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".