jaybuck43 Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Marvel's Editor in Chief, Alex Alonso. He did a poll of readers on Facebook and it came out about 46.67% Yes of course that number is wrong as it doesn't account for non-facebookers, non self identifiers etc. But it gives us some kind of idea, more then the "I don't ever see any women when I walk in to my shop" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doktor Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 They can get (with a degree of accuracy) some information based on digital sales & some unscientific polling of stores via Diamond as well if they wanted (don't know if they have). I can't remember since it's been a while, but I believe Comixology and the Marvel app both ask gender during signup. That 47% number is terribly unscientific, but it's at least a rough estimate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Real Elijah Snow Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I go to about 40-50 comic shops in a given year. Local ones and ones on my path to certain shows I go to multiple times a year. I would say I set foot in a comic shop roughly 300-350 times a year if I had to guess. I also attend 15+ shows a year as well. There is absolutely no way on earth that there are 47% women in these stores when i go. I would also say that the attendance at the shows isn't close to that number either. I'm not sure who or how they came to this %, but it seems like it's just high enough to get away with saying. I have no way of gauging on a personal level the amount of women that buy comics digitally or through mail order, but from what I see, that % isn't accurate. If cosplay is involved with this calculation then it is severely flawed. I know of tons of people who cosplay who are "fans" of characters, but don't read any comics. These are "fans" of both genders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doktor Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 The issue with that is that the "market" is new books not back issue sales. Marvel/DC/IDW/etc. only care about their sales, they don't care that Action #1 sold for $3.2 million other then to show that people may run out and buy more new books hoping that in a few years their books will be worth that much. So if 47% of readers are female then about 47% of the market is female (thus 47% of Marvel/DC/IDW/ETCs revenue comes from women) Oh, I'm not talking about what Marvel/DC/Image/etc care about. I'm just talking about the market in general. The new book market? Probably somewhere at least relatively close to 47% (+/- 10%) but the overall comic book market (including new issue sales, back issue sales, TPB, digital, collected editions, and comic related merch) is probably still close to 90% male-driven. That's obviously a step down from the probably 95% it was 15 years ago, but it's going to take a generation of female readers sticking with it in the long-term before their disposable income devoted to comics starts significantly closing the gap on their Y chromosome brethren. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Fahrenheit Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Pretty cool video about women in comics. Its nice to see women coming into their own. That said, this idea of a war on women is really getting annoying. There is right now a WAR ON MEN !!!! https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/rise-of-the-female-superhero-ever-since-superman-126459307033.html I'd like to see exactly how they define the term "fan base." None of the women I know actively buy comic books of any kind. They do, however, enjoy superhero movies and TV shows. But every single one of them knows who Harley Quinn is. HQ is da bomb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlowUpTheMoon Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Are 47% of comic book readers female? That seem extremely high considering the percentage of guys you see at comic shops, comic cons and pretty much anything related to comic books. I go to about 40-50 comic shops in a given year. Local ones and ones on my path to certain shows I go to multiple times a year. I would say I set foot in a comic shop roughly 300-350 times a year if I had to guess. I also attend 15+ shows a year as well. There is absolutely no way on earth that there are 47% women in these stores when i go. I would also say that the attendance at the shows isn't close to that number either. You're comparing female comic readers versus females in comic stores and at cons. Two different things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComicConnoisseur Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Are 47% of comic book readers female? That seem extremely high considering the percentage of guys you see at comic shops, comic cons and pretty much anything related to comic books. I think it`s up there. I have been saying it for years Walking Dead and Saga brought in lots of female readers. Every time I go into Newbury Comics you`ll see a bunch of female readers in the 18-24 category reading comics. I think eventually women will dominate comic book readership in that category because most men 18-24 are hardcore videogamers now instead of comics. Why do I single out the 18-24 year old age group? Because that`s the future. 1950's war comics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Real Elijah Snow Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Maybe they are. I'm supplying data on what I see at the places I go to that sell comics. I'm basically saying that in my opinion, that % is way off in regards to who's buying comics. If not, the two types of places I have cited aren't accurate places to gather data. A lot of shops I know have tons of guys coming in with giant weekly stacks and absolutely no way do they have anywhere near that amount of women doing that. I really have nothing to add in regards to digital sales or even book store sales to women. I do think that a facebook poll has the potential to be very flawed. Out of the 5 or 6 hundred friends I have, the amount of women I see posting polls/quizzes/etc in my feed is a good bit higher than the amount of men posting things of that nature. This is also taking into account that I probably have slightly more male friends than female friends. Gun to my head, if I had to come up with an accurate % of $ spent by women on new comics (floppies and trades) I would say it's somewhere in the 15-20% range. This is my opinion, but it is based on what I've physically seen and the testimony of several shop owners. Are 47% of comic book readers female? That seem extremely high considering the percentage of guys you see at comic shops, comic cons and pretty much anything related to comic books. I go to about 40-50 comic shops in a given year. Local ones and ones on my path to certain shows I go to multiple times a year. I would say I set foot in a comic shop roughly 300-350 times a year if I had to guess. I also attend 15+ shows a year as well. There is absolutely no way on earth that there are 47% women in these stores when i go. I would also say that the attendance at the shows isn't close to that number either. You're comparing female comic readers versus females in comic stores and at cons. Two different things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1Cool Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I think its definitely debatable if approximately 50% of all comic book readers