If you haven't checked it out, it's really good! I didn't know what Jem was, as someone with no nostalgia for the property, a friend recommended it to me and let me borrow some books and I ended up grabbing all of them!

 

I wish this phrase would finally fade out of usage. There's really no nice things? Humanity has an abundance of nice things to enjoy.

 

Maybe it's an homage to Lena Dunham?

 

I don't love the Jem comic. The designs are ugly, their bodies are weirdly proportioned with odd faces and it was dull as hell.

 

Good phrases never go away. Not with some people complain about other peoples nice things.

 

You just admitted that other people do in fact have nice things, which shows why the phrase is dumb.

 

No the phrase is fine, you're just taking things too literal.

 

Just gals bein pals, nuthin to see here.

 

The designs are supposed to be reminiscent of the old 80's designs, so... I dunno. Seems like an attempt to provide some concession to old school Jem fans, especially since the 80's character designs looked like this:



So to the extent that these new designs look like some LSD induced Lisa Frank fever dream violently puked up all over Barbie, there's at least some reasoning behind it. Not liking the new design's clothes seems a bit like not liking Optimus Prime because he's a truck, but I might be misinterpreting your statement.

As far as weird bodies and faces, I'm torn on that. First, I agree with you insfoar as that on first impression, the girls look odd. However, there's a bunch of people that look like these girls. I'm not all gung ho at some of the reasoning behind the re-designs, but this is apparently what the market wants so more power to them, I say. What might be a little odd is:

1) This is a comic. This is a medium that's generally populated with women that look like fitness models and/or porn stars. I'm OK with that and can definitely admit that for me, it's a little bit of a sidestep when you crack open a comic and you're not looking at a Madison Avenue sexy lady.

2) In life, I rarely see people with radically different body shapes kinda hanging around together. This might be due to the fact that (based on what I can tell), people tend to hang out with people that look like them for any number of reasons. Differences get really accentuated when you put 5 people together and they're all shaped differently. The only places I see people with massively differing body types hanging around is when there's a comicon going about and those are weird by nature.

3) This is going to sound crass and ignorant as to how the Jem comic works, but you rarely see people with the body types extolled in Jem in any kind of music entertainment setting these days. The music industry is filled with "beautiful people" that kind of conform to a set physical type. So it might be a matter of cognitive dissonance - how do you resolve the fact that the Holograms don't all look like Ariana Grande? I have no idea, but on the same token off in DC an orange bikini model can shoot lasers from her face, so I think I have limited grounds to complain if a bigger girl is a major pop star.

Ultimately, it may just be the art, though. There's still plenty of conventional "pretty" in Jem, along with artists that don't make the characters look like escapees from a clothing designer's sketchpad:




That said, if you think the story is boring, I have no idea. It could be. A boring story is a far worse sin that crummy character design if you ask me.

 

So.

In the queer community it is far more common. Or, I am finding as I get older and I've broadened my horizons, in accepting groups of people. Most of my friends are straight folks, but we occupy a lot of different shapes and types and even race (yeah, mainly white Canadians because welp, but not exclusively, and not wholly). But it's also a group of friends who are generally all inclusive and open--inded and when a friend told is they were trans and going by they/them, that group as a whole was like, oh, cool. Got it. And politely remind one of us if we misgender them.

I do get what you are saying and I don't think it's "wrong" or inaccurate. Folks who are athletic probably make friendships with similar; artists over here; and so forth. A lot of my friends are theatre people or musical people on top of being firmly on the "pro" side of LGBTQ+ issues. So, I guess? But I've also noted that on the queer community to which I am only slightly a part of there can be a wider acceptance of body shapes. We can unpack that and get into some of the prejudice cis gay men or some lesbians have towards the bi, trans, or pan identities but that's not fully relevant.

So if jem is representing these folks and in a lot of ways also representing the queer community it may make more sense. Also, as you said: comic book. The music biz in jem doesn't have to be QUITE as shitty as in real life. ^^

 

Oh certainly. I've been around and currently live in Vegas. I think it's a little unusual, but not wholly out of the question for 5 completely different kinds of people to hang out. The point of the post was to explore why some people might find IDW Jem's character designs to be jarring. It boils down to expectations, right or wrong.

