Thanks for hearing us. Now about that awful, horrible new look for Zatanna…

Welcome news from DC. Hopefully, this isn’t a load of hot air and they make good on their promises.

Hey, Marvel … are you listening?

At BEST I intended to buy two, maybe three books BEFORE Dan Didiot shot his mouth off. This announcement may convince me not to just drop everything.

If DC seriously intends the 52 to reach out to new fans, they have to consider how they appear to the public. And the Didiot acting like a TROLL to someone asking a reasonable question does NOT HELP.

and all this will happen in 2025!

Hopefully it isn’t a lot of fluff that is being said after they got a lot of flack from the fans at the DC panels because some interesting and thought provoking points were made. They dismissed the fans like they were nothing, and then they come out with something like this. You can change whatever you like, but if the stories aren’t written well, and we don’t care about the characters, then readership will drop. There are great female writers and artist out there as well as men, and many interesting characters in the DCU that just needs someone to breathe a breath of fresh air into them. Good luck DC! I read many of your titles, and I am willing to give this 52 thing a shot, NOW impress me with great stories filled with interesting characters.

and congratulations Newsarama …once again in you quest for answers and stories you generated the story rather than reported it….one day you’ll understand what it is to report and not speculate so it becomes the news.

This article said it best, DC’s “heads down, pretend nothing is happening” attitude is disgusting.

I love how people ignore the fact that very few (if any) female driven books top the charts. The problem lies with the fanbase.

But, sure, let’s switch out Grant Morrison in favor of Devin Grayson on Action Comics.

And by the way, it’s awesome to see more people (men) here backing up the issue than not. Thank you. Sincerely.

Are there a lot of women that are being systematically denied jobs in the industry? There are laws about such practices.

I love different perspectives, though I do think it’s important to recognize and appreciate the milieu. When Gail Simone writes a Bat-family story, I don’t get a vibe that she’s a woman writing Batman (and implying that there is some agenda there), she’s writing a good mystery. When Amanda Conner draws ANYTHING, I’m likely to buy it just because I love her art.

A number of my (female) students are artists and they are into manga and cartooning. They are REALLY GOOD AT IT. And yet, if I told them “create a superhero story,” they’d probably look at me cross-eyed. Comics, as an art form, encompasses far more than just superheroics…but that’s the majority of the money and focus.

I suppose my larger point is that if someone is being denied an opportunity BECAUSE of their gender, that’s wrong. I just wonder if there is really this groundswell of qualified women just dying to write TEEN TITANS instead of, say, a Vertigo book?

I actually think the upcoming books have a surprising (happily so) amount of female characters in lead roles. The characters are not the problem. Except for the fact that Lois needs to be a star. We will see.

I was disapppointed when all was said and done that creators like Amy Reeder, Nicola Scott, and Amanda Connor were nowhere to be found. Hopefully they will show up with lots more female cerators in the coming months.

But you can’t look at the books themselves without realizing that DC is committed to diversity in so many different ways. And I commend them for it.

Also, people saying that DC needs to hire women, you are hurting your cause. The argument should never exist if you truly believe they are equal. In stead list off great creators because they are great creators, not creators who are great even though they are women.

Or give your same argument but replace the word “woman” for “black”. Do you get it now?

Kel-EL : So you are saying just because Devin Grayson is a women she should be rather on Action Comics? Being a man or women does not make you better or a worse.

Grant Morrison made All star Superman that is a Superman series most superman (of what i have seen) see it as a very great Superman series and one of the best Superman storys of the 21′s century.

And Morrison has said many times his superman will be like the 1938 (first version of Superman) Superman and i love that. So no, i would not switch Morrison out of action comics to anyone.

But hey i am for this women thing it’s great for women that Dc does this. I am just stating my opinion In my opinion women and men are equal. But i hope that with the women series too dc will make a comic series about Superman as Superboy, i miss the time when Superman was Superboy…

“Conner’s Power Girl was one of the best comics I’ve ever read because if was FUN. Comics, in general, needs more books like that.”
Couldn’t agree more. It’s been terrible since that team left.

Hemen: Don’t really know about Golden or Silver age Superman because I flat out don’t like Superman. All-Star Superman was the only Superman story I’ve ever read that I liked. But calling Lois a trophy wife is offensive, whether you agree with me about her being the real man in that relationship or not.

