Since I started working from home due to Covid, I am able to listen to a lot of podcasts/youtubers. I was listening to Nerdrotic and he was talking about that new Emilia Clarke comic book, and of course she mentioned that there isn't enough "representation" of comic book creators and said that the ratio of male and female comic book fans is 50/50. Nerdrotic said that the 50/50 stat comes from a facebook poll from a few years back. It honestly sounds like the whole "women make up half of the gaming population" they try to push. Does anyone know the actual stats on comic books?
He was saying that when he owned a comic book shop that at most (and this was with him actively trying to market to women) it was a 70/30 ratio which sounds more accurate to me. There have always been women interested in nerd/geek stuff, but for some reason companies started to think it was a good idea to ignore the mostly male fanbase and cater to women exclusively.
I enjoyed the MCU movies (don't care to watch any more of them) but one downside was that all of a sudden everyone became a comic book fan. I can't tell you how many comic book groups I used to be in only to find out that being a "big comic book fan" only meant that you saw a few MCU movies. It can't be a coincidence that all of a sudden you saw a massive rise of fangirls who claim to have been fans all their lives and talk about evil white nerds and gatekeeping.
I know I have heard the phrase "women ruined comic books" but I would say hiring men and women who are clueless/don't respect the lore/downright hate comic books to write comic books or direct comic book movies is what ruined them. At least there are independent comics still around but we will probably never get another Kirby or Stan Lee on a mainstream level. Marvel will just keep doing workshops to get girls into comic books.
So with my original question, what would you say the ratio is? I would say it skews way more male once you get into the hard core collectors who have stacks of long boxes full of comic books. I personally have only met one woman who is a hard core collector. Like I said, there have always been women in the hobby, but a major red flag is a man or woman who can't shut up about representation. If only I could go back 15 years and warn nerds to beware of the "gospel of representation".
For warm bodies in stores, that sounds plausible.
But I suspect the SKUs sold is closer to 90/10.
After experiencing the shift in popularity for comics in the early 2010s, I would say that we went from 90% men as the readership (from the 1950s Archie comics & whatnot) to about a 75/25 ratio.
More women are interested in comics, but not necessarily devoting headspace to it. I know a friend-group where 1 doesn’t care about Marvel, 2 like watching their shows and movies, and one is a Captain Marvel super-fan (Ms. Marvel run for life, screw Carl Manvers).
The problem a lot of us have is that there was an audience for the craziness.
Agree about Ms Marvel. I hated that the gender swapped the original Captain Marvel. I also liked Monica Rambeau in the 80s Avengers.
If women are into comics then great. I’m just tired of the “we have to get more women” mentality. If my daughter was into comic books I’d encourage it. I’m not going to demand that she read them.
Been watching several channels on youtube in regards to comics much more regularly lately and I think it was Perch (?) who mentioned having like a 70/30, or 60/40 split at the mos,t at one of his shops and his owner friends asked how he got to that cause they maybe had 80/20, always majority male in any event. Leftists have this blank slate philosophy that we are all the same and any uneven numbers is the result of racism/sexism/classism, so they *itch, if only because it is second nature or to pass the time. Or to enrich themselves, lot of women and minorities have been handed jobs at the big two that took white males decades to get if ever. Lot of the channels also point out how female talent is nothing new. But SJWs do always think it is year zero, because they are narcissists and think the world only started once they were born, and are too lazy to learn about history. The ratio of actual readers of Western comics is probably anywhere from 70/30 to 90/10, in favor of males. I'd say closer to 90/10. Manga would be more complicated. It's not due to so much to men doing anything wrong (there are a few creeps), but women not being interested, or interested enough to do the work to create this stuff and build it into something. Just entitled and want to control a mostly male space. I myself typically read mostly manga but used to read almost as many western comics (including European). I would not read floppies though, so had no need to go into comics stores, which had their trades priced higher than Amazon and bookstores. I never felt unwelcome, just a bit confused maybe, as there are so many titles, and this is a problem with a lot of new fans male or female and has been for decades. I started reading later than most though, but always loved the movies and shows as a kid. I think most comics fans just like the properties but not so much the actual floppies. And if you're going to be a major collector then you probably need to get in stores and be reading and women just don't do that as much. Different brains on average. Ratio will remain steady.
