There were TONS of love comics back then (some were edited by Stan himself) More than 60 issues in each line. There are those now? Why exactly it should be superheroes now?
Because Marvel have exclusively published Superheroes for 60 years. If they want to do romance comics go for it. Throw a new brand name on it and make them. Superhero fans and romance fans don't want the same thing.
In fairness, there were also many Wild West comics, WW2/Korean War comics, fantasy-hero comics other than Conan the Barbarian, spy-comics, horror comics, YA/teen humor other than Archie, etc., etc.; but as comics as a WHOLE sold less due to kids, teens, and young adults having more entertainment options, ONLY the top books kept being published by DC and Marvel (i.e., superhero books), especially since the most marketable properties that could be LICENSED was only a consideration, with Captain America and Spider-Man appearing on t-shirts and Wonder Woman costumes being sold to girls for Halloween. Comics are likely BEST for doing stories that are larger than life or explore fantastical stories because unlike movies or television, artwork provides an unlimited CGI budget, and unlike literature, one gets the benefit of being able to actually see whatever amazing events are only described on the page otherwise.
One Line as to why that bombed and never came back why Love Comics died: Trouble. Basically even when Marvel TRIED to Write a Love Comic they STILL Turned it into a *THOUROUGHLY REJECTED* How Aunt May Met Uncle Ben story instead of a Normal Romance Comic. They wont get out of their own way too. And even then it was bad.
If they are doing hard equity hiring they can't get talent. If they have some corporate guidelines of 50% or more female writers: A - there are not actually that many woman who are good at writing superheroes (when people say " I like female writers" note they can generally only name Ann Nocenti or Louise Simonson. Two in 80 years of big two comics.) B - they have to hire whoever is available, regardless of ability, to meet the corporate guideline.
You have it wrong. Bring in twitter users that yell about feminist talking points, thats the people we hire. The irony is that classical feminism would reject all of these people.
What in the "geek world" for the past 10 years hasn't been aimed at women? Yet somehow not enough women are showing up. Could it be they just aren't interested? Oh no surely not that . . .
A dog food company hired a high-priced ad firm to turn around its lagging sales. The ad firm tried everything but the sales kept dropping. The dog food company's CEO ordered the head of the ad agency into a meeting of his managers and asked him what the problem was. The ad man said, "Sir, dogs just won't eat it."
While simultaneously running off their core base. I looked so forward to the day I could buy all the comics I wanted with a decent paycheck. And there hadn’t been anything worth buying in 20+ years!
If I want representation, I'll go to city hall. If I want to be exposed to different cultures, I'll read a history book. These NPC don't get that's it's call "fiction" for a reason.
10:00 Yes, I’ve been saying that for years, I DO NOT want to see myself in the story. The reason these people say that is because they’re narcissists, they want to see themselves in everything. And this is the biggest problem these people have, and it’s the thing that annoys me the most.
These writers have redefined so many words; empathy, compassion, diversity, empowerment. All these words used to describe something specific, but now when I hear them it's like the "Kill Bill" alarm goes off in my head and I prepare myself for some frustrating lecture.
yup. many words, especially important, meaningful or "powerful" words and language has lost virtually any/all meaning at this point. Those who chose and insisted on molesting it and weaponizing it to use in their agenda have destroyed its effectiveness and ruined it for genuine cases. its the little fanatic who cried racism... those labels dont work anymore. they dont scare us or shut us up anymore.
There was an article talking about how farm equipment “wasn’t inclusive.” The same feminist who say there’s no difference between men and women, complained that farm equipment is heavy and thus made for a man. A plow has to be lighter for woman, because men and women are exactly the same? This is the same sort of double talk that you’re getting from this article. “ People need to see themselves in the comic.” Literally the next sentence “ people need to see people who are different than them.” They assert that merely having male writers create a character is sexist. There’s no reasoning with these people. They view everything through the oppressor oppressed dynamic and cannot see the world in any other way.
Hi there . One of the few new lady makers that have made it is Peach Momoko . And only because they let her do what she does . All in the context of Superheroes. Greetings from Germany
That article contradicted itself so much. How can you only ever write self inserts in every story and then turn around and say that writing "diverse" perspectives is the way to go. By definition you can't have diverse perspectives if you refuse to write anything but a version of yourself.
I love how Marvel acts as if female super heroes were only invented in the last 10 years. Marvel had a lot of strong female heroes from the 1970s - 00's (admittedly drawn by dudes living out certain fantasies), but still...
So I watched this video where they talked about this flaw that intelligent people have. Where they seek popularity and fame. They will support stupid ideologies because it allows them to climb the ladder of popularity. Unfortunately the only way to combat this flaw is to have curiosity and being a truly humble person. Businessmen in general aren’t curious and are never humble. So they’re easily susceptible to this very dangerous flaw in intelligent people. So that’s probably why Companies are being very clueless right now.🧐
They've been infested with idiots through d.i.e programs(communist propaganda). Unqualified people made their way in and the ones with the power to get rid of them are cowards or bought off. Add in the belief in brand strength. They thought they could get away with it. They could insult your intelligence and nobody would care. They were wrong.
The people who are responsible for this nonsense are cultural Marxists and activists, who have infiltrated companies like Marvel and DC Comics with the help of ESG. They don't care about making money; their priority is spreading their propaganda, even if it means harming the company they work for.
When I am at a con, in line in the artists alley to get some signatures, I can guarantee there are only dudes with beards, muscles of beer bellies around.
"Why does representation matter?" It doesn't, unless you are a narcissist who must see yourself in everything you read. The strength of fiction is that it allows readers to step out of themselves for a few moments and experience life through someone else's eyes. Some of my favorite characters across all of fiction include the Hulk, R2-D2, Michelangelo (from the Ninja Turtles), Mr. Spock, and Soundwave. In not one single instance did I think, "I love this character because I see myself in them."
I'm an Asian guy and I don't need the Avengers to look like me in order for me to like them. I just literally read the comics coz wanna know how they become so iconic in the first place + some cool storytelling.
It's a shame that Western Comics (or at least American comics, since I think Europe has more variety) aren't as diverse (in terms of their genres). It would be cool to see horror, war, romance, western etc. comics become prominent again.
I think if you ever have trouble knowing what gender you are, you shouldn't spend your time reading comics. You have much larger issues than fictional representation.
Many institutions and companies have been destroyed by elites out of touch with their customer base. The good thing about comics is that there will always be back issues. Whenever there is nothing good, I look for something from the past.
Comics is a low investment art, so it can always rise from the ashes. It’s more that when the direct market in the US dies, Marvel and DC will follow as their specific business model ended. So that’s what Marvel and DC are potentially destroying with their current strategy.
I used to read She-Hulk because I liked She-Hulk, not because I wanted to BE She-Hulk. For the article author to say that men seeing male characters doing heroic feats leads to men thinking only men are capable of heroic feats is asinine. Only Superman can do what Superman does. The Milkman cannot do what Superman does, but the Milkman is a hero in his own right, for he brings milk to the thirsty.
The sad part is DC comics had a non superhero line called vertigo. All they have to do is make superhero books for superhero fans and create a line for horror, romance, slice of life and drama books.