I’m not thrilled about this. I believe all hiring should be race/gender-BLIND and a company aiming to hire more women to correct a perceived imbalance runs counter to this idea. If you’re consciously putting “We need more women” or “We need more minorities” at the forefront of your mind when it comes to hiring, it turns into quota-filling and often the result is that a better qualified person might not get hired for the job if he happens to be a white male. In other words, it’s discrimination.

Look at the work, not the person. If the person happens to be a woman, great. If not, don’t just hire her anyway, or put another qualified person at the bottom of the pile because he’s male and the public perception is that you already have too many of those.

Public perception might have it’s importance, but it should never interfere with hiring the best applicants, and it should also be noted that the “public” consists of people with agendas of their own.

Roger : Yeah, i agree with you that it’s offensive. And it just show the editors thought (or whatever or whoever who said that) of Lois Lane.

I just hope that editor who said that does not think Lois as a trophy person even without her being Supermans wife.

Well either way it’s good for women this change and i am gonna buy many of the new 52 comics.

Gee, maybe they could stop writing pornographically violent rape comics next.

DC is a dead, rotting corpse being humped by Lee and Didio. Send the ladies to Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, etc.

is there even a single good female writer in comics? (as i prefer the story to the art)

No there isn’t. so maybe all the cosplayers should start being productive instead of playing dress up….

So, there’s this really geek-looking guy. He’s clumsy, wears thick glasses and doesn’t even know how to talk with women.
One day, you see this guy on the street with a really hot woman and someone tells you that woman is his wife.
What’s your first thought? He’s rich and she’s his thropy wife. That’s your reaction. Maybe if then tell you the guy’s Superman and the woman is a award-winning journalist you’ll change your mind, but if I can’t tell you he’s Superman (you know, secret identity and all), to the world she will allways be a thropy wife.

Stop just complaining and make an effort to understand what people meant.

I don’t care how it sounds. Gender does not make a story better or worse. Gail Simone, Pia Guerra, Amanda Conner, & Fiona Staples are fan-favorites because of their great work. At the moment, though it may be due to lack of work in the industry, I can’t really name other female creators. I do, however, know there are a couple who are producing mediocre work. On the male side, I know there are MANY male writers who are producing from Mediocre to TERRIBLE work from more than one publishers and definitely from Big2!

The massive drop in female creators is a real issue, and needed to be brought up. For what it’s worth, several female creators are on record as saying they were approached to work on the relaunch – and that they turned DC down.

The “Batgirl” was right to bring it up and make it a focal point from the very beginning. However, I don’t think it was appropriate to bring up the same issue at every panel – because all that does is increase frustration on both sides.

“There aren’t enough vegetarians writing for DC!!! This is an outrage!!! I’m going to write it all over message boards and ask questions about it at panels!!! That makes it a real issue!!!”

Works for me. That would be a damn sight better class of writer than the bunch of rotting vegetable matter DC currently has under contract.

Oh, and as for the latest PR spin release from DiDio and Lee: PROVE IT, with some actual title announcements and street dates. Otherwise, you clowns are still blowing smoke up people’s rear ends.

Bringing DC’s hiring policies into a convention panel about comics CONTENT is rude to the other con-goers. I’m glad the dumb chick with the agenda was booed, and they should have outright ignored her the first time she repeated herself.

But go read Newsarama’s other article about retailer’s initial new-52 orders…. Batgirl – female character, female creator has “numbers coming in comparable to Batman & Robin for some stores and closer to Static Shock for others.”

Let the sales speak. This more women creators thing is nothing but a bunch of wanna-be writers and feminazis promoting their own agenda.

So DC fails to emphasize female creators (despite several new series featuring female lead characters), but gets hand-delivered an opportunity to…leverage its newfound diversity in a different way — female (and other) buyers will buy comics written by female creators, simply for that fact. Funny. Also, a win-win for company and consumer.

Why don’t people put their money where their big mouths are? DC has published women characters Zatanna, Supergirl, Powergirl, etc etc apart from Wonder Woman and Batwoman and Gail Simone wrote WW and other strong female oriented comics still the titles flagged and dropped.

To assume DC does not try is BS of the highest order.

while were talking women:

get some pants on Wonder Woman, she looks like a cheap hooker in that getup!

“And as people have said before, thus continues Newsarama’s descent from reporting the news to creating it.”

Bullshit. I don’t follow comics to such an in depth degree that I had to go out of my way to hear about this and what happened at DC’s panels last weekend. It was out there, and people were talking about it.

