While tenure on the site is definitely one of the things we factor into who wins Comic Vine Community Star, it's safe to say we care more about the quality of the individual than anything else. That's why we are happy to award this week's Comic Vine Community Star to Cosmo111687. While only a registered user on Comic Vine since March 9th of this year, Cosmo still managed to make a serious impact on the site with insightful, interesting and just overall intelligent commentary and a plethora of blogs that have sparked interesting conversation on our website. Cosmo's comments are definitely some that many of us went out of our way to read, myself included.
Cosmo's blogs are by far some of the most interesting, thought provoking and intelligent. Take for example Cosmo's "Sexy Batman: Retrospective on Sex in Batman" blogs which identify hyper-sexual, non-sexual, and sexual representations of both male and female characters on Batman covers both past and present. Cosmo argues that over the years, many Batman covers were heavy on both BDSM and homoerotic themes, respectively. Cosmo sites various issue of BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL, for example.
Perhaps inspired by the 1992 film, Batman Returns, in which Catwoman was given heavy BDSM themes, and by the sudden wave of “extreme” 90s comic book art that was in vogue at the time, DC took a new direction with Batman by making his stories darker and grittier and introduced a new villain to Batman's rogue gallery, Bane (seen below), who they hoped would appeal to new audiences. DC also hired Kelley Jones to do the artwork for Batman and Detective Comics. During his time on Batman and Detective Comics, Jones built his style around three common motifs: grotesque exaggerations of human anatomy, strangulation, and (mostly homoerotic) domination themes.
Cosmo also cites the gradual evolution of the portrayal of superheroes; implying that the artists began to cater to the growing female audience by depicting more attractive portrayals of men. You can check out the blog (which we highly recommend) here as well as all of Cosmo's awesome blogs, here. It's certainly an interesting discussion. Cosmo also hosts a "Best of the Month," where the Comic Vine community gets to vote for their favorite book of the month. You can check out Cosmo's voting blog for the month of November, here and don't forget to cast your vote!
Cosmo has also done a considerable amount of damage to the wiki-database, and I mean damage in the best way possible. Cosmo has edited some important concept pages like the homosexuality concept page for example (384 points). Cosmo has also edited Cammy's character page (1,016 points), Wolfman's page (340 points), the Gargoyles team page (161 points), and Zatanna's character page (33 points) among others, gaining a total of 2,479 wiki points. In addition to wiki edits, Cosmo has also compiled various lists citing everything from Fictional Crushes to Rating the Copycats. Be sure to check out all of Cosmo's comprehensive lists here.
Cosmo is definitely a valuable asset to this community having contributed incredibly insightful blogs and offering up thought provoking discussions to the community. We are happy to shine a little bit of light onto Cosmo's hard work and awesome contributions. Much deserved, Cosmo111687! Be sure to visit Cosmo's page!