This isn’t going to be a popular post – I know that now. It might make you mad, but please don’t shoot the messenger on this one.
There has been a lot of talk about comics being sexist or DC comics in particular not wanting to hire women and while it can be construed as a problem when DC’s titles went from 12% women creators to 1%, the arguments of more female leads in comics just doesn’t fly. Simply put, if sales were better, then there would be more female leads in comics, but the sales just won’t support it.
In April, the first comic with a female lead on Diamond’s list was Wonder Woman #610 at 50 selling 30,000 copies. The next is Birds of Prey #11 at 56 selling another 30,000. X-23 #9 at 59 with 28,000 issues sold. Gotham City Sirens #22 at 71 selling 24,000. Batgirl #20 at 72 selling 24,000.
I could go on, but I’m writing this kind of late and you get the point.
Publishers make decisions based on sales and when Wonder Woman is last on the Top 50 list, then what hope do other female leads have? After all, Wonder Woman is arguably the most recognizable and important female comic lead of all time and she can’t even generate enough sales to outsell Green Arrow (which was at #44 with 32,000 issues sold).
Most fans in support of female leads will suggest that more women creators working on female leads will bring more sales to the characters and this is also more faulty logic.
Comic fans are fickle and they tend to go with safe bets, so the same creators are typically promoted time and time again. I’m guilty of it myself which is why I’ll be reading Aquaman because I love Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis. It’s really difficult for new creators (male or female) to successfully break into mainstream comics. While people will point to Jeff Lemire and Jason Aaron as writers who broke from the pack, these are exceptions to the rule that DC and Marvel will safeguard their characters from untested writers (and even though Lemire’s Superboy is the best book on the stands, Superboy himself is hardly a top-tier character). Paul Cornell has been given Action Comics, but he has been working on C-grade books for a long time and writing Dr. Who to get where he is, so he is hardly unproven.
So, the problems facing female creators isn’t their gender as much as it is just a difficulty with getting into the industry in general. It takes a lot of time to work up a reputation so that publishers will hire you, and even longer for fans to embrace new writers.
So, can we all just stop with this conspiracy against women crap that has been floating around the web since before Flashpoint started? It isn’t a conspiracy so much as basic economics.
- Female leads don’t sell very well.
- It’s difficult for new creators to prove themselves to publishers and . . .
- . . . even if they prove themselves, there is no guarantee that fans will embrace them as new creators because most fans only want what they consider familiar.
Does it suck that female leads can’t sell? If you’re into female leads, then yeah, it sucks. Personally, I don’t read Wonder Woman (but I will when Azzarello is on there because I like Azz and yes I realize that I am part of the problem of being loyal, but I try to branch out sometimes), but I hope other people will and I do suggest it to new readers who might be interested. I think Supergirl is an incredible title and I’ve heard nothing but good things about Q’s run on Batgirl, but by and large, I just don’t read a lot of books with female leads. This isn’t some sort of conscious decision on my part so much as I just pick up books I’m interested in (for instance, Rucka and J.H. Williams III on Batwoman was an absolutely incredible run and I look forward to more from Williams on it). The point is that just because someone wants more of something, doesn’t mean that everyone wants it. I wanted Kyle Rayner to be Green Lantern forever, but his sales weren’t strong enough to have him sustain the title, so they brought back Hal Jordan. Sales are are the most important motivating factor in comics, so we shouldn’t take things so personal when stories don’t go the way we want.
This post stems from San Diego Comic-Con last weekend where a fan in a Batgirl costume kept bringing up gender issues at the DC comics panels. One of the comments that got me from her interview with DC Women Kicking Ass, “I said, “If you do want to read a comic about a woman like that, would you please stand up now?” Nearly all of the room stood up. I said, “This is your market, DC,” and sat down.”
It’s funny that she considered that particular audience to be enough to prove her point when the numbers just don’t match. Furthermore, these are people at a DC Comics panel – I could have gone in and said, “If you want to read a comic about Ambush Bug and Lobo in a buddy cop comic, please stand up” and the room would have agreed (maybe not as enthusiastically given that I am not a woman in a Batgirl costume).
Female leads in comics are incredibly important – this should be a given – but until the market shows a greater interest in them, then DC won’t publish more female lead books and they shouldn’t be expected to until then either. I understand that some fans might want to see more female leads or more females to be in prominent roles, but you know what? I want Captain Marvel and the Shazam family to have their own title again, but sales probably wouldn’t support it. The difference between what I want and what DC Women Kicking Ass wants is that gender is attached to her cause and automatically gives her cause a sense of nobility that my cause doesn’t inherently have even though both wants are equally economically unfeasible.