The more crucial question: do women want to READ superhero comics? Because they're not much point trying to attract a 50% female audience for superhero comics if only a small sliver of the female readers out there would even consider reading comics about heroes fighting villains. If they're "magical girl" style heroes, perhaps, that are more focused on defeating enemies with "love and friendship" and they're consistently saved (at crucial moments) by mysterious, tall, slender, super-hot guys that may or may not be one of the Bad Guys. (I think DC has a Princess Crystal who might fit the bill.) There are a lot of novels for a female audience featuring characters like Blade, that would generally make good comic books - but they're not called "superhero novels". They're called "supernatural romance" because they're not about some girl-boss, sexy vampire hunter killing a big bad vampire who turned her family, they're about her falling in love with the big, bad super-hot werewolf while they're both hunting the vampire. The universe of Webcomics is chock full of comics female readers like to read. Then there's the related question: even if you got a label that specialized in making comics based on supernatural romance or some such - would they sell if all you did was sell them in comic book shops - where women looking for romance books DO NOT SHOP? In other words: if you want a female audience to buy your books - instead of mutating successful Superhero comics into something NOBODY likes - make UNIQUE books that we already know female readers like and sell them in stores or amazon where female readers shop for books.
Last week, I was in a comic book store, and there was a babe clerk. I usually never ask anything to them but there was nobody else. I asked whether they had some Daredevil by Gene Colan and she asked how to spell it. A male workmate of hers came to the rescue and answered me. I had the same thing in a dvd store and I asked whether they had Legal Eagles with Robert Redford and the girl with blue hair asked 'who?'. Her boy workmate laughed and found me the dvd.
That is my experience 99.99% of the time the dude just steps in. I had this one chat with a tomboy looking staff in this one media store. She had a really good gaming knowledge and we chatted about Kojima games. Lived a long life visiting entertaiment media stores since I was a kid. She was the literal unicorn.
Kara and Diana are probably my favorites overall, behind Barry and Wally. But DC has taken away EVERYTHING from Kara and Diana. They arent even the same people anymore
Cassandra Cain is my favorite. The big issue with Kara is that like make her your typical angry teenage girlr more to be the same moral paragon like your cousin. I miss Pre-Crisis Supergirl.
I don't care what gender the writer is. I want to check that young teenager ditching the hottest chick in the United States to protect 12 people he doesn't know from a flying green dude because that's what heroes do.
Superman, Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Mr. Fantastic, Captain America, Thomas Covenant. Some of my favorite characters and, given my profile picture, not a one of them looks like me. Talk about the most narcissistic way of looking at how one gets into stories. Sheesh!
First off most those female comic books that were created back in the good old days were romances not superheroes so once again CBR are bunch of idiots. Secondly most female comic book fans (ok I am talking about myself) are drawn to the male characters because we love strong powerful men. Yeah I like Wonder Woman and Black widow but I rather a good Captain America book.
I studied business marketing at Uni. One time me and my project group were developing a marketing plan for a project. We were trying to figure out how to market simultaneously to men, women, old and young. The teacher stopped us in our tracks and told us to be very careful trying to be all things to all people. You'll end up pleasing no one. Pick your core audience and market to them. This of course was back in the days when success was based on sales and profit, not how diverse you are.
And to force it on everybody that isn’t like themselves, after all, they never talk about proportionate representation, instead it’s just them and only them that should get any representation, while the vast majority shouldn’t get any.
I'm a hired writer and I feel like the best way to balance things out is to 1) get generally good writers and editors. 2) have people learn to co write. On our team there's people who work well with romance, some are more comfortable with fighting scenes and others just do well with the general pacing. That way everyone works together, learning the source material to work on thr parts they have a strong command in.
Comics were designed from the Pulp Magazines, which were designed for Working Class men, whom the usual Rich Elites thought were too stupid and illiterate. Their focus was mostly male even then. They started to branch out in the early 1950s, experimenting with other genres, unfortunately a hack looking for fame wrote a book called 'Seduction of The Innocent', in which claimed that video g-, I mean D&D, I mean television, I mean movi-, I mean beer, wait, OH RIGHT! Comics were going to turn men and boys into violent thugs. Which triggered the usual cadre of busybody moms, AKA Karens who demanded that something be done. And so the Comic Industry took it upon themselves to self-censor, because if the Government stepped in, they'd have destroyed it, as Government ALWAYS does. This has been your lesson in American comics.
I am so glad as an 80s kid, I grew up reading books and comics where I WANTED to be like the fictional characters, instead of the other way around. I was taught to seek stories, not hunt for narcissism.
So here's a fun fact. Back when Lego was trying to branch out to get more girls interested in their stuff, they ran a number of tests and groups monitoring the different ways in which boys and girls played with their toys. They found that when boys played with the figures and such they tried to be the figure in question. I.E. if they played with Batman, they would change their voice to act like Batman and generally have Batman doing Batman things. In the same experiments they found girls would have Batman go shopping and dress up, and generally act like Batman was them instead. After the studies were over they used the data and started making Lego malls, and shopping centers, and various other Lego attractions that would mirror places and things Girls enjoyed doing. And they became immensely popular. So when you ask or wonder why hero comics and various other properties have changed so drastically, and why people are constantly pushing this 'see yourself in the property' narrative. Take a look at who is pushing that, who is writing or producing, and who they claim they are trying to pull in.
The artwork in the thumbnail is Alan Smith from at least twenty years ago, things were fine just as they were. The DEI people didn’t add more female characters, non of substance anyway, they just got rid of all the men.
I agree with you about the fact that when you speak of "comics" in America it comes down to superheroes and manga is more diverse in terms of the scope of types of stories they cover. Though SHONEN is dominated by male nihonjin mangaka, there are some female authors who CAN write and draw things with lots of blood and gore too. Example, miss Teshirogi, Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas. (knights of the zodiac) First half was just great, then it was more like they wanted to stretch the story too much and quality dropped, because they killed established versions of the characters from the main storyline making us presume this works were going to be shorter, so we ended up with the need of getting new characters out of the... 🤔 Let's say the cul de sac... Ten or more years later, in this decade she wrote Gaiden about mostly origins of the gold knights of zodiac which were just GREAT... And Teshirogi worked before in more "romantic" stories... The difference is in nihon market there's no "wok (pun intended and I'm Asian btw) agenda".
Yesterday I was watching the president of XBox say that they need to expand branding and I'm starting to think that they don't even know what they mean. I don't understand how they can think that there is an audience out there, who is waiting for who knows what, to become a reader of comics. They can do whatever they want if readers of whatever group it is are not interested there is no solution.
What they mean is that they need to expand their statistics. The statistics need to show growth, so that investors give them free money. It also ensures the 10 or so top salary people, will get cash payouts, so it is important to them. Meanwhile the lower salary people are expendable, and can be fired to ensure the top 10 get their bonuses. I think what we really need to change, is to make sure CEOs get poorly paid, so that only people who favor the company apply for the jobs. Why would anyone want to be the CEO if they got the same salary as everyone else, if not to help the company grow?
@@linusgustafsson2629 Do not misunderstand. I'm perfectly agree. What I don't understand is how stupid are these investors? Having the largest audience, no shit, need I say it? I want to know what this phantom audience is waiting for. What do they want to do differently to get them there?
It's actually more ironic than that. Those girls and women, my wife for example, who used to enjoy reading typical superhero comics, are as disgruntled by all of this as the rest of us and are quiting as well. My wife for example almost completely dropped the all-new, diverse, female and alphabet friendly comics 'cause she as zero interest in them and doesn't recognize any of the characters she used to love, and moved on to Manga. So, instead of gaining female readers, they actually lost one in her case. 🙄
The most absurd part about these insane assumptions is that they clearly don't apply them to women reading non-woke superhero stories. "...representation matters because it builds empathy and understanding, blah blah" Clearly that is not true because women have no empathy for men. All of that is ridiculous.