And for all their talk about representation they make things worse by giving jobs to people who seem to hate comics. I’m black and I get wary of any new black comic book writer that is inevitably touted because most likely they will turn some character into a platform. Same goes with females or other minorities. So I would imagine that I’m not the only one that is wary. But this is what happens when you don’t hire people based on merit.
I miss the days of characters like John Stewart. I ended up liking him a bit more than Hal Jordan, but we can't have that nowadays without some forced messaging.
Agreed. I enjoy his comic books along with Hal Jordan. I used to want to see him in a live action movie but they will just use him as a “platform”.
It's definitely making things more divisive and lower quality. They'll try to turn an established hero non-white or gay, or create some after school special, weak, new minority superhero that no one could like, with no real character, or just make the minority a clone of the original with a slightly different costume. They're giving jobs to activists and people who can't write and won't attract minority readers or even keep White readers. I don't know what the breakdown is racially for shops, but it is predominately White from what I have seen in readers, though i know South Americans like their comics too, and Asians especially, so there might be a little something to just not appealing to what would otherwise be readers. But then the minorities should/could make their own stuff. And they do, and always have. There are not only established female writers but Black ones too, and a lot of Black artists that these ratio concerned types keep ignoring. Also Black characters created by Whites. I for one am still looking forward to more Spawn. There are other characters already existing too that could be beefed up, they wouldn't even have to create new ones. I think what's going on is the same as what sort of happened with cartoon network, people hiring friends/people they slept with and the writing and fans suffering; no qualified people, minority or otherwise getting in.
Spawn was awesome. I saw plenty of ppl of all colors buying the comic.
Unfortunately they hire not only by skin color but also by ideology. So they will not hire someone of color who loves comic books and has talent but they will hire a person of color with strong ideological convictions that is ok with making comic books.
TL;DR Yes (overall), but no (not when you break down WHAT books they are buying).
The problem with these stats is never the medium, but the genre. There may very well be a 50/50 split between male and female participation in the hobby, but they're not going to be interested in the same things.
The only thing these stats reliably tell you about the distribution of male/female purchases is that some people buy comics. There will be some overlap, but most genres will have a strong bias to one sex or the other instead of 50/50 across the board.
1st, the misunderstanding of these stats results in the creative team trying to attract this mythical 'phantom female audience'. 2nd, it's assumed that 'representation' will achieve that even if the 50/50 split were true. The 3rd, and honestly worst part, is that changing the content to appeal to a new audience often results in or even necessitates alienating the original core audience- both men and women.
I would say any autisticly obsessive behaviour would tend to be male regardless, but accounting for that- men and women will be 50/50 overall, but 90% in completely separate areas e.g. teen drama 90% women, ultra-violence 90% men.
Easiest example is gaming: the 50/50 stat includes farmville and other social media/mobile casual games to pump up the numbers of female 'players', but they conflate this number with hardcore, AAA gamers. Then they try to justify changing the games targeted at a 90% male audience to be 'inclusive' of the demographic that isn't even aware, let alone interested in them.
Great points. I remember at one point that Batman was the most popular comic book with both genders. Kinda destroys the “see myself represented narrative”.
you can achieve 50-50 by making the medium unwelcoming to men. So if the percentage is your only goal they are going about it the easiest way possible.
It will drastically decrease the number of potential consumers but I doubt anyone making this decisions has any love for the medium to begin with.
All the comics shops I used to go to have gone out of business because of this idiocy, but based off of my observations i would say 9/10 purchases were by males. I have gone with women to comic stores, but they would spend less and be less excited about going. Since my interest waned so has theirs. I havent bought a comic in years at this point, and anything that I would buy now would be back issues from previous decades.
The last time I bought a monthly comic (years ago) every other page was a full page ad.
No thanks.
I think 10 years for me? Maybe 11.