So I had all of DC’s credits tabulated except for one issue, and things were not looking good. I knew that the fine folks at Strange Adventures (my local comic shop) would soon email me the credits for Cartoon Network Action Pack #59, the last issue I needed, and I hoped there would be a lady or two on the book, just to make the week a little less terrible. Not so much. The info came in, and there were nine creators, all dudes. That’s the sort of week DC had on April 27, 2011, with their 16 new comic books. There were 174 credited creators, 163 men and 11 women. We’ve reached a new low:
I suppose it’s nice that after four months of doing this, I can still be surprised… that’s something at least. This is the lowest total we’ve had from either publisher all year. Marvel had a 6.5% one week way back in January, but this 6.3% is now the worst. Let’s break down the numbers:
And chart them:
That’s a lot of zeroes. AND a bad week for colourists and editors too. Assistant editors had a decent total, but their solid week didn’t put much of a dent in the sea of zeroes. When I first saw these numbers, I thought that two books in particular were to blame. Action Comics #900 and Brightest Day #24 both came out this week, with 30 creators and 20 creators respectively, none of them women. A 50-0 unbalance from just two issues is a tough thing to overcome. But 14 other issues were released as well, and NONE of them featured a female cover artist, writer, penciller, inker, or letterer. So this was just epic failure all around. I mean, TWO non-editorial credits is embarrassing. If I took all the editorial stuff out and just did the percentage based on the creative credits, it would be 2 of 139, or 1.4%. I know it’s only one week, but this is ridiculously bad.
Notes:
- I know everyone is busy being outraged about Superman renouncing his American citizenship in Action Comics #900, but I’m more outraged that they shoe-horned that Doomsday storyline in… I so could not care less about Doomsday. Also an outrage: 0 of 30!! Come on!!
- The busiest book of the week was, obviously, Action Comics #900. Which incidentally featured a story by Geoff Johns. The Geoff Johns who also co-wrote Brightest Day #24. I hate to pick on the dude every week, but there is a startling lack of ladies in his books.
- Know what else came out this week? Flash #11, written by Geoff Johns. No gals worked on that either. I love your stories, Geoff Johns, but your books are sausage fests.
- The books with the most female creators was Detective Comics #876 at 2 of 7. Batman Inc. #5 and Justice Society of America #50 also had 2 female creators each.
- To learn more about this statistics project and its methodology click here, and to see the previous stats click here.
Tags: DC, Women In Comics Statistics