Why do these people keep forgetting. The Audience buys what they enjoy, not what the publishers shove to the top, or what they are called to like. You can't force them to stay, but you certainly can scare them into running off.
i dont read any marvel anymore. i immediately tune out and pass on anything that begins with anything prioritizing identity over anything else. I ignore anything now that the synopsis identifies the protagonist as a strong female or even just female at this point. Im so effing girl-powered out i cant see straight. I dont care what that supposedly makes me or what you want to think of me because of it. I cant do it anymore.
If there are SO MANY female comic readers; make something NEW to target those potential buyers, don't destroy what is already there. But they won't, because they KNOW it won't sell on it's own.
When girls play with toys they imagine the toys are them. When boys play, they pretend they are the toys. I suspect its the same when they write characters. They make the characters reflect themselves instead of writing them using the logic and prospectives of the characters. Also, I'm a black Jamaican-Bahamian-American... My favorite comic book character is a white Cajun American from Louisiana. I dont need to see myself in anything.
I have a sister who likes fantasy so she is writing a book herself. The characters are mainly based on her and her friends, because she can easily imagine these people and how they would behave. Me, I started writing a book in my youth but didn't write much. But every character was created out of thin air because I thought of it like a book/movie which always had people I didn't know. It certainly feels like women just take lived experiences and runs with it, while men just make things up.
All the stuff that makes Superman Superman won't ve available to the public. All they'll have is a guy that wears red and blue and can jump buildings. We've had so many Superman clones it won't make a big difference.
We need more blaclk female vikings! More female asian union soldiers! More tales about lesbians storming the beaches of Normandy in WW2! Bring it on, my blue-haired justic warrior sistahs!
As I was growing up and buying Iron Man, Batman and so on, I noticed girls my age read Archie comics voraciously. I agree that writers like Ann Innocenti or Louise Simonson have to earn their way up the ladder.
Great rant, Wes, I particularly appreciated the "I don't want a story about me" segment. I've never understood wanting to insert yourself into the fiction, even in video games where it's more encouraged. Some of my favorite characters are people you wouldn't necessarily want to be: The Thing, The Hulk, The Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, etc., etc. so I've never had this seemingly obsessive desire to be "represented" in the stories I'll read. I think a lot of this is a byproduct of these publishers bowing to DEI and hiring people that care more about themselves and their position in the company than they do about comics. Enamored with themselves, they then write stories about things they'd do in their lives and you now have the team going to the fucking farmer's market.
I’m so tired of the “people can only relate to characters If they are just like themselves” trope that the comic book media has been pushing for the last 10 years. I’m about as white as it gets and when I was a kid in the 80s, I loved characters like Jim Rhodes, Black Panther and Falcon. I went to and still go to comics for escapism and characters I wish I was, not to see people just like me. These journalists and diversity hires don’t seem to understand comics and what the fans want at all.
I grew up with Superheroes with different genders, different skin colours, from millionaires, aliens, people from the ocean, the past and future. In Manga which ive moved to, majority of characters are asian, they have plenty of gay characters. Maybe the reason I dropped modern, mainstream comics is more on the quality of people writing it.
Dude....those representation arguments are so stupid!...I'm Mexican, I attended comic book clubs growing up in Mexico along with my friends and NOBODY EVER asked for a Mexican superhero!!!....nobody ask to see themselves in comic books when the fucking stories are GOOD!!!....I'm not russian, white or have spider powers but I loved Kraven's Last Hunt.
This article is absolutely terrible, it’s filled with utter gibberish and total lies. They can keep putting these people onto comics but they simply can’t write an action comic, they’re incapable. And this writer can write all day that’s there’s no difference, but we all know that’s lies. There’s a few female writers in manga and they’re great. But any born in the west simply can’t do it.
Sooner or later, it will be fifty percent because male customers decrease daily. It's just that whenever it reaches that threshold, they'll be out of a job.
Long before that as the vast majority of women isn’t at all interested in superheroes, no matter how much slice of life they add. So it’s just a question of when they lost too many men to survive. PS: Women that love slice of life are perfectly catered for by manga and webcomics, not sure how Marvel and DC came up with the idea that they could ever compete with those.
That is one of the most asinine articles I've seen in a while. That's saying something. I have a black buddy who went and saw Tarot in theaters the other day (for some screwy reason), and he said it was laughable because of the group of friends in it. He was like, I was taken completely out of the movie by this stupid group of friends that checked every diversity box that there is. He said, I have never, EVER seen a group of people hanging out together in real life that looked anything like this. It was such a pandering studio move that I couldn't bring myself to care about these people because they so obviously weren't real. Well... that and the movie just sucked, but that was the first thing he brought up. Heh.
Well, Wes, seems like somebody discovered the key to bringing peace to the Middle East. Apparently, all we need to do is take as many comic books as possible over there.
Agree 100%. They just need good stories and good characters, normally WITHIN THE GENRE! I don't go to cinemas to watch Top Gun and get a Sex in the City film, right? Im happy for those that want to watch that other genre, but this is not what these characters or stories are about. In fact, the Superhero genre has plenty of subgenres, but they are SUB, not the main genre. Captain America with Brubaker had the noir/spy tone, Hulk by Ewing the horror/supernatural, Secret Invasion by Bendis had the alien stuff, Civil War the political / civilian ideas, etc. They are elements within the superhero genre, but you don't make them into a romantic or LGTBQ or minority book slice of life book with Superhero references ... that's not what the readers want.
50% of women do not like comics. 50% of women and men like muscular male heroes they can connect with and/or look at and sexy female characters they can connect with or to look at, in film. This COULD translate to comics... but men have and will always be more drawn to action and adventure stories than women. The mistake was assuming that they could make stories that were 50% adventure & 50% romance while taking away half the muscular male heroes & replacing them with losers, and/or ugly women, and make almost everyone bi or gay, trans etc. Its a mess of trying to please everyone all the time, while favoring minority voices, and pleasing none. Know your target audiences and starting with the larger portions, target them. Don't retcon beloved characters and try and please everyone all the time, and favor the most niche individuals and denigrate the majority. We don't need them to be us, we need them to be people we can relate to, understand well enough to connect with and be interested in what they do.
I saw yaboiZack did a video yesterday on this article. He must of read the whole thing because he basically turned into the joker towards the end of the video lol.
This article disregards the fact many fan favourite characters within comicbooks have been female (Sue Storm, Storm, Rogue, Emma Frost, Jean Grey, Psylocke, She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, ...) and many of them came from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Said characters have had female AND male fans since that far back and even people who were born decades after their creation still gravitate towards them to this day. Those fans are a faithful audience that enjoyed not only those characters but the stories and setting they were in but, and this is important, many female readers were just as interested in the female characters as they were for the male ones. These readers might share their passion with other female readers and increase readership but the only way to keep that boost going is a decent plot and having those characters stay true to themselves. What happened in the past decades goes against this though as many characters have been broken, altered and sloppily scribbled all over in ways where they are unrecognisable from who they once were. Some new female readers might be interested in those new iterations sure but the old and faithful fanbase that stuck around for so long will leave and not look back because that level of broken trust is hard to earn back.
Their version of a 50/50 male and female target audience is not what they believe it is when they drive off most of the males so that the females, which is a small number already, is now tied to the smallest number of males that stayed.
Jokes on them as the female readers of superheroes like the same stuff as the male ones, so they also leave. They will never reach that 50/50 ever in superheroes as they go bankrupt long before that. The female audience that wants slice of life superheroes can’t sustain a single title and the female audience that wants just slice of life is already heavily catered by manga and webcomics of higher quality. Marvel and DC are betting their existence on a loosing strategy.