This Jem isn't mine, but I'm not going to besmirch those that love this version . It's worth discussion as to why that might be, though.

 

See how that works? "It's not for me." It's so FREEING and amazing and healthy.

For me, it started with ROTF. The worst 2.5 hours I've ever spent in a movie theatre.* The realization that I didn't need to like, support, or even care about something just because it was about something I liked in other forms. Then my buddy said of the Bay-produced TMNT films: "Of course I'm going to see it, it's ninja turtles. Looks like shit, but..." and I shook my head. Then I realized, fuck it, it's not for me. And that's okay. I can live with that.*

*caveat: holy fuck did I hate the Hobbit movie, both as a film AND as an adaptation. THAT was the longest three hours ever in a theatre. ROTF put me to sleep and hurt me, Hobbit was almost physically painful. I hated it so, so, so, much. But then I got to a place where... eh. It doesn't change the book for me.

 

Ah. Sure. I was over myself around the time RiD 2001 came out and they kept on chalk and kaye for optimus and megatron.

I tell people they're wrong for a living, whether I personally think they are or not. Don't have a compelling need to do it as a hobby, especially one as subjective as this.

Jem holds a special place for me. She was such an oddity for her time. Most IPs in the 80s were multimedia, but Jem pushed harder, farther than Joe or TFs just because her competitor was the girl toy juggernaut. She wasn't some pieced together bullcrap or some nth times regurgitated old concept like "soldiers fight enemies".

Jem was assembled meticulously . I respect a good product and If not for some corporate espionage she could have had Barbie on the ropes and wrecked Mattels shit 30 years before Bratz ever did.

 

Whaaaaaaaaat is this, tell me there is a fascinating write-up about this espionage. I am CURIOUS.

You're right though. Even on the surface Jem is a...

"misfit"

(had to)

For her time and what was going on. Very 80s, sure, but very fresh and different from basically everything else.

 

In the Toys that Made Us episode on Barbie, there's a brief segment on Jem. Specifically, Mattel got a scoop on Hasbros Barbie killer: Jem. This drive Mattel to bust their butts to get a rocker Barbie to market before Jem which was meant to suck the wind out of Jem and make her look like a cheap ko.

In addition, the book Toy Wars (which is a little pro Hasbro) discusses additional failure issues with Jem, including speculation that her premise never quite took off with girls because of the Hasbro predilection of good vs. Evil not moving right with girls at the time.

 

Speaking generally, the four toylines destined to be showcased on Super Sunday in late 85 (Jem, Inhumanoids, Robotix, Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines) worked a little differently.

Traditionally the timeline for a toy year went:
Showcase at NY Toyfair in February
Toyline hits shelves in the Spring
Cartoon debuts at start of next TV season in September and usually runs up until Christmas.

With these four, the idea was to have the pilot miniseries of the cartoon on the air six months ahead of Toyfair. That is why the last 20 episodes or so of Jem are devoted to wrapping up old characters and introducing new ones for a 1988 toyline that then never happened.

 

Say what you will about Jem, but there's about ten thousand times more creativity in it than that desperate Barbie rehash.

 

I did not know that. That's pretty neat. Jem's pretty shrouded in mystery to me but I think it was a pretty interesting step for Hasbro at the time. One of these days I'll dig into it. Such a neat attempt deserves more people acknowledging it.

Hasbro had some pretty neat writers. Even old Warhorse Budiansky who didn't really give a shit about what he was doing showed a lot of creativity in whatever he kicked out.

Honestly, Jem was the one IP I was hoping they'd sneak into the Hasbroverse. I think I just wanted to see them fight Soundwave or team up with Cover Girl for a Gi Jem Mini.

 

Sure. I think Hasbro was much better at imbuing life (even if it came from using people like Uncle Bob, Larry Hama or Christy Marx who didn't actually work for Hasbro) into their toys than any of the other major manufacturers. That's why even the lesser stuff (like Jem) resonates with us old codgers today.

 

Not just us old codgers. A good chunk of the fanbase comes from the various home releases and repeats over the years since. Especially in the 2010's, with four years on the Hub and in August just finished up six years on Netflix.