are female but it would be hard to debate the presence of a lot more female lead characters in hit comics or shows. From IZombie to Alias to Saga to . . all have women running the show and appear to have been written with the female audience in mind. None would have even been considered for a series in 1982 when I started reading books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisInBaltimore Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Purely anecdotal: I switched LCS about 2 weeks ago. We were driving out to Cards, Comics, and Collectables which is the store that runs the Baltimore Con. It was sort of a hike. I'd been going in a store about a mile from my house once or twice a month. The store always had a woman behind the desk and one day went in with my daughter. My daughter really enjoyed the Mark Waid/Fionna Staples Archie book (it was pretty good FYI). I asked the woman running the local store if she had any similar recommendations. She was incredible. She found my daughter all sorts of stuff I'd never seen or heard of. When we walked out, my daughter said she really liked that store. I switched my pull box the next week. If she can get my daughter reading comics, I'm all for it. I've noticed a lot more females in that store too. On the superhero front, I gave my daughter the Silk and Spider-Gwen books to read. She loves them. I've tried for years to get her to read super hero stuff. She liked Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man loves Mary Jane, but I just couldn't find anything else that grabbed her attention. Silk has been pretty solid and I thought she might enjoy it. I've got some of the new Batgirl book too that I'll have to dig out. I think it is an exciting time to be a female reader and I think they might be the books that get my daughter reading. If it works, I'm all for the females taking over 50% + of the market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadroch Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 The last couple of shows I've set up at, I only had $1 boxes, mostly stuff from 2008 on, but a sprinkling of stuff going back to the 80s. I don't think one out of ten buyers were female. Bunch of them walked by, many in their costumes and some stopped for a photo, but the buyers were at least 90% male. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miraclemet Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Are 47% of comic book readers female? That seem extremely high considering the percentage of guys you see at comic shops, comic cons and pretty much anything related to comic books. I go to about 40-50 comic shops in a given year. Local ones and ones on my path to certain shows I go to multiple times a year. I would say I set foot in a comic shop roughly 300-350 times a year if I had to guess. I also attend 15+ shows a year as well. There is absolutely no way on earth that there are 47% women in these stores when i go. I would also say that the attendance at the shows isn't close to that number either. You're comparing female comic readers versus females in comic stores and at cons. Two different things. Exactly. I would bet the gender ratios balance out whem looking at bookstores and online services. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sauce Dog Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Are 47% of comic book readers female? That seem extremely high considering the percentage of guys you see at comic shops, comic cons and pretty much anything related to comic books. I go to about 40-50 comic shops in a given year. Local ones and ones on my path to certain shows I go to multiple times a year. I would say I set foot in a comic shop roughly 300-350 times a year if I had to guess. I also attend 15+ shows a year as well. There is absolutely no way on earth that there are 47% women in these stores when i go. I would also say that the attendance at the shows isn't close to that number either. You're comparing female comic readers versus females in comic stores and at cons. Two different things. Exactly. I would bet the gender ratios balance out whem looking at bookstores and online services. This is it right here. At this point in life I know more girls who read comics than guys (all the guys I know collect old stuff, and are not really modern readers expect for a few series that are just the same characters they used to collect, nothing new). They stay away from most LCS because they really don't want to have to deal with some bad attitudes and from the men their (which IS a problem regardless of where you go) so they instead get their books from other specialty shops (indy shops which typical 'comic guys' don't frequent), book stores, or online. However when it comes time for conventions they are all out in full force. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FineCollector Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I think the missing part of the equation is singling out creators who write material that's accessible to both women and men. Everyone's making it sound like the character and the creator have to be female to entice female readership, but we're not giving credit to the Neil Gaimans of the world, who can write a work that stands alone as a piece of art that everyone can appreciate. Who else comes to mind? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miraclemet Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I think the missing part of the equation is singling out creators who write material that's accessible to both women as men. Everyone's making it sound like the character and the creator have to be female to entice female readership, but we're not giving credit to the Neil Gaimans of the world, who can write a work that stands alone as a piece of art that everyone can appreciate. Who else comes to mind? the aforementioned Brian K Vaughn writes great characters male and female and they seem to resonate with female readers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybuck43 Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 Brian K. Vaughan comes to mind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisInBaltimore Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I think Greg Rucka writes strong women, but I'm not sure women like them or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miraclemet Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 I think Greg Rucka writes strong women, but I'm not sure women like them or not. I was just chatting with a college friend (female) who is in a woman's comic book club and they had just finished th Queen & Country omnibuses and most of them were fans after reading them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hulksdaddy1 Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 With a fan base that’s now 47 percent female I'm going to need a detailed definition of what "fan base" means in this case. I've had my shop for 20+ years, and at no time, including presently, has my female customer base approached anything close to double digits. Guess I could be an outlier, but the numbers don't jive with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter G Posted August 12, 2015 Author Share Posted August 12, 2015 I wish I knew more girls into comic books Seems like a swell crowd to hang with I thought it funny that the video portrayed all guys wanting to rape and abuse women Most comic book guys I know are lovers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
