Ladies Making Comics

The latest round of outrage over the matter of women in comics was sparked off when DC’s relaunch had only three “distaff” members. In all the talk-talk there was some along the lines of Adam P Knave’s Why Aren’t There More Women in Comics? which points out the lack of a welcome mat for female creators…Knave takes pains to point out that he’s talking “mainstream” comics, but this got me thinking about how obsessing about women at The Big Two is really like worrying about the number of saunas in the Kalahari.

The Beat has a great rundown of prominent female creators outside the Big Two, which is an amazing list and does make me feel all kinds of good about the state of women creators.

HOWEVER, I have said this over and over and I will continue to say this until it becomes part of the overall conversation about the dearth of women (and other minorities) creators at the Big Two: An exclusive contract/regular work with the Big Two is one of the best ways for a creator to make a living at doing comics.  (More importantly for American creators, an exclusive contract gets them health insurance).

Furthermore, the Big Two control 2/3rds of the direct market (and I would assume a sizeable chunk of the bookstore market as well)— women being shut out of the Big Two, intentionally or unintentionally, is shutting them out of the chance to reach that wider market.  I’m not saying that male creators don’t also face hurdles getting into the Big Two, but I just want to emphasize the question of market share because every time this discussion of disparity comes up, there is a vocal contingent of fans that say “Who cares?  Women can do indie books!”  I don’t think those fans realize (or possibly don’t care) that what they are implicitly saying is, “Why can’t women be happy with their 1/3rd of the comics industry to splash around in?”

There is a legion of very talented, proven women creators out there.  Why is there such resistance to the idea of them getting a fair share of the pie?