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It’s true: women know how to read comics
Some welcome changes across the board coming into play this year:
About six months ago, I took a victory lap. And I’m gonna take another one. Because I was right, all along. Last’s week’s twin announcements of the revamped DC line-up and Marvel’s all-woman A-Force showed that even the big two have embraced the idea of a diverse readership as a sound business model. It was only four years ago, when the New 52 launched, that there was an outcry about only 1% of the creators being female, and DC co-publisher Dan DiDio got put on the spot and reacted with a less than conciliatory tone.
And now, even gender-cruncher Tim Hanley notes that things improved dramatically with The New 24:
DC Comics made a big announcement today, revealing the post-“Convergence” line up for their main superhero titles. Along with 29 continuing titles, DC unveiled 24 new series and minis, many of which featured new creators and a variety of new and underutilized characters. It was a good day for women at DC across the board as well.
In recent interviews, DiDio revealed that this was just good sense:
DiDio: And there are a lot of first-time attendees there, who are new to the business, new to comics, and it’s for us to be able to grab these people and attract them.
And you know, I get a lot of anecdotal information from our writers and artists, especially when you talk to somebody like Jimmy [Palmiotti] and Amanda [Conner], who are commanding these monstrously long lines because of Harley Quinn right now, and it’s almost all women. They’re even taken aback by that, by this really intense loyalty and love for this character by an audience that includes a lot of women. And we realize that, and we have to really start to gear our product to attract them to more of our books.
So we try to find the trends that are drawing these changing audiences to shows and create product to really build on that interest.
A very good trend change. This is aimed more at the larger superhero market, as independents have been mining this area for some time. But change takes time and when it hits, it hits.
Hopefully we'll see more purchasing power being exercised as well.
http://www.comicsbeat.com/its-true-women-know-how-to-read-comics/