Yeah, I’m pretty sure Lent was basically created so I could some day draw a dapper robot riding a penny-farthing bicycle. SO I DID!

I also wanted to share a photo of the Big Damn Heroes piece all finished up:

Today, I really just played around with my Prismacolor markers. I also transferred the Firefly chibis onto Bristol board and inked the drawing. It needs to dry overnight before I add color so I should have the final piece ready for tomorrow.

I am still planning to draw some more tonight but since tomorrow is a day off for Lent (no seriously, we get days off), I’ll post it them as a continuation of day 4.

For day 3, I decided to appease Ryan and do some Firefly chibi characters. Decided to do the muscle and drew Jayne, Mal, and Zoe. Things I learned while drawing this: tight pants are harder to draw in this style, Zoe wears a lot of belts, I don’t really like drawing guns.

I will probably tweak Mal’s pose and Jayne’s hair prior to inking but, here ya go:

Sorry about the crappy pic. I’ll scan it in it’s final form.

I’ve been in a Friefly mood lately. I get obsessed and re-obsessed with things again and again and lately…the re-re-re-obsession has been Firefly.

I love me some Firefly.

As I was surfing the web (yes, for information about a show that was canceled years ago), I ran across this bit of crazy. A Rapist’s View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly. It’s an essay about how Firefly is sexist and how, in Inara, Joss wrote a character who is raped by all of her clients. Never mind the fact that she likes her profession or screens and chooses her clients. Never mind the fact that Joss created a world where her profession could be both revered and frowned upon. Never mind any of that. This essay writer watched the series twice. She knows what’s up. And what’s up is that every man who hired Inara was a rapist, Zoe is the token black character, and Joss himself is no better than a rapist.

What an idiot.

She takes issue with Zoe calling Mal ’sir,’ with Mal telling Zoe to shut up, with…well, everything about the show really. It would be infuriating if it wasn’t all such bullshit. The Mal and Zoe stuff is a perfect example of the way she made her argument. Point out that the white captain told the only black woman on the show to shut up, and the show looks misogynistic and racist. But in doing that, she ignored the entire relationship being displayed. Race has zero meaning on the show. Characters are black or white or middle eastern and it is never commented on. Zoe being black is a product of casting Gina Torres, not a statement on race relations. Zoe calls Mal ’sir’ because she is his first officer on the ship, because he was her commander during their war. It has nothing to do with her being submissive to him. She could kill him with one hand tied behind her back.

I found her assertion that Wash is a rapist and an abuser because SHE, the essay writer, has never known a relationship between a white male and a black woman to be healthy, to be particularly offensive.

And I probably shouldn’t get started on her strange definition of the word rape.

I don’t think Joss Whedon always makes a conscious effort to never, at any given moment of all of his shows, objectify women. Nor do I think he should have to. He writes strong women and strong men. He writes characters that interact with a slightly heightened level of realism. But in no way, have I ever thought he was a woman-hater.

Joss Whedon is not Margaret Atwood. He is a self-proclaimed feminist who writes fantasies about women with super powers. I don’t quite know why anyone would look to his work for hardcore a feminist message.

Also? Even at it’s most sexist (which I guess would be what? Heart of Gold?) Firefly’s not even half as bad as Real Housewives, Charm School, Rock of Love, Family Guy, Flavor of Love, those Smart Earth/Baked Lays/Smartfood “Only in a Women’s World” commercials, I Love Money, I Love New York, Daisy of Love, America’s Next Top Model, whatever Fox’s reality department is doing right this minute, and real life.

But, check out this spoof of the post. Genius.