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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Playboy/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 14:26, 27 June 2015 [1].

The Playboy edit

Nominator(s): Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:20, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Chester Brown got over his anxiety and guilt over his obsessive masturbating by drawing it for the world to see. He now advocates prostitution to replace traditional sexual relations. It all begins here, along with graphic depictions of Brown's peculiar masturbation style. Clearly this is the article editors will be tumbling over each other to review. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:20, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose: this article, not enough to be an FA. 333-blue 12:46, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Abuwtiyuw would disagree. FunkMonk (talk) 13:23, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Not enough to be a FA" is not a valid basis for opposing. You have to specify what it is that's is lacking from the article. Brianboulton (talk) 13:41, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Without further elaboration, this will not be taken into consideration by the FAC Coordinators when closing. Graham Beards (talk) 16:26, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This user has been permanently blocked at Chinese wikipedia, because constantly create disturbances at FAC, GAN, FPC and even speedy delection & AFD. For example, nominate a article at AFD to GAN, just for keep that article. And the worst part is: whatever talk, warning, 3 days block, 3 months black, apparently he really don't give a sxxx.--Jarodalien (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose

Poorly written and amateurish. This is one of the worst FAC nominations I've ever seen. Drivel like this would never get published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. Singora (talk) 23:26, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • The prose is a bit rough in places, but it's fixable. One goal of FAC is to give positive input on articles, so any comment on what is lacking would help. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:54, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Generally the FURs could be more comprehensive - particularly the parameters that are flagged as missing. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:16, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Crisco comments

  • anxiety over his obsessive mastubation over Playboy Playmate models - Over/over... perhaps "to" for the second one?
  • From 1986 Toronto-based Vortex Comics began publishing Yummy Fur. - Avoid repeating the "From year" sentence structure.
  • surreal serial - I see what you did there.
  • Simpler in his artwork - Is this necessary? You've already said that he began to simplify.
    • Hmm ... I wanted to reword this before ... He had begun simplifying before The Playboy, and continued to simplify afterwards as well. Thinkthinkthink ... Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • angel-demon - you don't describe it as an angel/demon earlier...
    • I actually di quite a bit of rearranging to deal with this—you may want to take a peak. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Though he knows his friends shortly will read it, he still feels uncomfortable talking with them about it face-to-face - I feel as if this could be tightened a bit "Though he knows his friends shortly will read it, he still feels uncomfortable discussing his masturbation with them" or something
    • I put this in, but changed "his masturbation" to "it" to encompass everything. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • similar to the trope of the angel and devil on the shoulders. - Perhaps "similar to the shoulder devil trope.
  • Chet feels terrified - This strikes me as working better in the synopsis section. This would also avoid the repetition
  • Some interpretations - whose?
  • Any of Matt's works worth citing/name dropping?
  • He portrays his friend Kris's negative reaction in "Showing Helder" to his depiction her in "Helder". - Is this really worth including in the running text?
    • I guess it could be clearer, but this is the main reaction that drove him to turn make the switch to stories of his adolescence. It's pretty much the main thrust of "Showing Helder", which appeared the issue before The Playboy began. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any contemporary reviews?
    • Aside from the ones I've included, not that I'm aware of. Until recently Brown seems to have been more talked about that written about—lots of name-dropping, but little analysis. There were also very few outlets for stuff like this back then other than The Comics Journal. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Has Brown revisited pornography in his later works? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:51, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Crisco, thanks for slagging the prose, but you forgot to oppose. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - I get the feeling that the prose could probably be cleaned up a bit more, but it reads acceptably to me, now. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:31, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support – I could do without the rather prissy "mother passes away" – in the words of Noël Coward, "She didn't pass over, pass on or pass out – she died!" WP:EUPHEMISM, you know. And it may just be my irredeemably puerile mind, but in the context of this article I'd be inclined to redraw the phrase, "Brown comes across friends of his parents". That apart, an accomplished article, striking just the right note, which I imagine was far from easy to do. The adverse comment, above, from Singora seems to me inexplicable. – Tim riley talk 08:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, thanks! I've obliterated that "passes away"—I don't know how I let it through. I'm disappointed my puerile mind didn't notice that "comes across", though—I've changed it to "encounter", at least until I can come up with something less stiff. Curly Turkey ¡gobble!

