-shirt, but they don’t make them in women’s styles. I kept thinking, "what a foolish thing NOT to make. There’s a huge following for the Transformers and a lot of them are girls!" So, then it got me thinking again, "Well fine, if they don’t want to make a t-shirt to fit me, that’s fine. They should PAY me to wear their shirts anyway!” Hmmm... pay me...

That’s it! Why on this earth should I advertise their product on my feminine body for free? Guys are always looking at my chest; why not make a buck from it?

Maybe it was the processed cheese talking, but I thought this could be a really great idea.

Just think about when you go to comic conventions, what are the two things you see at every booth that’s desperate to sell their gear? That’s right, a woman and her skimpy outfit. These women are being hired to sell a product because they have what most men want. (If you have to ask what that is, please go read something else…)

So why should I go out in public, wearing my extremely cool X-Men t-shirt and get nothing from Marvel? I can guarantee better advertising than any billboard, that’s for sure. And not only do I not get paid to wear this shirt, I have to BUY the shirt as well?!?! Well, that’s just not right.

You see it everywhere, people advertising OTHER people’s products for free. Sports teams, clothing lines, TV shows, movies, it’s a trend that’s saturated all parts of our society. One of my step kids, a 17-year old male who looks just like Eminem, wouldn’t be caught dead in clothing that did not represent his favorite basketball or football team, it’s simply uncool to wear "blank" clothes.

Back in 1993, when I entered college, I swore I would avoid wearing anything with advertisements. There was just something about it that felt wrong, it’s kind of the same feeling I get when I see a celebrity in a commercial. What’s the word I’m looking for...cheap? That might be too strong, but you get the idea. But I never stopped wearing my comic book clothing… as it never even occurred to me that wearing an Avengers t-shirt is exactly the same as wearing a t-shirt with a Nike symbol. (I will, however, bow down to the complete genius behind the Nike checkmark.) Marvel doesn’t need me to advertise for them, especially since everywhere I look, I see Spider-man -- shoes, chocolate, posters, umbrellas -- here comes that saturation word again. I mean, I really loved the two movies, but would I wear a Spider-man shirt, no matter how good it looked? Nah!

So, back to this "I should get paid to wear your stuff" idea. It’s rather ludicrous, I know. I’m just imagining myself sending an invoice to DC stating that they owe me $360.00 US because I wore my super-girl baby tee around for 6 hours. So that’s $60.00 an hour and for those 6 hours. Sheesh, I had 45 guys raise their eyebrows in my direction, 22 guys make whistling noises, one child say "Mommy, it’s Supergirl", several elderly gentleman presenting themselves as marriage material and others making proposals I don’t care to repeat here!

You know what? It’s not ludicrous, I SHOULD get paid to endure all that!!