Slice of Life mangas are more closer of real life. We never found this in the superheroes comics because are fantastic universes with 0% of realism. Maybe modern audiences should be reading more mangas and indies books and leave DC and Marvel alone.
If the comics industry is concerned about violence in the real world, why don't they do pro-Palestine, anti-genocide stories? Are they really so concerned? They seem silent on the subject.
Look as a woman who enjoys superhero stuff, I hate the comics as they are now. Marvel and DC drove off the men and the women who like it in favor of an audience who won’t buy it at all!
The idea that we need to focus on women to gain women readers is silly. Also the idea that supporting male heroes means that female heroes are de-emphasized. Look at great books from the 1980's like New Teen Titans (with Starfire, Raven, and Wonder Girl) or Uncanny X-men (Jean Grey, Storm, later Kittty Pryde and Rogue). These books had tons of action and epic plots, yet had enough soap opera elements and character development to reach a broad audience. And both men and women were respected and made incredible impact in their tales.
No one believes that only men and boys buy and enjoy comics but the market shows that an overwhelming majority of men and boys buy comic books. So to go against the market and cater to a small demographic is stupid until that demographic shows an increase in purchasing comics there is no reason to cater to them. Supply and Demand and the Customer is always right is undefeated in 2024
What happened to the focus of plot, storyline, intimate character development, and high -powered action. Just make good movies and the inclusion will take care of itself
I could not agree with you more when it comes to "relating to the character." I know who I am already and don't want to read a story about something I already know. I want escapism in comics. I want to read about heroic actions that I, or any other normal person, could not accomplish in the real world because we lack super powers. I think this idea depends on the reader. I've heard others say females tend to want to transfer their personality onto whatever character they are reading about, while males want to fantasize about what it would be like if we had the powers the characters we like have. Anyone can like superhero comics, but we all come to the hobby for our own reasons. No one should be trying to shoe-horn their own agenda onto the medium. We don't need a specific percentage of fans for any hobby. Some hobbies appeal more to one sex than the other - that's just normal, and there's nothing wrong with it. No reason to modify those hobbies to balance some "cosmic scale" of balance. Girls are generally drawn to Barbie, while boys are generally drawn to Transformers. And that's just fine.
My God, Wes you hit every nail on the head dead on! It’s too bad none of the publishers were actually listening because they keep spewing out this crap left and right. You know a while back I was buying Harley Quinn comic book and for a while, and I hadn’t read much of them because I’ve been busy you know life gets in the way. I picked up the book started reading it and I realize what is this Crap! The book had turned into a, slice of life kind of YA book with pastels and puppy dogs inside. Then I looked at the cover and saw that it was written by Trini Howard and I said hell no! That’s why this book sucks! I said I’m out I’m not buying this book anymore. Well said West keep up the good fight. I’m standing right now giving you a standing ovation.
This is why people is heading to Image comics, Top Cow comics, and others comic books companies! This is why marvel comics and DC comics have a hard time bringing back all of their fans!
I've always heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That sums up Marvel and DC to a tee. They will keep doing the diversity stories and losing their audience and blaming toxic masculinity for the never-ending failure.
As a female fan of superhero comics who was always looking for fellow female comic fans you learn what female fans tend to graviate towards. Normally, yeah female fans gravitate to slice of life or less cape filled sci-fi/fantasy which is normally manga and indies. Even female superhero comic fans will love the drama as much as, if not more, than the action. And then theres ones who only seem to care about Harley Quinn/Harlivy, MCU Stars, or "diversity" books or really care more about the show/movie adaption of said comics then the books themselves. I've sadly met a couple people who consume a product mainly for it not being white men and they seem to be the main audience these days. What's very ironic about the "diverse" characters make stories more interesting is that so many modern comics have their characters lack diversity of personality or beliefs. How many Bat family members siding with Catwoman during Gotham War when they would call out her BS plan still burns me while Taylor's Titans are incredibly stale and boring with little differences in their voices. As well as so many angry strawman characters from the opposing political sides and deapite how much they preach "politics were always in comics" they'd freak out real fast if something published actually criticising anything vaguely leftwing.
I’m another female fan of superhero comics and I think you’re right. Diverse is not just skin deep. It would have been more interesting if we had people who thought differently too.
@@AL-ws5yi that's very least my experiences and I have some female friends who also love superheroes, manga, and other types of comics as well as just noticing what others gravitate towards. I admit to getting annoyed at superheroes being called a "boy thing" but came to realize it's more statistics than sexism especially with a lot of recent books. "Diversity of Thought" has been missing from books for awhile and everything else has been so heavy handed.
CBR is where intelligent thought crosses the street,and goes the other way. Superhero comics are pretty much a male dominated audience. And their sales show as much.
It's interesting that female writers don't create more diverse personalities for the heroines they write. There's a sameness to them. One gets the impression they're getting their character ideas from the same feminist art and not from themselves or the women around them. Men have created more diverse heroines. Men created tough She-Hulk but also the more innocent Hellcat who once said she wasn't much of a feminist. They created the warrior woman Valkyrie whose life is defense of Asgard and also the more maternal Invisible Woman. But no matter their differences, when fighting villains they all kicked butt because that's what heroes do.
To be fair, some would even argue that fictional places can be an allegory for some real location. But yeah, should be 50% vs are 50% are two different things.
There were TONS of love comics back then (some were edited by Stan himself)
More than 60 issues in each line.
There are those now? Why exactly it should be superheroes now?
Because Marvel have exclusively published Superheroes for 60 years. If they want to do romance comics go for it. Throw a new brand name on it and make them. Superhero fans and romance fans don't want the same thing.
@@Wes_From_TC Exactly! If they wish for romance/slice of life line - more power to them. But infringing on superheroes territory is just silly.
In fairness, there were also many Wild West comics, WW2/Korean War comics, fantasy-hero comics other than Conan the Barbarian, spy-comics, horror comics, YA/teen humor other than Archie, etc., etc.; but as comics as a WHOLE sold less due to kids, teens, and young adults having more entertainment options, ONLY the top books kept being published by DC and Marvel (i.e., superhero books), especially since the most marketable properties that could be LICENSED was only a consideration, with Captain America and Spider-Man appearing on t-shirts and Wonder Woman costumes being sold to girls for Halloween. Comics are likely BEST for doing stories that are larger than life or explore fantastical stories because unlike movies or television, artwork provides an unlimited CGI budget, and unlike literature, one gets the benefit of being able to actually see whatever amazing events are only described on the page otherwise.
One Line as to why that bombed and never came back why Love Comics died:
Trouble.
Basically even when Marvel TRIED to Write a Love Comic they STILL Turned it into a *THOUROUGHLY REJECTED* How Aunt May Met Uncle Ben story instead of a Normal Romance Comic. They wont get out of their own way too. And even then it was bad.
This Marvel logic only missed the part of "we have to bring female writers WITH TALENT" people always forget that part when they bring diversity.
If they are doing hard equity hiring they can't get talent.
If they have some corporate guidelines of 50% or more female writers:
A - there are not actually that many woman who are good at writing superheroes (when people say " I like female writers" note they can generally only name Ann Nocenti or Louise Simonson. Two in 80 years of big two comics.)
B - they have to hire whoever is available, regardless of ability, to meet the corporate guideline.
You have it wrong. Bring in twitter users that yell about feminist talking points, thats the people we hire. The irony is that classical feminism would reject all of these people.
Seems like they don't understand that out of those white male writers and artists, only the good ones got jobs.
What in the "geek world" for the past 10 years hasn't been aimed at women? Yet somehow not enough women are showing up. Could it be they just aren't interested? Oh no surely not that . . .