If anything, Newsarama is late to the party by being one of the last to bring it up.

now if they could only listen to people asking about wally west…

American comics don’t just have a problem attracting female readers; female readers are actively put off by everything about comic book culture (which, not incidentally, is why we only have 2 or 3 women participating in this discussion). This hurts the industry, in a way that “not enough Asians” or “not enough vegetarians” really doesn’t. (Jim Lee is Asian-American, BTW, so I’ll defer to his ideas about whether they’re underrepresented or not.)

I live in Korea, where comics and animation are actually more popular with girls than with boys. I don’t think the problem is that balls aren’t being broken enough.

I still can’t comprehend how Didio was being condescending. Asking “Who should we have hired” is a real question. Don’t just say: “Hire more female creators!” WHO? Them hiring female creators won’t guarantee you’ll like them.

Along those lines, Gail posted on Twitter that Thursday “now is the time to talk about what to change–DC is listening”. Clearly they are. But you know, if it’s true that it was the same fan coming to all those panels…I’m happy they’re hiring more female creators, but it bugs me that it was a badgering fan that got the job done. Sends the message that DC actually will listen if you piss and moan enough, and given I don’t have a high opinion of fans, I’d rather that not be the message sent.

Still. If it leads to Jen van Meter or Kelly Sue DeConnick or Ivory Madison or G. Willow Wilson and Marjorie Liu working on some DC titles, I’ll inevitably get over the victory of a whiny fan.

@ Bob Kennedy ~ kids won’t pick up comics unless they see their parents reading or their friends reading. We need to foster reading in kids, then introduce the different outlets to them. Or, take kids that don’t like to read and introduce them to this media. Either way, parental involvement or some other type of guardian/mentor involvement to get kids interested in reading. My kids read ~ books, comics, graphic novels, manga, etc. but I love to read and the love of reading is passed down to them. I prefer to spend $$ on books than video games. Also, we all have library cards which is rare these days. hardly any of their friends do. By the way, my kids are 10 and 12, and have been read to or reading from a very early age.

My local comic book shop has comic book night at a couple of the elementary and middle schools in the area to encourage kids to read, and to read comic books. The material he brings are all age appropriate. Maybe more programs like this on the local level will help with new readership.

I also agree that there has to be books that are interesting for the kids to read and not just material for us ‘big kids’, and then material for little kids. There has to be a happy medium for the older kids, the tween/teen kids that are still too young for the material in the regular comic books, since they are not written for kids anymore. Maybe if the comic book industry tried to cater to them, they may have readers for life. But then again, if they don’t read, how do we reach them?

The fact of ther matter here thast this fan had agenda…she was rude and badgered the panels. how so?
If she truely cared about the answer — she would have asked once and be done with it. But NO she was disruptive for asking the same question at every panel and then with the follow up question s it was clear she was not listening to the answers.

I dont think she was looking to get an answer regarding female creators if so her action would have been different, Ask the question get and answer end of story…

No she went to be diruptive and annoying and then you fault the panels for getting impatient with her? Sorry.

And Yes i fault Newsarama for saying there was a tone. their reporting of the issue (much like a FOX news report ) left a different impression than there was on other sites…other site clearly explained that this was one fan asking the same question over and over trying to steer the course of the panels even away from what was begining discussed.

Newsarama made it sound like that this was a a widespread issue that many fans brought up over the course of the convention and then made this fans crusade an issue and made that the top story of the comiccon.

They delivered the story of the convention as this for DC — therefor THEY made the issue news niot that actually fans had beenn fussing about this topic before the convention. that is bullshit that is what Newsarama did while others sites took a a wider view.. and told the story and even the name of the fan that was being disruptive…

they should never retool classic character…. this whole concept just is stupid… i mean Byrne is goiing to ignore years of stories and change the character completely? No Superboy? this will never work . and Perez is making it so Steve Treevor isn’t the love interest of Diana? WTF? and he isn’t using the invisible jet and starting over from scratch? Really? and Oneil is going to ignore the past 4-5 years of Batman continuity? that is like a slap in the face to all those who followed those stories….
This whole thing will never work. — next thing you say they will be starting up a whole new Justice League without all the main characters… DC doesn’t what the hell it is doing

The point would be — do those 4 titles with 4 male robins sell? Yes. end story right there.

If the case was made that one title with a female character was passed for FOr a title that was selling \just as well with a female character maybe there would be a better argument.