Support from Iridescent comments

  • I'll do a proper FA review when I get the chance, but quickly asking—given that this is an autobiographical comic, would it make sense to include a photo of Brown so readers can compare the fictional version to the reality? I appreciate the only photo we seem to have is 15 years older, but I think it would still be worthwhile. (Speaking of images, neither of the FUR images show Chester's face. Is this intentional as it seems a bit jarring to me; I imagine most readers' first thought on an article about a comic is "what does the main character look like?") – iridescent 14:52, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're right—there should be a picture of Chet and the angel-daemon. As for the photo, I agree, but I'd rather not use a recent one, as he public image at the time was with long hair. Lots of images of him like that out there (in photos, in his own drawings, and drawings by others), but none that are free that I know of. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 20:15, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've dropped the foreshortening image and replaced it with one showing Chet and the angel-daemon. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:07, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there actually a difference between underground comix and alternative comics? They're two links to two different articles, but I'm struggling to see what the difference is. (Feel free to disregard this if this is a really stupid question; I assume most people reading this article are going to be fans who will be more au fait than myself with the jargon.)
    • Very much so—underground comix was a movement in the '60s & '70s strongly associated with the counterculture. It focused largely on countercultural (sex, drugs) and transgressives (extreme violence, etc) themes. It largerly died out in the late '70s, and the alternative movement of the '80s & '90s picked up many of the leftover pieces, but with a much stronger focus on narrative and characterization, higher production values, and a greater sense of purpose and permanence, especially in the trend toward graphic novels.
  • "his uncommon masturbation style has drawn notice" really needs a citation—both for the "uncommon" and for the "has drawn notice".
  • "Brown's attitudes towards pornography changed dramatically over time. When he made The Playboy he was struggling with his embarrassment over buying pornography; two decades later he vocally advocated for the decriminalization of prostitution" appears to be a non sequitur to me—pornography and prostitution are two different things, and it wouldn't be unusual for someone to be opposed to censorship but against the legalisation of prostitution (a fairly mainstream view in the US) or a supported of legal prostitution but opposed to pornography (a very common position in the feminist movement). What would be more relevant would be if Brown's attitude towards porn changed over the years from his initial ambiguity to either "ban this evil filth" or "they should be teaching this stuff in schools".
    • I can see what you're saying. What I was trying to express was more along the lines of his going from embarrassment over his sexual appetites to being vocally public about his consumption habits. I'm going to have to mull over the wording. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 14:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've removed "toawrds pronography" for now—I think that's a slight improvement, anyways. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:51, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Has it been published in any other languages? For something published in Quebec not to be translated into French would be unusual in its own right; if so, did it have any impact overseas, and if not why has it not been? (I appreciate there may be no source for this).
    • It has been, and I originally had a list of translations, but I took it out as I thought it was borderline OR (I mean, how could I be sure I got them all? I didn't find a list anywhere) Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 14:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do we have any idea of whether it was commercially successful? A lot of critically acclaimed things are still commercial flops, and I'd imagine at least some bookstores probably refused to stock The Playboy given its subject matter.
    • I do have an answer to this, but it's entirely OR. Basically, this was his best-selling period before Louis Riel became a mainstream hit in 2003, but still Brown's sales (something like 7,000 copies an issue) were a fraction of those of people like the Hernandez Brothers or Daniel Clowes (something like 20,000 copies an issue), though critics generally saw them as equals. Brown was seen as "important", but it didn't translate into sales at the time. I can't back this up with an RS, unfortunately. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 14:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Brown stated that several women took offense at the book"—do we have any idea what sort of numbers we're talking about? Someone will always take offence at pretty much anything; was this just a few people saying they didn't like it, or a concerted campaign against it?
    • There was the odd letter published in the letters page—one reader tore up the first issue and sent it to Brown—but it's something the RSes haven't talked about. None of the sources give any details. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 14:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

These are all (aside from the porn/prostitution equivalence issue) relatively trivial points, and I agree with those above and below at being baffled by Singora's and 333-blue's comments vehemence above. – iridescent 11:02, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Something frustrating about writing about someone like Chester Brown is that there is a lot of information that "everyone knows" (who's in the know), but that hardly anybody writes about. For instance, the serial had a one-page intro about Brown's dad that was dropped from the collection, and which shines a lot of light on certain aspects of the book—but none of the sources talk about it. The most recent reprint went through drastic changes—all of the dialogue was relettered, a lot of the dialogue was rewritten, and the artwork was altered—but just try to find a source that goes into it. I keep telling myself I should write a book. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 14:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those are all reasonable replies, and nothing to keep me from supporting (although I do think the prostitution/pornography linkage needs to be rewritten). I agree entirely regarding "things everybody knows" that aren't actually written down anywhere, which is the bane of Wikipedia (try writing an article on any town not significant enough to be the subject of books if you really want to experience this feeling). – iridescent 15:24, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from SchroCat

Nice article. A couple of comments for you to consider:

Infobox

  • I feel the captin text is a little small, although there isn't anything in the coding to suggest I being forced that way.

Background

  • I'm not sure about the position of reference 4. If it's supporting the connexion between the date and the fact, then the two refs (presumably ref 5) can go together.
    • I think it was a result of cut & paste—all the info was in Ref #5, so I've removed what was #4. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:37, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 21:45, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent – all good for a support now. Cheers. – SchroCat (talk) 22:59, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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