A dog food company hired a high-priced ad firm to turn around its lagging sales. The ad firm tried everything but the sales kept dropping. The dog food company's CEO ordered the head of the ad agency into a meeting of his managers and asked him what the problem was. The ad man said, "Sir, dogs just won't eat it."
@@teastrainer3604 I'm pretty sure the CEO told him to find better dogs.
Could it be they don’t work hard at the position to become good writers.
While simultaneously running off their core base.
I looked so forward to the day I could buy all the comics I wanted with a decent paycheck.
And there hadn’t been anything worth buying in 20+ years!
@@linusgustafsson2629well, the arrival of „the modern dogs“ will save the company from bankruptcy … I‘m sure, they just have to hold out till then 😂
If I want representation, I'll go to city hall.
If I want to be exposed to different cultures, I'll read a history book.
These NPC don't get that's it's call "fiction" for a reason.
10:00 Yes, I’ve been saying that for years, I DO NOT want to see myself in the story. The reason these people say that is because they’re narcissists, they want to see themselves in everything.
And this is the biggest problem these people have, and it’s the thing that annoys me the most.
These writers have redefined so many words; empathy, compassion, diversity, empowerment. All these words used to describe something specific, but now when I hear them it's like the "Kill Bill" alarm goes off in my head and I prepare myself for some frustrating lecture.
yup. many words, especially important, meaningful or "powerful" words and language has lost virtually any/all meaning at this point. Those who chose and insisted on molesting it and weaponizing it to use in their agenda have destroyed its effectiveness and ruined it for genuine cases. its the little fanatic who cried racism... those labels dont work anymore. they dont scare us or shut us up anymore.
Writers? Or activists? 💀
There was an article talking about how farm equipment “wasn’t inclusive.”
The same feminist who say there’s no difference between men and women, complained that farm equipment is heavy and thus made for a man.
A plow has to be lighter for woman, because men and women are exactly the same?
This is the same sort of double talk that you’re getting from this article. “ People need to see themselves in the comic.” Literally the next sentence “ people need to see people who are different than them.”
They assert that merely having male writers create a character is sexist. There’s no reasoning with these people.
They view everything through the oppressor oppressed dynamic and cannot see the world in any other way.
sigh.
TL;DR for the article: “I need to read about me. You need to read about me.” Did I understand correctly?
Hi there . One of the few new lady makers that have made it is Peach Momoko . And only because they let her do what she does . All in the context of Superheroes. Greetings from Germany
The women that enjoy comics aren't even interested in the cråppo comics that have been created these days.
That article contradicted itself so much. How can you only ever write self inserts in every story and then turn around and say that writing "diverse" perspectives is the way to go. By definition you can't have diverse perspectives if you refuse to write anything but a version of yourself.
I love how Marvel acts as if female super heroes were only invented in the last 10 years. Marvel had a lot of strong female heroes from the 1970s - 00's (admittedly drawn by dudes living out certain fantasies), but still...
But those dudes at least had actual talent
Claremont´s x-females in the 80s were very well written and not very sexualized.
I dnt understand how such successful companies can be so clueless as to who was, is, & will spend $$ on their products.
So I watched this video where they talked about this flaw that intelligent people have. Where they seek popularity and fame. They will support stupid ideologies because it allows them to climb the ladder of popularity.
Unfortunately the only way to combat this flaw is to have curiosity and being a truly humble person.
Businessmen in general aren’t curious and are never humble. So they’re easily susceptible to this very dangerous flaw in intelligent people. So that’s probably why Companies are being very clueless right now.🧐
They've been infested with idiots through d.i.e programs(communist propaganda).
Unqualified people made their way in and the ones with the power to get rid of them are cowards or bought off.
Add in the belief in brand strength.
They thought they could get away with it. They could insult your intelligence and nobody would care. They were wrong.
The people who are responsible for this nonsense are cultural Marxists and activists, who have infiltrated companies like Marvel and DC Comics with the help of ESG. They don't care about making money; their priority is spreading their propaganda, even if it means harming the company they work for.
If companies get too big, they believe we customers are hired staff, who must be trained to appreciate the company branding.
@LadyLark712 those aren't business peoples. The y are corporate ladder climbers.
The business people are the ones who created the company.
Unfortunately, they have done such a poor job in “representation” anytime I see a “diverse” character I knee jerk reject the whole thing.
When I am at a con, in line in the artists alley to get some signatures, I can guarantee there are only dudes with beards, muscles of beer bellies around.
"Why does representation matter?" It doesn't, unless you are a narcissist who must see yourself in everything you read. The strength of fiction is that it allows readers to step out of themselves for a few moments and experience life through someone else's eyes.
Some of my favorite characters across all of fiction include the Hulk, R2-D2, Michelangelo (from the Ninja Turtles), Mr. Spock, and Soundwave. In not one single instance did I think, "I love this character because I see myself in them."
I'm an Asian guy and I don't need the Avengers to look like me in order for me to like them. I just literally read the comics coz wanna know how they become so iconic in the first place + some cool storytelling.
It's a shame that Western Comics (or at least American comics, since I think Europe has more variety) aren't as diverse (in terms of their genres). It would be cool to see horror, war, romance, western etc. comics become prominent again.
I think if you ever have trouble knowing what gender you are, you shouldn't spend your time reading comics. You have much larger issues than fictional representation.
very true
The do know what gender they are they just get hate for it
@@bujindorkNobody gets hate for their biology lmao
Did I hit my head and return to 2009 Comics Alliance?
Many institutions and companies have been destroyed by elites out of touch with their customer base. The good thing about comics is that there will always be back issues. Whenever there is nothing good, I look for something from the past.
Comics is a low investment art, so it can always rise from the ashes. It’s more that when the direct market in the US dies, Marvel and DC will follow as their specific business model ended. So that’s what Marvel and DC are potentially destroying with their current strategy.
I used to read She-Hulk because I liked She-Hulk, not because I wanted to BE She-Hulk. For the article author to say that men seeing male characters doing heroic feats leads to men thinking only men are capable of heroic feats is asinine. Only Superman can do what Superman does. The Milkman cannot do what Superman does, but the Milkman is a hero in his own right, for he brings milk to the thirsty.
The sad part is DC comics had a non superhero line called vertigo. All they have to do is make superhero books for superhero fans and create a line for horror, romance, slice of life and drama books.
But do women even WANT to write superhero comics?
Women will write what they are told to write.
Idk, I would want to write superhero comics but because I love superheroes.
The women Marvel have hired? No. The proof is in the pudding, it's obvious they have no understanding of heroism.
No. 99% of women dont care about this crap.
The more crucial question: do women want to READ superhero comics? Because they're not much point trying to attract a 50% female audience for superhero comics if only a small sliver of the female readers out there would even consider reading comics about heroes fighting villains.
If they're "magical girl" style heroes, perhaps, that are more focused on defeating enemies with "love and friendship" and they're consistently saved (at crucial moments) by mysterious, tall, slender, super-hot guys that may or may not be one of the Bad Guys. (I think DC has a Princess Crystal who might fit the bill.)
There are a lot of novels for a female audience featuring characters like Blade, that would generally make good comic books - but they're not called "superhero novels". They're called "supernatural romance" because they're not about some girl-boss, sexy vampire hunter killing a big bad vampire who turned her family, they're about her falling in love with the big, bad super-hot werewolf while they're both hunting the vampire.
The universe of Webcomics is chock full of comics female readers like to read.
Then there's the related question: even if you got a label that specialized in making comics based on supernatural romance or some such - would they sell if all you did was sell them in comic book shops - where women looking for romance books DO NOT SHOP?