And Female editors dont mean an influx of female talent but in Vertigo’s case it was better talent.- male or female that Berger and Bond have gotten. And in some of these cases many of the celebrated runs on some of the title were followed up with run by female creators.. or titles by female creators outright.

“she was rude”

Well, this is the first time I’ve seen this claim made.

“If she truely cared about the answer — she would have asked once and be done with it.”

If she got an answer the first time – or indeed, any time – then maybe she wouldn’t have to ask again and again.

But hey, blame the ‘victim’ here instead of the clowns (re: DiDio) for not answering her question. While you’re at it, remove DiDio’s hand from your backside.

Like Batmyte, I too am a female who reads and buys comic books. Some male fans here seem to think that the fact there aren’t as many women posting in response to this article speaks to the supposed fact that this is a non-issue that only serves as “wanna-be writers and feminazis pushing their own agenda.” Perhaps part of the reason why many women fans avoid boards like this is because of such vitriolic comments that make us feel unwelcome in such environments.

The fact of the matter is, DC has been pushing its “diversity” when promoting the DCnU, saying, look, our females are wearing pants now! And yet, in some cases, Harley Quinn being one that particularly stands out, wearing pants, if those can even be called such, does not prevent the characters from being overtly sexualized, and not in a good way. Comments such as referring to Lois Lane as a “trophy wife” do not help their case.

DC has said that well, we’re trying to get the best creators out there, which apparently includes Rob Liefeld of all people, and yet out of 52 new titles, there were only two female creators listed among them — Gail Simone and Amy Reeder. No Nicola Scott, Amanda Conner, Rachel Dodson, Felicia Henderson, Fiona Staples, G. Willow Wilson, Devin Grayson, Jill Thompson, Pia Guerra, Colleen Coover, Jo Chen, Lea Hernandez and probably a few others I’m forgetting from off the top of my head. So yes, please excuse us if we feel that DC’s claims at diversity ring just a bit false.

I know that I am not alone among other female fans in hoping that DC is serious when they say they want to make right on this issue. If DC can prove that its commitment to strong female characters, I will as in years past, be putting my money where my mouth is. Otherwise, there are other comic companies I can spend my money on that do.

DC giving more work to female creators is a good thing, end of story…

African American? Where is that country?
Never heard of it.

what actuaslly happened was newsarama cared about the manufactured controversy…not actual diversity in comics… one can read the site for stories in one month and see the number of female creators and charaters THEY report on… and when i say female character they report on i am not talking about articles on clothing..

Where is the diversity in Newsarama reporting… where are all the female crearors they report on?
Or do we get the answer that Didiio gave? that this is an industry wide thing…

Come on Newsarama where is YOUR Diversity?

“what actuaslly happened was newsarama cared about the manufactured controversy”

What you mean like how fans invented that “DC Pants Scheme” & now whenever they see a female character not wearing pants they get all offended that DC is breaking a promise they never made?

Oh right, i just realized whats killing the comic book industry. People on newsarama declaring the death of the comic book industry.

@Sue “given your focus on accuracy I’ll point out that your claim fans invented “the pants scheme” is incorrect The story came from Bleeding Cool. But I’ll let you argue the accuracy of it with Rich Johnson.”

Bleeding Cool: a fan website, which backs up my original statement of “What you mean like how fans invented that DC Pants Scheme”

@jgones said, ‘Well she got an answer the first time it wasn’t what she wanted to hear..’

It could be because it wasn’t a STRAIT answer or because Didio DODGED the question. Hence why she kept asking.

“The point would be — do those 4 titles with 4 male robins sell? Yes. end story right there.”

That’s arguable though, isn’t it?

I mean, we don’t know the sales of the NEW books… yet. But DC (and Marvel) have been getting lower and lower sales numbers. The whole point of DC’s relaunch is to attract a new audience.

How do you attract new, diverse readers with what is mostly the same creators you were already using? Or the same creators that were at the forefront in the 90′s when comics bombed last? Or with a very un-diverse group of creators?

This goes beyond gender or race, of course. This goes to House Style. This goes towards “American” comics, to “Super-hero” comics. Out of 52 titles, there are only three that aren’t super-hero focused. One war comic, one western, and whatever Blackhawks is. Now, the Dark line may be a little more Horror leaning, but it’s still super-heroes in a Horror setting.

