One of the most-talked about events at this year’s San Diego Comic Con wasn’t a stabbing, but rather a girl dressed as Batgirl who went to every single DC Comics panel and verbally attacked the panelists for the lack of women creators and characters in their books. The way she went about this at every single DC panel over the four days became so reviled by the rest of the convention that she actually had to remove her Batgirl costume when walking the floor to avoid any danger.
Naturally when someone makes any kind of stand like that against a company, and especially when that person is female, she immediately becomes an internet “hero”. A week after Comic Con, DC Comics Co-Publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee posted a response on the DC Comics blog to hopefully douse the flames of something that has become way out of hand (thanks to the Internet):
Over the past week we’ve heard from fans about a need for more women writers, artists and characters. We want you to know, first and foremost, that we hear you and take your concerns very seriously.
We’ve been very fortunate in recent years to have fan favorite creators like Gail Simone, Amy Reeder, Felicia Henderson, Fiona Staples, Amanda Connor, G. Willow Wilson and Nicola Scott write and draw the adventures of the World’s Greatest Super Heroes.
DC Comics is the home of a pantheon of remarkable, iconic women characters like Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman and Supergirl as well as fan favorite characters like Black Canary, Katana, Mera and Starfire. We’re committed to telling diverse stories with a diverse point of view. We want these adventures to resonate in the real world, reflecting the experiences of our diverse readership. Can we improve on that? We always can—and aim to.
We’ll have exciting news about new projects with women creators in the coming months and will be making those announcements closer to publication. Many of the above creators will be working on new projects, as we continue to tell the ongoing adventures of our characters. We know there are dozens of other women creators and we welcome the opportunity to work with them.
Hopefully Batgirl/Kyrax2′s 15 minutes of fame will die down soon.
August 1, 2011
#1
She had a good point. Remember, DC treatment of female characters was so awful that it generated the phrase “Women in Refrigerators.” From the orignal CRISIS, female characters were routinely subjected to Dementia, Depowering, Disabillity, and Death in numbers far far greater than their more numerous male counterparts.
August 2, 2011
#2
Here’s the thing, the majority of people who read comics are men and boys. Yes there are women who like comics bu they are in the vast minority so the writers cater to the majority of their audience (that’s business 101 right there), also the books that have the largest sales are the ones with established characters that have been around for over 30 year. Yes new characters come around and some even catch on with the fans for the most part the ones that sell are the one with history (that is until the stupid DC launch, then all that history goes out the window).
Lastly, to her point about women writers and artist it’s not like companies but a sign out “Wanted Writers and Artist, women need not apply” there just aren’t as many in that medium. So with fewer woman to choose from to write and draw you’re naturally going to have far less talented people within that pool who can actually write or draw a book that will sell.
I’m sure DC and Marvel (along with IDW, Dark Horse, etc.) want to have the best books they possibly can so they can sell as many books as they can and I highly doubt that if the story or art is good enough they won’t turn away a woman because she lacks a penis.