I keep writing some and deleting, so I’ll just stop now. Please weigh in and keep your comments civil. I may be wrong and I want to discuss this issue further. Let me know if I’m missing something in a polite manner, please.
UPDATE!
I posted this link on DC Women Kicking Ass’s website and it was quickly edited. She responded saying, “Wow, you have quite a set on you to come over here and post a link to your blog.
Why the fuck would you think after the insults you’ve thrown at me and how you’ve mocked me this would even be acceptable.
Get out and and stay out.”
It’s nice to see that my attempt at civil, intelligent discussion on this issue is completely ignored. Forget the facts, Sue will go on believing she knows how to save the comic industry.
I think this occurs when it comes to availability of back issues, too. For the last year I have been looking for a copy of the “Death and Life of Superman” (the comic version, NOT the novelized version, even though it, too, was fantastic) to replace the copy I gave away to a student a while ago. Even though DC touts that it was “the #1 selling comic series from DC Comics!”, it must not be selling all that well anymore, because they have ceased publishing it. I know I can get “The Death of Superman,” but it isn’t the same book.
My point is this: I agree that it isn’t so much a decision made based on gender as much as on numbers. My question is, why do, as a rule, female leads tend to produce lower numbers?
That’s an excellent question and I think it’s mostly because the comic book audience is made up of males and we tend to read characters we relate to
A fair and reasonable article but you would have more people standing for the Ambush Bug/Lobo team up.
I think one reason most comic leads are male is because most young males enjoy the sense of escapism. We like to imagine what we’d do if given super powers or what it’d be like to be the hero in an intense situation, and, generally, females seem to fantasize about more grounded, realistic situations…like finding a guy with a stable job. So what I think I’m saying(and what Cody probably already said) is that the demographic just isn’t there. Yeah, a roomful of people stood up for that girl but I’m fairly certain that the at least half of the men in that room were probably thinking to themselves “yeah, but that girl better be making out with some bitches by issue 3″. And another thing, she asked that question at one of the biggest comic conventions with that question directed to an already amped up audience. She may as well have went into a penticostal church in the middle of a revival and said “stand up if you believe in god”…ok that might be exaggerating a bit.
Anyway, with all that being said, yeah I wouldn’t mind seeing more female comic leads:)
Your arguments just make feel that we’d be better off without DC and Marvel. Quite frankly, I don’t want to be reading stuff that’s written for the demographic that you describe. That’s when I remembered that I don’t read any of that stuff. Aside from the
occasional Vertigo book, I haven’t read anything published by DC or Marvel for years.
I will say that it is far more “noble” to fight for gender equality in a traditionally hyper-masculine industry than it is want to see more of one’s favorite character.
I have more, but I really don’t feel up for a full blown feminist rant right now.
Alex – I wouldn’t say we’d be better off without DC or Marvel because there are wonderful characters within their respective companies and they tell some interesting stories. I’m not advocating that Superman is a more relatable and interesting character than Wonder Woman because it’s impossible to quantify who means what to whom. I’m merely noting that while some fans claim that more female leads and creators will help the industry, this simply isn’t true. This isn’t to keep anyone down and I certainly don’t think more female leads could hurt the industry, but there are so many fans who think they have “the answer” to the problem of a lack of readers, and judging by sales, we can see that this just isn’t true.
And while I will agree that the fight for gender equality is perceived as more noble on the surface, we have to realize that without sales to back up the justification for more female leads and creators, the cause itself simply isn’t there. Just because the argument involves gender doesn’t necessarily mean that it is more noble.
As an example, let’s take the topic of racism. People were claiming that cancelling the Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle and the Ryan Choi Atom comics were motivated by racism – but those people ignore the fact that before they were cancelled, Blue Beetle was selling 10,000 copies and the Atom was selling 11,000. While it sucks that diverse characters couldn’t sustain their own titles, at the end of the day, sales are the only thing that matters, so they had to be cancelled. People can complain and bemoan a lack of diversity, but until sales can accompany those titles, then they won’t keep making them.
And really, who can blame them? If a white, essentially boring character like Green Arrow can outsell Wonder Woman, then they will keep making Green Arrow comics because he sells better. Why would they stop?
When George Perez was on Wonder Woman, it sold. ‘Cause of story and art. Simple. Hope Azzarello/Chaing have along run on this title. I’ll be sampling the first few issues.
If Johns/Reis wanted a real challenge they should have taken over Power Girl, not Aquaman. And Morrison should write Catwoman for 30 issues before he is elevated to the status as the, “Be All, End All” of comics. (sorry, just can’t forgive him for Damien)
And if Ambush Bug/Lobo is being done by Giffen… add it to my pull list.