Diversity isn’t just based on the creators. It’s the mentality of the whole line.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Now, I won’t get into some war of insulting anyone DC has working for them. Everyone is someone’s favorite, and that’s fine. But when you want a diverse line, you don’t put creative control in the hands of one, two, or even three people for 52 titles. You can have people OVERSEE the rest, to make sure things line up, that everything fits and has a place. But to have a top tier directing most everything on down… It stunts the creativity.

Let’s look at this another way. Didio said they made Barbara Gordon Batgirl again because she is “the most recognizable Batgirl.” Now, that’s true. But by that standard, Dick Grayson is the most recognizable Robin. Then Tim Drake. Not Jason Todd, certainly not a Damien Wayne that automatically ages Batman just by existing. No one outside of comic-reading for the last two years would think of Bruce Wayne having a kid. Likewise, the most recognizable Superboy to the general public is probably still Superman when he was a boy. The most recognizable Teen Titans team is going to include a Starfire, a Raven, a Beast Boy and a Cyborg. See where this is heading? DCnU isn’t happening for the sake of diversity or for a new audience or even for an audience that is looking for characters they recognize. It’s happening because a couple guys in charge thought it would be a good idea. And maybe it will be. But the statements that have been made are at odds with themselves. A lot of early statements were gone back on (and yes, some things were never said by DC or their reps at all, just stated on the web and DC eventually corrected them, although the sites just kept saying what they wanted to anyways).

The point is, though, is DC had a panel, and a fan (or more than one) had the courage to come up and ask an honest question that meant something to them. And the people who run DC, not just a random couple creators, but DAN DIDIO AND JIM LEE made some pretty crass statements in return. I don’t care if they were fed up with the questions being asked, or if the weekend was long, and they were tired. I know how that goes, it happens to me. But they let it stand as such. It’s taken another week of constant bad press to finally get some semblance of them saying they are taking the question seriously.

And these are people who are bombarded with questions and such about continuity gaffs and “how can Batman have fought the Riddler in issue #XXX when the Riddler was shown as being in Arkham that same month in Detective #YYY.” They get dumb questions all the time. When hit with a rather valid one, they instead get defensive and pissy.

But, again, that’s a personal thing. That’s not what the real problem is.

The problem is that, as people are saying, we just want the best comics possible. No matter who makes them. And we’ve now got a month to see if these are or they’re not. It’s DC’s gamble to make. But they certainly seem to have put all their eggs in one basket with the creators and the titles and the characters they’ve chosen to focus on. I mean, no… not really. Not every writer they have is the same voice. Not every artist is the same style. Not every book is a carbon-copy.

But it could be a lot more, couldn’t it?

@Captain Temerity: “This goes beyond gender or race, of course. This goes to House Style. This goes towards “American” comics, to “Super-hero” comics. Out of 52 titles, there are only three that aren’t super-hero focused. One war comic, one western, and whatever Blackhawks is. Now, the Dark line may be a little more Horror leaning, but it’s still super-heroes in a Horror setting.”

i know, how sickeing is it that a comic book company that has made its bones over the last 50 years by making super hero comics continue to make super hero comics… Its sick, sick i tells ya. Whats next, the womans day will still continue to publish made up tripe, playboy channel will still show naked people, bars will continue to serve mind altering liquids in the presense of loud music & apple will continue to produce devices without a USB port… Its sick. /sarcasm

@Beano: “though recent Sue Dibny and Mary Marvel storylines based their appeal, at least in part, on female degradation”

No they didn’t. Identity Crisis was a well written story that just touched on something written poorly many years previous. It had a villain acting in a truly villianous way & as a fan of well written fiction i found it to be brillaint… After all the actual villain of the piece had actual understandable motives & for once it was nice to see a female in comics be shown as truly evil (especially in the same story as we see a male villain act in a way that was truly evil).

As for the Mary Marvel stuff, what degredation? She picks up the power of Black Adam & fucks some shit up. I don’t know how you get degredation from a power trip…

“That’s where the superhero teams become important. For example, Green Lantern needs to be white in order to sell his own book, but can be black in the Justice League in order to add diversity.”

Except that Green Lantern in the DCnU to start with isn’t white. Sinestro is the GL in the main book, John Stewart is the lead of Green Lantern Corp & Kyle Rayner is the lead in the team book Green Lantern: New Guardians.

If well written ethnic minorities can make great characters. Unfortunately they have a tendency to not sell well… Kind of like Blue Bettle: It was the greatest book that no one was purchasing.

