The Gaming Den

Yeah, same. I saw their own actual statement on it a couple days back, considered posting it in this thread, and decided it was separate. But it's def related.

Prak wrote:

Eikre wrote:The first of those two images is illustrated with a digital painting. That's instantly more high-brow than otherwise. First of all, painting is an old and prestigious craft, and the Louvre is full of paintings of tits. Painting is also very difficult and time-consuming in a way that everyone finds obvious and appreciable, and every drop of sweat that rolled off those purple areolas is a token of the picture's merit. Thirdly, there's a directorial intent to exemplify a theme with this picture: The setting conforms to a Greek aesthetic. Paintings of tits are a noted theme in neoclassicism. So it can be asserted high-mindedly that a lack of tit paintings would, in fact, be a critical oversight. It is in fact a necessary artistic duty to paint those tits.

Terry Pratchett, Thud! wrote:He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.

“No urns,” he said at last.

“What urns?” said Nobby.

“Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added: “Or a plinth. Best is both, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.”

“What about a potted plant?”

“That’s okay if it’s in an urn.”

Oh so you DO get it.

I understand what you're saying, but that doesn't mean I agree...

Not meaning to ring and run before the board closes down, but it sure does seem like the difference between those two card depictions that Prak took as the same falls into the "I know porn when I see it". One looks like scenery art with a natural merfolk who happens to not be wearing clothes while swimming, like merfolk do, the other looks like sexualized porn with glitter tits and self-groping. And one is painted vs. photo-realistic. The medium does feel like it matters in context.

One I wouldn't mind having as a card that I played with my parents or kids. The other I'd be uncomfortable using. I cannot say that I find them to be the same at all.

erik wrote:Not meaning to ring and run before the board closes down, but it sure does seem like the difference between those two card depictions that Prak took as the same falls into the "I know porn when I see it". One looks like scenery art with a natural merfolk who happens to not be wearing clothes while swimming, like merfolk do, the other looks like sexualized porn with glitter tits and self-groping. And one is painted vs. photo-realistic. The medium does feel like it matters in context.

One I wouldn't mind having as a card that I played with my parents or kids. The other I'd be uncomfortable using. I cannot say that I find them to be the same at all.

Erm...yeah. The first is still a little sexualised, IMHO, but I'd agree that the second doesn't pass the "play with family" test.

Hm. I guess this is another time where my shitty relationship with my family makes me unable to truly understand something. Cuz... well, ok, maybe it's also the fact that I grew up around artistic nudes and even things that skirted right up against the erotica line, but....


"I could play Magic cards with erotic art with my family all day, I don't give a shit about my family..."

You wouldn't want the glitter tits in an actual MtG card because it doesn't have an urn in it and is therefore not an artistic nude. That would not be very well received by audiences in general and the MtG suits would be justified in saying "we're not going to print it because the people we print cards for wouldn't like it." That's very different from cutting ties over it, though (even if those ties were already so loose as to make cutting them mostly symbolic).

Innocent until proven guilty means "we aren't going to personally do this" doesn't require a whole lot of justification because it makes no accusation. "I don't want to sell to this market because I don't find it personally gratifying to make card games for counterculture twenty-somethings when I could be making card games you could play with your family" is a perfectly reasonable thing for a creator to say, so the burden is on an accuser to explain why it's racist/sexist/whatever to not do something. "We refuse to be associated with people who do this" is an accusation, an assertion that Lizbeth Eden has done something wrong that WotC does not want to be associated with.

So, even though you can tell the difference between the fish tits card and the glitter tits card, it's still relevant that the difference is basically that one of them is in the milieu of a genre of erotica that's gained respectability through sheer age, whereas the other is hip modern erotica, and while that distinction does exist in the minds of the public and choosing one but not the other will effect what kind of audience you get, the distinction is still dumb and it's not wrong for Lizbeth Eden to decide she is personally ignoring it. At which point, why is this Wizards of the Coast's business? Why don't they just shrug their shoulders, say it's a fan card not sold in packs or valid in tournament play, and is therefore out of their domain and not their problem?

Possibly relevant example of photomanipulation of female form for a published MTG card:

https://mobile.twitter.com/vorthosmike/ ... 76/photo/1

But definitely less sexualized than any of the already discussed examples.

Holy fucking SHIT those thighs are DOING SOMETHING TO ME.
I'd ask why the Counterspell card has a chick that's that ripped, but I also don't think I care.

Josh_Kablack wrote:Possibly relevant example of photomanipulation of female form for a published MTG card:

https://mobile.twitter.com/vorthosmike/ ... 76/photo/1

But definitely less sexualized than any of the already discussed examples.

That's my favorite Counterspell art, and it was only in the Ice Age set.

Oh hey, that art. Yeah, that's good Counterspell art.