Female comics buyers

[Cold Water]

Honestly, I don't think it is a matter of me being male, but believe what you want.

I didn't mean to make my reply sound so confrontational and personal, my apologies. I was replying from my phone, and I limit the length of my replies from my phone because it's a b!tch to type a ton from my phone.

Thank you for seeing the issue, and for recognizing that it is an issue for a lot of us.

[Cold Water]

There are clubs like WTF Club that meets in Minneapolis.

http://www.themarysue.com/wtf-comics...nd-so-can-you/

There is the Good reads club.

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...mic-book-club#


The All Star Women's Club out of Melbourne

http://thewritersbloc.net/all-star-w...omic-book-club

Thank you!!!! <3

[Cold Water]

I think there are levels of "social awkwardness", though. There are some people who just don't filter like a regular person and say
whatever is on their mind. The only people who can stand being around them are people like them. Apparently a lot of these people
comprise a large segment of the comic community, and there always seem to be some around. I assume that's because the comic
shop is the one place they might have any confidence at all. As a woman, you are a likely candidate to be treated as an outsider in
a very rude way. Athletes receive that scorn, too, but never out loud, because of what would probably happen. I'm sorry you have to
deal with that. Maybe you should make an example of an obnoxious nerd the next time it happens.

Oh no, I know social anxiety exists. And I KNOW there are different levels of it.
But there are (it's more common than you may think) people out there who claim social awkwardness as an excuse to be skeevy dudes.
Being awkward is no excuse to be creepy af. *I* can be socially awkward, but I'm not creepy.
It's not an excuse to disregard boundaries.
And that is a thing. It's not always a thing, but it is a thing.

If one leans on or uses social anxiety as an excuse, then when really damaging things are said, it becomes all too easy for people to dismiss it as something it most likely is not.
And then people just feel creeped out, victimized, and this happens to women quite often, driven away from discussing the hobby.

[Cold Water]

That's a good observation, and (not to detract from your point but rather to add to it) as a black male, I feel a lot more comfortable discussing racial issues here than I would on less... welcoming forums such as Yahoo or other equally non-moderated forums.

So in that respect, cheers to CBR for giving us a place where we can come together and discuss comics like mature adults in (relative) peace.

Thank you.
Seriously.
Thank you for being so respectful and considerate.

[aja_christopher]

Or it could be that I grew up exposed to the cartoons of the 80's as my first major media influence, where the shows I was watching were things like Transformers, Care Bears, Thundercats, TMNT, Toxic Crusaders, Gummi Bears, Inhumanoids, Gargoyles, Duck Tales, Teddy Ruxpin, SuperTed, Looney Tones, He-Man, Smurfs, Snorks, Muppet Babies, Letter People, etc., wherein the vast, vast majority of the casts weren't human, if there were any humans at all, and the human characters were the least interesting.

As someone who probably watched every Transformers episode in existence (and watched the movie to the point of memorization) this is a very good point, but -- conversely -- cartoons like G.I. Joe, Dungeons and Dragons, Robotech, X-Men, and C.O.P.S. also featured women and people of color in prominent speaking roles throughout their run, so that informed my view growing up and showed me that said shows could be inclusive, entertaining and successful.

That said, as much as I enjoyed shows like TMNT and Transformers, I was equally happy to see characters like Roadblock and Lady Jaye featured on G.I. Joe, Diana featured on Dungeons and Dragons, and Claudia, Min-Mei and Admiral Gloval on Robotech as that was a reflection of the world as I wanted to see it. The New Mutants became my favorite comic book because of it's diversity and, later, shows like The Fresh Prince and A Different World opened my mind up to the fact that it was okay to be 'black' in a predominately 'white' world, which was important to me growing up. In truth, I still find it kind of incredible that the lead character in the C.O.P.S cartoon was a black male, as that is something that is rarely seen, even to this day.

Maybe that's why I'm glad to see Marvel taking the lead in that respect -- as much as I'd like to say it doesn't matter, I have to admit that I'm glad to see characters like Kamala, Cindy, and Miles being featured in their own comics. I think we both are aiming towards the goal of living in a world where the race, gender, and/or religion of said characters doesn't matter but for now it does matter to those of us who aren't used to seeing ourselves as "leads" in the entertainment industry, and I can tell you from experience that it can mean the world to a kid who is growing up and looking for more positive representation in our media.

[aja_christopher]

Thank you.
Seriously.
Thank you for being so respectful and considerate.

You're more than welcome -- that's what community should be all about, right?

[Sharkerbob]

Yeah a lot of the human-centric shows I did see growing up were plenty diverse from the white male standard. Bravestar, Captain Planet, Jem, Ghostbusters and Extreme, MiB. Never was much a fan of sitcoms, but I saw as many non-white as white cast shows. So for me the white male hero was not the omnipresent archetype it might have been for others. So like I said my perspective might be skewed.

Then again I was banned off comics for most of my childhood, so the skew might have been more egregious there.

The biggest issue was always just seeing the token stereotype. That got old fast.

[Sharkerbob]

I didn't mean to make my reply sound so confrontational and personal, my apologies. I was replying from my phone, and I limit the length of my replies from my phone because it's a b!tch to type a ton from my phone.

Thank you for seeing the issue, and for recognizing that it is an issue for a lot of us.

