@7 Just because The Stranger acknowledges, celebrates and profits off the fact that some women are sometimes perfect for that kind of stuff, does not make your argument that somehow it reduces women to only that.

Comic book stores were once only basement shops and old dives with alley doors.

Like many of the punk scene record stores and adult stores, comics stores had the feel of being a dirt, little whole in the wall, which was puposefully not socially acceptable or mainstream.

As a young teen the musty, dark forbidden spaces added something to the experience that the newer stores in strip malls and shiny new shopping centers lacked. It's like the difference between hunting for a book in the stacks of an older used books store downtown as opposed to shopping at a Barnes & Noble in the suburbs. The space fits the culture.

Many of the guys that I've met in those spaces, though, have been decidedly adolescent, regardless of their age. Unfortunately, many of the men running the stores were as well.

As a young queer, I found some stores incredibly hostile to anyone who didn't fit the stereotype of being a hetero adolescent boy overcome with lusty porn fantasies...of course, most of the storylines were written or, at least, drawn for them.

My favorite shop was managed by a butch lesbian who scared the hell out of those sweaty, little shits that huddled in jerk circles in other stores. She introduced me to so many cool comics and characters that simply weren't carried or promoted at other stores.

Like any alternative culture space, though, you don't wait for them to change or extend you a welcoming invitation. You enter the space, struggle against resistance, and willfully add your unique identity to it. Fuck the assholes...it's your space, too.

Okay, @16, I'll bite:

My feminist viewpoint is that objectification is not always a problem in the real world or in comics and other artistic pursuits - Black Widow would be much less efficient at her job if she couldn't take advantage of being objectified. A problem arises when the depiction of any person or group is ONLY objectified. While you say that you view men as only useful for looking good and performing sexually, I don't think you really think that (and if you do, why do you read comics? Batman and Robin keep talking and never get to the good stuff!!). In this comic, it wasn't that she saw objectified women, it was that the primary portrayal of women was ONLY as objects, not as subjects who have real motivation and agency.

On a side note, the African-American Rodeo Group, Atlanta Black Rodeo Association, and various Jane Austen events might suggest to you that a welcoming environment can go a long way towards increasing diversity in attendees and participants of such events. While the mainstream culture can sometimes turn off perceived outsiders, a burgeoning community may be growing, unnoticed by the establishment.