I’m proud to say I rarely have any idea the ethnicity, sex, height, weight, religious beliefs or otherwise of the writers/artists on the books I like. Doesn’t matter. Don’t care. Thought Devin Grayson was a dude for years. Nicola Scott too. Didn’t know Priest was black. DO. NOT. CARE.

@Sue: this didn’t come out in my posts because I was grumpy: Point is, of course bringing more women into comics, as readers or creators, is a good thing at the end of the day.

I simply take issue with how this has all gone down: the petulant, rude, & immature badgering on the side of the “activists”, the way DC has responded, & all the hyperbolic “reporting” surrounding this semi-issue. And I’m saying this as an eye witness who was at the con.

And I gotta say, I agree with DiDio as far as the whole “12% to 1%” catchphrase that’s being bandied about. It means nothing in the bigger picture. Numbers are fluid.

–J.

I likie to see Newsarama report on female creators more than Simone,Scott,Doran and conner…(oh lookie curiiously ther are doing so for the first time in recent memory….) One would think that if there are so many female creators that are being overlooked Newsarama would have been writing about them FOR MONTHS…..and YEARS not curiously right after all this started… NEWSARAMA WHERE ARE THE FEMALE CREATORS ON YOUR SITE?

oh yeah costume articles dont count.

Comments like “I don’t care who writes my comics”, and “I don’t want a quota of certain monkeys, gays, minorities or women writers I just want good stories” are just passive aggressive swipes at the fact that they don’t care about having a diverse fanbase. Or essentially white men happy to have white male heroes with the occasional hot sexy female as background window dressing. Grant Morrison can write strong women, and he can write good stories with women, any of them can if they’d care to, but they don’t. Its the same with minority characters, you don’t need someone from an ethnic background other than white to write a good Blue Beetle story … but as has been proven over and over again they’re not going to. Its only by actually hiring minorities and women that you’re going to get more female characters written, and more minority characters written well.
As for Dan Didio’s harassment, well if he can’t take it, then maybe he shouldn’t be doing PR for DC comics should he? I think he’s a big boy, having been EiC and I’m sure he can take the criticisms which ARE NOT simply one woman’s agenda, but the agenda of a lot of fans who are just a little sick and tired of all the heroes they read about being one dull whitewashed type of character. It was during Didio’s tenure that all the old white Silver age versions of the 2nd tier DC characters came back, for someone talking about diversity he doesn’t exactly have my vote of confidence.
And lastly, to those people asking the fans to put their money where their mouth is, it isn’t our job to market and push these books its DC’s no one here sits and says that about the whole line of DC comics. Its their job to write stories that appeal to a wider audience, they should be making comics accessible to all ages, but instead they keep trying to push the same ridiculous superhero books. The DCnu line up is not as diverse as they’d like to make it seem. DC and Marvel are not as stupid as they seem they know perfectly well that colorful books appeal to children, they know cheaper paper would lower cost, they know cheaper books and returnability would allow for more markets but they’re not interested in the hard work required to expand the audience. Magazines make their money from advertising and circulation not their cover price, and still Marvel and DC can’t get their books out to a wider audience? Its because they’re not interested in lower short term profits, they didn’t want to make their money from trades, until they were forced to. They didn’t want to use computer coloring back in the day, they didn’t want glossier paper, the big two have always been resistant to change and what change they do make is because the fans speak with their money and their voice. So its hard to sit here and ask women to buy books when the majority of the comic book reading audience is men. Its hard to ask kids to be interested in this tiny section of the comic book shop when the majority of the books on the shelves they can’t or shouldn’t be reading. Not to mention everything is superheroes.
So no. It is not the responsibility alone of the comic fans that are here, it is the responsibility of the comic companies to make more interesting material, to market it properly, and to bring in new readers, because comics aren’t going to die, superhero comics are. Bone is still selling and still being read by children everywhere, they are popular books at the library and at bookstores, its the continuity heavy, sexist, homophobic, and completely whitewashed superhero genre that needs to worry that it hasn’t shrunken its readership to a ridiculously small and shrinking fanbase.

So does this mean there’s gonna be naked superchix beatin’ the snot outta eacother? I’ll fraggin’ buy that! Good job you DC Bastiches!

Red said: “It could be because it wasn’t a STRAIT(sic) answer or because Didio DODGED the question. Hence why she kept asking.”

As opposed to ALL the STRAIGHT answers you get when asking a question at a COMIC BOOK PANEL?