No worries.

[aja_christopher]

Yeah a lot of the human-centric shows I did see growing up were plenty diverse from the white male standard. Bravestar, Captain Planet, Jem, Ghostbusters and Extreme, MiB. Never was much a fan of sitcoms, but I saw as many non-white as white cast shows. So for me the white male hero was not the omnipresent archetype it might have been for others. So like I said my perspective might be skewed.

Nah, I just think cartoons did a better job of "diversifying" than many other mediums did at that point in time, which might be why we're a lot more open to it now as adults, possibly to the point of seeing it as the norm (even if it isn't the norm in our popular "adult" media). Obviously those shows were trying to capture as many demographics as possible (to sell toys, cereal, games, etc) so they had a vested interest in ensuring that the casts were as "diverse" as possible.

That's probably why many of those shows have lasted as long as they did as well (with recent movie incarnations of G.I. Joe, MIB, Ghostbusters and the like) and why modern-day fan backlash can kill movies like "Jem", which was criticized for "whitewashing" the black character (Shana) or "The Last Airbender" which was criticized for "whitewashing" a predominately Asian cast.

With regards to comics, I only really read stuff written by Claremont, so diversity was the "status quo" in that respect for me personally, and I'm pretty sure anyone who watched the X-Men cartoon might feel the same.

As kids, maybe we just weren't aware of how discriminatory the "grown-up" entertainment industry could be, but now as adults, those of us who do see it also feel the need to speak out when we think that it is necessary, which might also explain why we see so much activism these days.

[ultimate jezebel]

I'm a female reader, buyer, seller, speculator... have enjoyed comics since I was about 5 years old. Have enjoyed flipping them since I was a teen.

At 'our' local comic depot, females account for around 20-25% of the business. If there are a stack of Archie digests around, 90% go to females, either regulars or casual browsers.

[erbine99]

I got into American comics because my brother had some lying around the house. Of course at that point I was already reading a ton of manga. Now I buy more comics than my bro.

I think women have got to be at least 20% of comics buyers. Probably more. I think they may be the majority of manga buyers.

I do tend to seek out female centric comics, but I think that's more me being a lesbian than me being a woman. Sometimes I look for eyecandy in comics, like anyone else. Although sometimes, yes, impossible female bodies in comics do annoy me, but that's only when you get to rubber spine bad art/or faces and poses clearly traced from porn.

[Tami]

I can't speak for all women, but as one myself I've been buying comics ever since I was about 18 (in the 1980's), in college. Had to walk several miles to a flea-market to buy them since there were no other LCS near the University. Would have bought more earlier only there were no comic book shops in my city when I was growing up. Weird, huh? I got into Manga in the 1990' and Webcomics more recently.

I go to LCS on a semi-regular basis, last time I went, this past Saturday, I saw enough other females and young girls shopping for comics as well, though guys still predominated.

Personally, I have never been bothered by exaggerated features on female characters since I see it all as artistic expression. If I can across a comic showing a woman being abused, I might be more put off. Then again, comics in the 1980's didn't have as many explicit covers as recent comics have. So, I guess I never had a reason to have an issue with them.

The only sad part is that I have a large collection of comic books I still haven't had time to read yet. Real life makes finding down-time more difficult the older you get.

[t hedge coke]

Of course, I'm off in a far corner of the Earth far away from most of you, but comics are, especially these days, very much a young woman's thing in China. Little boys read comics, and then, basically, the stuff you see at the grocery store or at the front of specialty shops is aimed at teenage girls or women in their twenties. This includes the imported, translated stuff from America, Europe, and other Asian countries. It seems to be the core audience for the superhero movies that get imported, as well. Comics-reading is common for most people, to some degree, but it skews to than 13-25 female demographic.

The shop with the most comics, near me, is The Bra Shoppe, where you'd also go for sparkly bracelets, feather boas, t-shirts with rhinestones, plastic novelty hats (and bras, natch). The only comics-heavy shop I've seen with a primarily male clientele was a gay comics shop in Beijing.

[CaptCleghorn]

Of course, I'm off in a far corner of the Earth far away from most of you, but comics are, especially these days, very much a young woman's thing in China. Little boys read comics, and then, basically, the stuff you see at the grocery store or at the front of specialty shops is aimed at teenage girls or women in their twenties. This includes the imported, translated stuff from America, Europe, and other Asian countries. It seems to be the core audience for the superhero movies that get imported, as well. Comics-reading is common for most people, to some degree, but it skews to than 13-25 female demographic.

The shop with the most comics, near me, is The Bra Shoppe, where you'd also go for sparkly bracelets, feather boas, t-shirts with rhinestones, plastic novelty hats (and bras, natch). The only comics-heavy shop I've seen with a primarily male clientele was a gay comics shop in Beijing.

What kind of content do the comics aimed at younger women have? I'm probably being overly simplistic about this, but this seems to be a huge untapped market for US Comics.

[RegalSin]

The problem with female buyers is that it is mostly about soap-opera situations over the male standard exploitation. I had this argument with a teacher about graphic novels. She kept on insisting that "comics" was garbage compared to those. Just happens that graphic novels in a nutshell share the same airspace as soap along with comics from the far east.

In fact I would say X-men in my area was popular with women readers.