I think one of the problems would be that when a comic book has a female lead, the creators then think, hey, only women will read this, so lets fill it with a whole bunch of women stuff…what do women like anyway? oh yeah, pink and puppies, makeup and boys and shopping.
So its either trying too hard to be cutesy, or just a bunch of penis jokes (almost like Lady Deadpool, but without the intent to present it as absurd), which would turn off both men and women really. Enough of those and it becomes kinda just assumed in that its gonna suck.
Or they try to compensate, assuming women will buy it no matter what cause its a woman lead, and then think men wont unless they make the character extra-slutty.
The general comic culture doesn’t really help much anyway, women who think comics in general tend to be a bit sexist are called “just jealous, have no confidence, and projecting their issues with self-esteem onto the women who felt empowered by walking the Comic-Con floor in a Slave Leia costume.” or just plain bitches for complaining.
Mostly I think you’re right, comics tend to go after the audience they thinks biggest, and women will still read ‘male oriented’ comics as long as the sexism isn’t incredibly blatant. Female geeks are probably used to just going along with it by now, whereas male geeks are uncomfortable trying to identify with a female lead (thats a broader cultural issue about pidgeonholing gender roles though I think, and the comic/video game aspect is just a reflection)
If anyone does want to read good comics with female leads, Harley Quinn was awesome (till she went to Metropolis anyway, IMO), I liked Alias, Strange Girl, Gotham Central I think counts, Powers(? sorta), I haven’t read iZombie, Manhunter or Echo yet, so I don’t know if they’re any good, but they look neat.
(Though TBH, mostly I tend towards the more Noir-ish or street level comics, where I think women characters are usually just femme fetales or damsels in distress. And haven’t read any stuff like Batgirl, Wonder Woman, or the like [mostly cause I dont read stuff like Batman, Superman, etc])
Wow…your feud with Sue at DC Women Kicking Ass…wow…
Yeah, it seems to be a feud where I politely offer a counter argument and she decides to cuss me out. I politely note that she should embrace what she loves about comics and she gets mad at me.
I’m not trying to be rude, I’m merely trying to point out some things to consider and she flies off the handle. It’s just infuriating.
Yes, this is the elephant in the room when it comes to female characters. It needs acknowledging.
But sales shouldn’t be an excuse for sexism, racism, or shoddy storytelling. That’s a “might makes right” philosophy that would justify many of the worst excesses.
So by all means, let’s acknowledge this particular elephant and then continue the discussion, as I know you’re willing to do.
Because your solution for those worried about the lack of female leads really can’t be “don’t bitch.” It’s got to be more akin to “drive sales for these titles,” since the market matters.
The subject of female creators is a whole separate minefield I don’t want to enter.
Of course sexism and racism have no place in comics and these are evils that should be eradicated, but I’m suggesting that there isn’t a lack of female or diverse leads because of sexism or racism but because evidence has shown that the sales simply aren’t there.
DC Women Kicking Ass complained about the lack of diversity within the DCnU Justice League team, but Dwayne McDuffie’s team was an incredibly diverse team that featured Zatanna, John Stewart Green Lantern, Vixen, Firestorm, and Dr. Light and while sales were still 66,000 issues, they had slipped in a year from 85,000 with a more traditional line-up.
Furthermore, more than half of James Robinson’s Justice League is made up of women (Jesse Quick, Jade, Donna Troy, and Supergirl) and it sold 46,000 copies in May. So, to say that people want female leads or they want diversity is just one person’s opinion and I don’t care that gender is attached to it, it doesn’t make it right when so much evidence is against it.
Oh, I agree completely with what you’re saying: there is just a bad track record on female leads. And while there are people clamoring for them at conventions, the question is what would hard sales figures actually be — which as you quite correctly point out is something else entirely.
I think what you’re reacting to is the idea some might have that this is some sort of patriarchal conspiracy to prevent female leads, which is, I think, silly. The problem is a real problem, absolutely, but it’s deeper than “patriarchy.”
Now, we can look at how female leads been written — I think Catwoman or Lady Death probably appeals more to a male demographic, shall we say. I also suspect that female readers might be more open to other genres. But if we’re just talking why there aren’t female leads, it’s certainly complex, but sales have a lot more to do with it than an anti-female conspiracy.
I’m surprised people would still bandy about that sort of argument, though, in 2011. But I’m gonna get in trouble saying all of this, when the truth is that I’m the first to advocate for more female-friendly comics and for breaking the super-hero mold to achieve that.