DC’s solicits for March 2012 were released today, so it’s time for our monthly round up of ladies at DC Comics. After DC Comics promised more female creators and characters after ComicCon this summer, we’ve been checking in each month to see how they’re doing. It hasn’t been great, but February was their best month so far with 6 women on 8 books, and two new lead female characters. Let’s see how March is shaping up:
- Well, we’re down a couple of our regulars, unfortunately. Gail Simone is no longer co-writing Firestorm and Jenny Frison isn’t solicited to do the cover for I, Vampire #7. Bummer… they’ve been 2 of the only 3 regular female gigs in the DCnU since the get-go!!
- Also, Nicola Scott is nowhere to be seen after drawing Superman for February, because a new creative team is set to take over the title.
- However, Simone is still writing Batgirl #7, and Amy Reeder is doing the cover and interior art for Batwoman #7, plus Ann Nocenti starts her new writing gig with Green Arrow #7.
- The bi-monthly Gear of War is on an off month, so no Karen Traviss in March.
- Yuko Shimizu is on covers for The Unwritten #35 and The Unwritten #35.5, holding down the fort for ladies at Vertigo.
- The only new DCnU title is Marv Wolfman and Tom Mandrake’s Night Force #1, which doesn’t seem to feature a female protagonist. Also, what the hell DC? NO ONE is going to buy that book.
- But at Vertigo, there are three new series with female leads!! Saucer Country #1, Fables spinoff Fairest #1, and Dominique Laveau – Voodoo Child #1 all appear to feature women in prominent roles!!
So the tally for March isn’t looking great for female creators… we’ve got 4 women on 5 books. That’s the lowest combined total since we started this tally back a few months ago with the November solicits. That’s really not good at all. It’s great that Ann Nocenti will be on a DC book, but her coming in the same month that Gail Simone goes off one of her books is just terrible timing… they’re no further ahead. So far, this whole “more women” promise has been quite a failure for DC. Is someone doing some fundraising to send Kyrax2 to the next big convention? Because things aren’t getting better.
However, Vertigo provided a bit of a silver lining with their three new female-led titles, all of which look pretty good. I’m particularly jazzed for Saucer Country!! And, in some positive news for the future, the solicit for Fairest #1 promises stories by Lauren Beukes and Inaki Miranda down the road, which will be fun.
Nonetheless, DC’s main line is no further ahead in terms of female creators than they were five months ago. The rumour is that some books are scheduled to get cancelled with their eighth issue, with new books to follow, so that might bring us more female creators in a couple months at least. But for right now, it’s not looking good.
TIM HANLEY 
I Agree with everything you said except that Fairest was was developed because a few lady writers had ideas for Fables this series will give them a chance to do them. in fact Lauren Beukes was been announced as an up coming writer in the solicitations The only stipulation the creators probably have is the Bill Willingham has to approve them . I will also say some thing about Vertigo is they tend to write women with a little more respect then any one else in main steam as long as you forget about Rachel Polluck’s run on Doom Patrol