Comic Book Nerds Come Together

Photo Courtesy of sliceofscifi.com

Comics are making a come-back, but none of them interest me. Something about a strong, mysterious guy perpetually saving a woman in distress just doesn't appeal to me. Where are the comics for women?

The comic book industry is male-dominated. This is because readers are 75-95% male. So the readers eventually become the writers. This circle will never break until comics start attracting more women. This means we need more female superheroes who aren't hyper-sexualized. We need characters that young teen girls can idolize. I love that characters such as Wonder Woman and Catwoman display courage and bravery, but why do they have to fight crime half-naked in heels? You don't have to be a slut to save lives.

Author of DC Comics Covergirls Louise Simons explains in this article that women will eventually get more involved in this industry:

"I know the (mature) Vertigo line has a lot of women as well as men reading it. The editor of that line is a very talented woman named Karen Berger. So I expect over the next 10-15 years there will be an influx of woman writers going towards that end of the market.”

Now I'm not all that familiar with the Vertigo comics but some quick research offered me some promise for the future. This series features a character named Madame Xanadu. The artist for this character is Amy Hadley who echoes my concern for a more female presence in the industry in this article:

"I’m a strong proponent of bringing a female audience to comics, and a typical female audience at that—not just girls who happen to be unique enough to notice that comics are for them, too. I really hope that, one day, comics will be as common as films. You need a female audience to accomplish that. Nobody asks if you watch movies. And although some films bring in more of a female audience and vice versa, it’s not quite so polarized. Vertigo does a good job of publishing intelligent comics, and I think intelligent stories bridge the gap between male and female. That’s the goal, I think—not to alienate either sex."

A non-gendered comic book! Now there's something I'd consider reading....maybe you should to.