In other words: if you want a female audience to buy your books - instead of mutating successful Superhero comics into something NOBODY likes - make UNIQUE books that we already know female readers like and sell them in stores or amazon where female readers shop for books.
Last week, I was in a comic book store, and there was a babe clerk. I usually never ask anything to them but there was nobody else. I asked whether they had some Daredevil by Gene Colan and she asked how to spell it. A male workmate of hers came to the rescue and answered me.
I had the same thing in a dvd store and I asked whether they had Legal Eagles with Robert Redford and the girl with blue hair asked 'who?'. Her boy workmate laughed and found me the dvd.
That is my experience 99.99% of the time the dude just steps in. I had this one chat with a tomboy looking staff in this one media store. She had a really good gaming knowledge and we chatted about Kojima games. Lived a long life visiting entertaiment media stores since I was a kid. She was the literal unicorn.
Kara and Diana are probably my favorites overall, behind Barry and Wally. But DC has taken away EVERYTHING from Kara and Diana. They arent even the same people anymore
Cassandra Cain is my favorite. The big issue with Kara is that like make her your typical angry teenage girlr more to be the same moral paragon like your cousin. I miss Pre-Crisis Supergirl.
I don't care what gender the writer is.
I want to check that young teenager ditching the hottest chick in the United States to protect 12 people he doesn't know from a flying green dude because that's what heroes do.
So I must be a billionaire bat themed vigilante hero then. Thank you, you’ve shown me the light!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!
Superman, Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Mr. Fantastic, Captain America, Thomas Covenant. Some of my favorite characters and, given my profile picture, not a one of them looks like me. Talk about the most narcissistic way of looking at how one gets into stories. Sheesh!
First off most those female comic books that were created back in the good old days were romances not superheroes so once again CBR are bunch of idiots. Secondly most female comic book fans (ok I am talking about myself) are drawn to the male characters because we love strong powerful men. Yeah I like Wonder Woman and Black widow but I rather a good Captain America book.
I studied business marketing at Uni. One time me and my project group were developing a marketing plan for a project. We were trying to figure out how to market simultaneously to men, women, old and young. The teacher stopped us in our tracks and told us to be very careful trying to be all things to all people. You'll end up pleasing no one. Pick your core audience and market to them.
This of course was back in the days when success was based on sales and profit, not how diverse you are.
You can’t even sell chocolate to everybody as not everybody likes chocolate.
@@davidgantenbein9362 ugh, I bet people that love Krakoa don't like chocolate 😒
It’s very narcissistic to always want to see yourself in things.
And to force it on everybody that isn’t like themselves, after all, they never talk about proportionate representation, instead it’s just them and only them that should get any representation, while the vast majority shouldn’t get any.
I'm a hired writer and I feel like the best way to balance things out is to
1) get generally good writers and editors.
2) have people learn to co write.
On our team there's people who work well with romance, some are more comfortable with fighting scenes and others just do well with the general pacing. That way everyone works together, learning the source material to work on thr parts they have a strong command in.
While I stopped expecting practically anything from CBR this article still surprised me with its level of moronic statements.
Comics were designed from the Pulp Magazines, which were designed for Working Class men, whom the usual Rich Elites thought were too stupid and illiterate. Their focus was mostly male even then. They started to branch out in the early 1950s, experimenting with other genres, unfortunately a hack looking for fame wrote a book called 'Seduction of The Innocent', in which claimed that video g-, I mean D&D, I mean television, I mean movi-, I mean beer, wait, OH RIGHT! Comics were going to turn men and boys into violent thugs. Which triggered the usual cadre of busybody moms, AKA Karens who demanded that something be done. And so the Comic Industry took it upon themselves to self-censor, because if the Government stepped in, they'd have destroyed it, as Government ALWAYS does.
This has been your lesson in American comics.
Good lesson… unfortunately, no one ever learns from history.
And with the comics code it crippled all other genres of comics besides Superhero comics. Which crippled the industry in the long run
Interesting that no one is advocating to make female things more appealing to men.
I am so glad as an 80s kid, I grew up reading books and comics where I WANTED to be like the fictional characters, instead of the other way around. I was taught to seek stories, not hunt for narcissism.
So here's a fun fact.
Back when Lego was trying to branch out to get more girls interested in their stuff, they ran a number of tests and groups monitoring the different ways in which boys and girls played with their toys. They found that when boys played with the figures and such they tried to be the figure in question. I.E. if they played with Batman, they would change their voice to act like Batman and generally have Batman doing Batman things.
In the same experiments they found girls would have Batman go shopping and dress up, and generally act like Batman was them instead.
After the studies were over they used the data and started making Lego malls, and shopping centers, and various other Lego attractions that would mirror places and things Girls enjoyed doing. And they became immensely popular.
So when you ask or wonder why hero comics and various other properties have changed so drastically, and why people are constantly pushing this 'see yourself in the property' narrative. Take a look at who is pushing that, who is writing or producing, and who they claim they are trying to pull in.
Dude you are spot on! Right on the money! Perfect rant!!! you are correct 💯.
The artwork in the thumbnail is Alan Smith from at least twenty years ago, things were fine just as they were. The DEI people didn’t add more female characters, non of substance anyway, they just got rid of all the men.
I agree with you about the fact that when you speak of "comics" in America it comes down to superheroes and manga is more diverse in terms of the scope of types of stories they cover.
Though SHONEN is dominated by male nihonjin mangaka, there are some female authors who CAN write and draw things with lots of blood and gore too.
Example, miss Teshirogi, Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas. (knights of the zodiac) First half was just great, then it was more like they wanted to stretch the story too much and quality dropped, because they killed established versions of the characters from the main storyline making us presume this works were going to be shorter, so we ended up with the need of getting new characters out of the... 🤔 Let's say the cul de sac...
Ten or more years later, in this decade she wrote Gaiden about mostly origins of the gold knights of zodiac which were just GREAT... And Teshirogi worked before in more "romantic" stories...
The difference is in nihon market there's no "wok (pun intended and I'm Asian btw) agenda".
Yesterday I was watching the president of XBox say that they need to expand branding and I'm starting to think that they don't even know what they mean. I don't understand how they can think that there is an audience out there, who is waiting for who knows what, to become a reader of comics. They can do whatever they want if readers of whatever group it is are not interested there is no solution.
You mean the Black Female DEI hire?
What they mean is that they need to expand their statistics. The statistics need to show growth, so that investors give them free money. It also ensures the 10 or so top salary people, will get cash payouts, so it is important to them.
Meanwhile the lower salary people are expendable, and can be fired to ensure the top 10 get their bonuses.
I think what we really need to change, is to make sure CEOs get poorly paid, so that only people who favor the company apply for the jobs. Why would anyone want to be the CEO if they got the same salary as everyone else, if not to help the company grow?
@@linusgustafsson2629 Do not misunderstand. I'm perfectly agree. What I don't understand is how stupid are these investors? Having the largest audience, no shit, need I say it? I want to know what this phantom audience is waiting for. What do they want to do differently to get them there?
@@danielcraig9666 it's true but it's not like she said anything different from the usual nonsense that other CEOs are used to.
This nails it perfectly. The issue isnt comic books - its superhero comic books. Fantastic, spot on, common sense analysis.