Maybe I can start a campaign saying Marvel are bigoted towards British people b/c they won’t give a straight answer regarding the status of “Miracle/Marvelman” & they cancelled “Captain Britain” too quickly.

I’ll be starting a Facebook group in about 10 minutes if anyone wants to join. I will also Blog & Tweet about it. “Marvel went from 12% to 1% British Characters after Secret Invasion!!!! Anger & rage!”

Expect me to pop up at every convention panel wearing a Sex Pistols T-Shirt & shout about it.

Yeah.

–J.

These comic universes were created by men….at least show some respect.
You want to barge your way in,fine ,you’ll smother stories based upon transcendence and wonder with your desperate needs to be “respresented”.
These characters already represent all of us,i look nothing like Bruce Wayne,should Bruce Wayne look like me?no,of course not,it would never even cross my mind.
This is just narciccism running wild.
Like lenny and the mouse in of mice and men,women love these adventures soooo much,they’ll force their way in,the lovely talented ones along with the long line of untalented ones,and they’ll domesticate,water down and murder these universes.
but at least they got some attention right?
….you’ll be happy at least then,right ladies?
what…gulp you want everything else too…b..but why?
We’re moving in to an age where the imaginative male force is being disrespected and hijacked and the whole species’ll end up regretting it i bet.

I have to say, I’ve become a little bit sickened with the nature of some of the comments on here. Not because of people disagreeing with each other (or me). That’s the nature of a discusion. That’s what these boards are for, at the heart of them: to voice opinions, on all sides.

But just the dead-set, bang-your-head-against-the-wall determinedness of some people to claim that just because someone has a disenting voice towards how DC is displaying their choices of creators, it somehow means that DC is being attacked by people with agendas, that Didio and the rest on the panel were set up, and this is all just to get headlines somehow.

You know what, yes. Yes, there’s obviously an agenda. Because we all have an agenda, don’t we? My agenda is to not see comics go completely down the crapper because we can’t outgrow where we came from to get to where we need to be. My agenda is to see a wide range of comic creators and creative ideas come about, and hopefully flourish, so that we can finally get new readers interested in the art form I’ve grown up loving.

The people who went to the panels had an agenda in that they want comics that speak to them, because they are passionate about their love of DC’s characters and history, and want to know that they will still have a reason to read this new universe at its relaunch.

But you people who are so adamant that nothing is at all wrong with the reactions of the people in charge, editorially, at DC reacting in a crass, unkind manner to a fan because she dared ask if there was more to DC’s new line than what appeared to be a male-dominated fantasy world… What is your agenda? What is it you want? You want more of the same? You want to shove everyone with a different taste or opinion out of your hobby? No room for others in your pool? That’s fine. Just don’t be surprised when the whole thing dries up because there’s not enough of you left to support the effort.

In recent years, Comic Con has become as much about things like Science Fiction, Twilight and Tru Blood, Harry Potter, and so much more than it is about the comics themselves. You don’t think DC would kill themselves trying to get those numbers of fans? To get that money? Obviously it’s out there. It can be done. But the boys in charge don’t seem to have clue one how to do it.

This article, what everyone is responding to here, is DC saying, “We realize now we screwed up. We see that maybe we’ve been missing something, and we’re going to try to do better.” So I’m not disappointed in them. I’m disappointed that the fandom I count myself a part of can’t see to outgrow itself and enjoy the fact that we can have it all. Comics can have no limits if we don’t limit ourselves. We no longer have to feel secluded, alone in our hobby, as comics have become more mainstream. We practically run Hollywood right now. But if the fans can’t accept that there is room for all, eventually, there will be room for none.

I’ve been part of a discussion on this same subject elsewhere online, but with comic creators, not just purveyors of fan sites, and it’s a lot more inspiring talking to people interested in making comics stronger. Comics for everyone.

You guys are lucky there are people like that out there willing to do that for you. Because if we were judged simply by the “fans” here, comics are a pretty ugly place.

@Captain Temerity: And look at that, Newsarama essentially just printed a retraction, stating what people have been saying from the start, that not only did the number not drop from 12% down to 1% like some idiots were saying, the actual number of women post Flash-point is almost exactly the same as it is now.

Whats that Captain Temerity? Your knee jerk reactionism was wrong? I’m surprised, i really am… Oh wait, no i’m mistaking surprised with “what people have been telling you since day 1.”

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