Well, now that we got this site running I suppose it’s time to start posting!
First off, you might notice that there’s a few more artists lurking around here and posting than there are actual comics up there in the header. We’ve got a bunch of cool up and coming projects in the works on top of the selection we have now. This site is going to be a kind of hub for us, and the lot of us’ll be slapping up blog posts here in addition to working on our own stuff. So stay tuned and stick us on your RSS feeds, because there’s more to come!
And speaking of more to come, I suppose I should actually do that ranting blogging part!
It’s been making the rounds for a month now that one woman dressed up as Batgirl has (along with a smattering of other less publicized commenters) attended several of the DC panels at comic-con San Diego, confronting them about the status of DC’s female creative staff – or lack thereof. This woman has been called both a hero and a troll and it has sparked some pretty heated conversation all over the comic community.
Ignoring all the name calling, it seems to me that DC’s attempt to start a line of comics for a “more modern and diverse 21st century” is off to an indelibly bad start. The writing staff is less diverse than it has been in decades, and there’s really not much more character diversity either, despite the fact that DC claims to have the highest proportion of starring women in comics.
Addressing the questions, one of DC’s creators at the panels, Dan Didio, responded by asking what women they could have hired. Several people in the audience volunteered, and he directed them to send their stuff in. The joke there is that DC doesn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. It turns out, though, that there’s a pretty long list of candidates that fans have prepared – and, awesomely, there’s a handful of webcomic people in there. DC has responded to all the publicity by putting out a news post saying that they’ve heard their fans and are looking in to the issue. I don’t blame anyone for not buying it, though.
There are still some fun questions to ponder in this debate. “Will DC change? Can they? Do they want to?” It’s hard to say. Can they be blamed for not changing? DC answers to a higher power these days, and if they don’t make safe sales in the short term the entire studio could get the kill switch rather than a second chance. While some fans petition at the cons, making the steep uphill climb towards being recognized by the demographically-fixated corporation, many others are getting into the industry in other ways. There’s a ton of talent working with other labels (ones that aren’t rebooting everything to try and boost sales!) and there’s probably even more working right here in the webcomics industry. There are already plenty of really awesome female creators out there doing the webcomic thing ( oh, and I guess I shouldn’t forget to mention these ones?). It’s going to be a while before the comics industry becomes a level playing field, but right now webcomics are a free-for-all and I think everyone benefits from that.
What do you think?
I feel like anything I would have to say on this topic has already been said, and better than I could put it, by Meredith Gran on her Google+ page
The crux of her post was that if you want to support female comic creators, “Pay them. No, seriously. Pay them with money.”
On the one hand, mainstream comics haven’t ever appealed to me so it’s difficult to care about who creates them. On the other, maybe if there was more diversity in the creators they’d create more intriguing stories and I’d care about them.
Ran…don’t you mean to say the “splendid, beautiful, life-changing classic” live-action Batman TV show?
David: I don’t have a strong opinion about DC right now because the proof will be in the product. When September comes and we get those 52 new titles to examine, that’ll be when we can tell what’s what and who’s who. I am personally interested in their titles starring black heroes. I’m interested in the mentioned future projects of Nicola Scott and Amanda Conner. The latter especially. But for the time being, I think that this massive relaunch will be same stuff, different day, at least in the beginning.
We shall see.
I think that, despite DC’s readers being enraged by this, a lot of female webcomic creators are wondering why it matters. Most of us aren’t what DC’d be looking for, if they are, in fact, looking. A lot of us just aren’t interested in what DC is putting out, at all. I mean sure, I love batman as much as anyone who grew up with the terrible old live-action show and the cartoon, but do I love it enough to watch it reboot, over and over and over because whatever incarnation-du-jour isn’t bringing in the money they want? No, not really. :/
That’s a pretty good point. The big labels don’t make content or accept interesting art styles that appeal to many creators which kind of creates a mutual lack of interest. I guess it could be called filling a market niche. I don’t blame fans who grew up being excited for this kind of stuff for trying to force the change, though.