It's actually more ironic than that. Those girls and women, my wife for example, who used to enjoy reading typical superhero comics, are as disgruntled by all of this as the rest of us and are quiting as well. My wife for example almost completely dropped the all-new, diverse, female and alphabet friendly comics 'cause she as zero interest in them and doesn't recognize any of the characters she used to love, and moved on to Manga. So, instead of gaining female readers, they actually lost one in her case. 🙄
Talking to the publishers that way would stroke their ego
The most absurd part about these insane assumptions is that they clearly don't apply them to women reading non-woke superhero stories. "...representation matters because it builds empathy and understanding, blah blah" Clearly that is not true because women have no empathy for men. All of that is ridiculous.
Why do these people keep forgetting. The Audience buys what they enjoy, not what the publishers shove to the top, or what they are called to like. You can't force them to stay, but you certainly can scare them into running off.
i dont read any marvel anymore. i immediately tune out and pass on anything that begins with anything prioritizing identity over anything else. I ignore anything now that the synopsis identifies the protagonist as a strong female or even just female at this point. Im so effing girl-powered out i cant see straight. I dont care what that supposedly makes me or what you want to think of me because of it. I cant do it anymore.
If there are SO MANY female comic readers; make something NEW to target those potential buyers, don't destroy what is already there.
But they won't, because they KNOW it won't sell on it's own.
Horror comics are the great diversity equalizer.
If DC and Marvel are taking advice from CBR, they deserve the sales they get.
When girls play with toys they imagine the toys are them. When boys play, they pretend they are the toys. I suspect its the same when they write characters. They make the characters reflect themselves instead of writing them using the logic and prospectives of the characters. Also, I'm a black Jamaican-Bahamian-American... My favorite comic book character is a white Cajun American from Louisiana. I dont need to see myself in anything.
I have a sister who likes fantasy so she is writing a book herself. The characters are mainly based on her and her friends, because she can easily imagine these people and how they would behave.
Me, I started writing a book in my youth but didn't write much. But every character was created out of thin air because I thought of it like a book/movie which always had people I didn't know.
It certainly feels like women just take lived experiences and runs with it, while men just make things up.
In Ten Years there is going to be SUCH a Reckoning for these Joker when ANYONE Can make a Better Comic Book about Superman.
All the stuff that makes Superman Superman won't ve available to the public. All they'll have is a guy that wears red and blue and can jump buildings. We've had so many Superman clones it won't make a big difference.
We need more blaclk female vikings! More female asian union soldiers! More tales about lesbians storming the beaches of Normandy in WW2! Bring it on, my blue-haired justic warrior sistahs!
This is comical. That article is a perfect example of why i don't read current comics now and why Marvel/DC is failing spectacularly
Awesome work guys
As I was growing up and buying Iron Man, Batman and so on, I noticed girls my age read Archie comics voraciously. I agree that writers like Ann Innocenti or Louise Simonson have to earn their way up the ladder.
Great rant, Wes, I particularly appreciated the "I don't want a story about me" segment. I've never understood wanting to insert yourself into the fiction, even in video games where it's more encouraged. Some of my favorite characters are people you wouldn't necessarily want to be: The Thing, The Hulk, The Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, etc., etc. so I've never had this seemingly obsessive desire to be "represented" in the stories I'll read.
I think a lot of this is a byproduct of these publishers bowing to DEI and hiring people that care more about themselves and their position in the company than they do about comics. Enamored with themselves, they then write stories about things they'd do in their lives and you now have the team going to the fucking farmer's market.
I’m so tired of the “people can only relate to characters If they are just like themselves” trope that the comic book media has been pushing for the last 10 years. I’m about as white as it gets and when I was a kid in the 80s, I loved characters like Jim Rhodes, Black Panther and Falcon. I went to and still go to comics for escapism and characters I wish I was, not to see people just like me. These journalists and diversity hires don’t seem to understand comics and what the fans want at all.
Diversity is fine, but if the writing sucks butt what's the point?!
What they really mean is that all male spaces must be destroyed.
I grew up with Superheroes with different genders, different skin colours, from millionaires, aliens, people from the ocean, the past and future. In Manga which ive moved to, majority of characters are asian, they have plenty of gay characters. Maybe the reason I dropped modern, mainstream comics is more on the quality of people writing it.
Dude....those representation arguments are so stupid!...I'm Mexican, I attended comic book clubs growing up in Mexico along with my friends and NOBODY EVER asked for a Mexican superhero!!!....nobody ask to see themselves in comic books when the fucking stories are GOOD!!!....I'm not russian, white or have spider powers but I loved Kraven's Last Hunt.
We're talking about a universe where punching the "bad guy" out solves assault and battery.
This article is absolutely terrible, it’s filled with utter gibberish and total lies. They can keep putting these people onto comics but they simply can’t write an action comic, they’re incapable.
And this writer can write all day that’s there’s no difference, but we all know that’s lies. There’s a few female writers in manga and they’re great.
But any born in the west simply can’t do it.
There’s no meritocracy anymore. It’s all about checking the boxes.
Sooner or later, it will be fifty percent because male customers decrease daily. It's just that whenever it reaches that threshold, they'll be out of a job.
Long before that as the vast majority of women isn’t at all interested in superheroes, no matter how much slice of life they add. So it’s just a question of when they lost too many men to survive.
PS: Women that love slice of life are perfectly catered for by manga and webcomics, not sure how Marvel and DC came up with the idea that they could ever compete with those.
Dok is something of a scientist himself!
Gracias Wes recuerdo en decirte que hicieras este análisis saludos
an insidious plan in place
Wes u been tricking us this whole time, your life is a DEI commercial.
Hahaj
That is one of the most asinine articles I've seen in a while. That's saying something. I have a black buddy who went and saw Tarot in theaters the other day (for some screwy reason), and he said it was laughable because of the group of friends in it. He was like, I was taken completely out of the movie by this stupid group of friends that checked every diversity box that there is. He said, I have never, EVER seen a group of people hanging out together in real life that looked anything like this. It was such a pandering studio move that I couldn't bring myself to care about these people because they so obviously weren't real. Well... that and the movie just sucked, but that was the first thing he brought up. Heh.
Very well said, Wes.
Well, Wes, seems like somebody discovered the key to bringing peace to the Middle East. Apparently, all we need to do is take as many comic books as possible over there.
Agree 100%. They just need good stories and good characters, normally WITHIN THE GENRE! I don't go to cinemas to watch Top Gun and get a Sex in the City film, right? Im happy for those that want to watch that other genre, but this is not what these characters or stories are about.
In fact, the Superhero genre has plenty of subgenres, but they are SUB, not the main genre. Captain America with Brubaker had the noir/spy tone, Hulk by Ewing the horror/supernatural, Secret Invasion by Bendis had the alien stuff, Civil War the political / civilian ideas, etc. They are elements within the superhero genre, but you don't make them into a romantic or LGTBQ or minority book slice of life book with Superhero references ... that's not what the readers want.
in the 60s and 70s there were tons of books for girls out there but they weren't superhero
The people who write articles like that should be publicly shamed lol
50% of women do not like comics. 50% of women and men like muscular male heroes they can connect with and/or look at and sexy female characters they can connect with or to look at, in film. This COULD translate to comics... but men have and will always be more drawn to action and adventure stories than women.
The mistake was assuming that they could make stories that were 50% adventure & 50% romance while taking away half the muscular male heroes & replacing them with losers, and/or ugly women, and make almost everyone bi or gay, trans etc.
Its a mess of trying to please everyone all the time, while favoring minority voices, and pleasing none. Know your target audiences and starting with the larger portions, target them. Don't retcon beloved characters and try and please everyone all the time, and favor the most niche individuals and denigrate the majority.
We don't need them to be us, we need them to be people we can relate to, understand well enough to connect with and be interested in what they do.
The writer of the article clearly has the downs.
I saw yaboiZack did a video yesterday on this article. He must of read the whole thing because he basically turned into the joker towards the end of the video lol.
This article disregards the fact many fan favourite characters within comicbooks have been female (Sue Storm, Storm, Rogue, Emma Frost, Jean Grey, Psylocke, She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, ...) and many of them came from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Said characters have had female AND male fans since that far back and even people who were born decades after their creation still gravitate towards them to this day.
Those fans are a faithful audience that enjoyed not only those characters but the stories and setting they were in but, and this is important, many female readers were just as interested in the female characters as they were for the male ones.
These readers might share their passion with other female readers and increase readership but the only way to keep that boost going is a decent plot and having those characters stay true to themselves.
What happened in the past decades goes against this though as many characters have been broken, altered and sloppily scribbled all over in ways where they are unrecognisable from who they once were.
Some new female readers might be interested in those new iterations sure but the old and faithful fanbase that stuck around for so long will leave and not look back because that level of broken trust is hard to earn back.
This article is the poster child for why digital media is failing worse than a vegan meal in a hunting lodge.
Their version of a 50/50 male and female target audience is not what they believe it is when they drive off most of the males so that the females, which is a small number already, is now tied to the smallest number of males that stayed.
Jokes on them as the female readers of superheroes like the same stuff as the male ones, so they also leave. They will never reach that 50/50 ever in superheroes as they go bankrupt long before that. The female audience that wants slice of life superheroes can’t sustain a single title and the female audience that wants just slice of life is already heavily catered by manga and webcomics of higher quality. Marvel and DC are betting their existence on a loosing strategy.
Equality > Equity
Slice of Life mangas are more closer of real life. We never found this in the superheroes comics because are fantastic universes with 0% of realism. Maybe modern audiences should be reading more mangas and indies books and leave DC and Marvel alone.
If the comics industry is concerned about violence in the real world, why don't they do pro-Palestine, anti-genocide stories? Are they really so concerned? They seem silent on the subject.
Marvel had Mister Sinister as part for the Mutant Government who sits alongside Magneto and Kitty Pryde.
They pretend to care when they don't.
Look as a woman who enjoys superhero stuff, I hate the comics as they are now. Marvel and DC drove off the men and the women who like it in favor of an audience who won’t buy it at all!
The idea that we need to focus on women to gain women readers is silly. Also the idea that supporting male heroes means that female heroes are de-emphasized.
Look at great books from the 1980's like New Teen Titans (with Starfire, Raven, and Wonder Girl) or Uncanny X-men (Jean Grey, Storm, later Kittty Pryde and Rogue). These books had tons of action and epic plots, yet had enough soap opera elements and character development to reach a broad audience. And both men and women were respected and made incredible impact in their tales.
No one believes that only men and boys buy and enjoy comics but the market shows that an overwhelming majority of men and boys buy comic books. So to go against the market and cater to a small demographic is stupid until that demographic shows an increase in purchasing comics there is no reason to cater to them. Supply and Demand and the Customer is always right is undefeated in 2024
So there shouldn't be digital comics then, as that equates to less than 10% of the superhero buying public, right?
Why DON'T they ASK FEMALE READERS..."Hey, what do YOU like"?.... because it's NOT ABOUT THAT. It's about "THEM" and advancing THEIR OWN "Career".
What happened to the focus of plot, storyline, intimate character development, and high -powered action. Just make good movies and the inclusion will take care of itself
I could not agree with you more when it comes to "relating to the character." I know who I am already and don't want to read a story about something I already know. I want escapism in comics. I want to read about heroic actions that I, or any other normal person, could not accomplish in the real world because we lack super powers. I think this idea depends on the reader. I've heard others say females tend to want to transfer their personality onto whatever character they are reading about, while males want to fantasize about what it would be like if we had the powers the characters we like have. Anyone can like superhero comics, but we all come to the hobby for our own reasons. No one should be trying to shoe-horn their own agenda onto the medium. We don't need a specific percentage of fans for any hobby. Some hobbies appeal more to one sex than the other - that's just normal, and there's nothing wrong with it. No reason to modify those hobbies to balance some "cosmic scale" of balance. Girls are generally drawn to Barbie, while boys are generally drawn to Transformers. And that's just fine.
Comics is about stories
So,as a Black man,I guess I shouldn’t own my runs of Thor,and Captain America? I mean,I’m not White,a Deity,or a soldier.🤷🏾♂️
My God, Wes you hit every nail on the head dead on! It’s too bad none of the publishers were actually listening because they keep spewing out this crap left and right. You know a while back I was buying Harley Quinn comic book and for a while, and I hadn’t read much of them because I’ve been busy you know life gets in the way. I picked up the book started reading it and I realize what is this Crap! The book had turned into a, slice of life kind of YA book with pastels and puppy dogs inside. Then I looked at the cover and saw that it was written by Trini Howard and I said hell no! That’s why this book sucks! I said I’m out I’m not buying this book anymore. Well said West keep up the good fight. I’m standing right now giving you a standing ovation.
This is why people is heading to Image comics, Top Cow comics, and others comic books companies! This is why marvel comics and DC comics have a hard time bringing back all of their fans!
I've always heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That sums up Marvel and DC to a tee. They will keep doing the diversity stories and losing their audience and blaming toxic masculinity for the never-ending failure.
As a female fan of superhero comics who was always looking for fellow female comic fans you learn what female fans tend to graviate towards. Normally, yeah female fans gravitate to slice of life or less cape filled sci-fi/fantasy which is normally manga and indies. Even female superhero comic fans will love the drama as much as, if not more, than the action. And then theres ones who only seem to care about Harley Quinn/Harlivy, MCU Stars, or "diversity" books or really care more about the show/movie adaption of said comics then the books themselves. I've sadly met a couple people who consume a product mainly for it not being white men and they seem to be the main audience these days.
What's very ironic about the "diverse" characters make stories more interesting is that so many modern comics have their characters lack diversity of personality or beliefs. How many Bat family members siding with Catwoman during Gotham War when they would call out her BS plan still burns me while Taylor's Titans are incredibly stale and boring with little differences in their voices. As well as so many angry strawman characters from the opposing political sides and deapite how much they preach "politics were always in comics" they'd freak out real fast if something published actually criticising anything vaguely leftwing.
I’m another female fan of superhero comics and I think you’re right. Diverse is not just skin deep. It would have been more interesting if we had people who thought differently too.
@@AL-ws5yi that's very least my experiences and I have some female friends who also love superheroes, manga, and other types of comics as well as just noticing what others gravitate towards. I admit to getting annoyed at superheroes being called a "boy thing" but came to realize it's more statistics than sexism especially with a lot of recent books.
"Diversity of Thought" has been missing from books for awhile and everything else has been so heavy handed.
CBR is where intelligent thought crosses the street,and goes the other way. Superhero comics are pretty much a male dominated audience. And their sales show as much.
What pisses me off is as a lifelong comic book fan seeing characters i enjoyed following growing up become so cringe.
It's interesting that female writers don't create more diverse personalities for the heroines they write. There's a sameness to them. One gets the impression they're getting their character ideas from the same feminist art and not from themselves or the women around them. Men have created more diverse heroines. Men created tough She-Hulk but also the more innocent Hellcat who once said she wasn't much of a feminist. They created the warrior woman Valkyrie whose life is defense of Asgard and also the more maternal Invisible Woman. But no matter their differences, when fighting villains they all kicked butt because that's what heroes do.
To be fair, some would even argue that fictional places can be an allegory for some real location. But yeah, should be 50% vs are 50% are two different things.