Women At DC Comics Watch – August 2013 Solicits

DC Comics is set to continue what looks to be a strong summer for female creators with their solicits for August 2013.  The numbers aren’t off the charts or anything, and certainly pale in comparison to the hundreds of men in DC’s solicits each month, but these are some relatively solid numbers and we continue to see some slight growth from where we were almost two years ago when we started checking in on the solicits.  Let’s see what’s up for female creators and characters in August:

• For writers on the New 52, Ann Nocenti pens Katana #7 and Catwoman #23, Gail Simone writers Batgirl #23 and The Movement #4, and Christy Marx is on Birds of Prey #23.
• For New 52 art, Nicola Scott pencils Earth 2 #15, Ricken is doing the cover for Birds of Prey #23, and Emanuela Lupacchino is drawing the cover and interior art for World’s Finest #15.
• Outside of the New 52, Karen Traviss writes Batman: Arkham Unhinged #17 and Cat Staggs does the cover for Smallville Season 11 #16.
• At Vertigo, Yuko Shimizu is on cover duty for The Unwritten #52, as always, while Gail Simone is writing and Becky Cloonan is drawing a story in American Vampire Anthology #1.
• There isn’t much new for female characters in August, though Wonder Woman is appearing for the first time in Smallville Season 11 #16.  Jeff Lemire’s new book, Trillium, launches as well, and there seems to be a lady on the cover.  And while we don’t have many details on the American Vampire Anthology yet, I think it’s fairly safe to assume that some female characters will be involved.  The main book is usually quite good that way.

Altogether, there are 10 different female creators on 11 books in August.  This is down from July’s 13 and 13, but we’re still in double digits.  I think double digits is a reasonable benchmark to expect for female creators every month.  DC’s shown that they can meet it several times recently, so that will be our new expectation.  For the first year or so of this project, we were just glad to see more than the 4 or 5 women of the first few months, but the bar has been raised.  DC CAN hit dual double digits each month, so we’ll expect them to do so.

It’s a quiet month across the board at DC, with Trinity War wrapping up and not many new books launching, so things aren’t too exciting on the female character front.  However, the September solicits should be very fascinating.  Rumour has it that DC is doing an all villains month, with 52 #1 issues featuring villains from all over the DC universe, so it’ll be interesting to see how many women are involved in that, both in terms of characters and creators.  In terms of characters, Bleeding Cool reports that the Cheetah, Lady Vic, Nightmare Nurse, and the new female Ventriloquist are likely stars for titles in September, which isn’t a bad start.  Numerically, anyway.  This Nightmare Nurse just seems like a mess.

Overall, August looks to be decent for women at DC.  A fair number of women are working on various books, plus Wonder Woman’s going to be in another comic book, which is always fun.  Things still aren’t great, but they’ve definitely been a lot worse.

Women At DC Comics Watch – July 2013 Solicits

DC Comics’ solicits for July 2013 have been posted so here we are yet again, taking a close look at what’s up for female creators and characters.  Way back at Comic Con 2011, DC promised more of both, and so we’re holding them to it by checking out the solicits every month.  And I must say, July 2013 looks pretty good!!  Let’s go through them:

• On the writing side for the New 52 books, Ann Nocenti is on Katana #6 and Catwoman #22, Gail Simone writes Batgirl #22 and The Movement #3, Christy Marx pens Birds of Prey #22, and Nicole Dubuc is writing a back-up story for the Flash Annual #2.
• I usually just stick to what the solicits say, but yesterday Scott Snyder tweeted that the Batman Annual #2 will be co-written by Marguerite Bennett, so consider that an unofficial addition to the list.
• On the art side of the New 52, Nicola Scott pencils Earth 2 #14, Ricken does the cover for Birds of Prey #22, Rachel Dodson inks the cover for Catwoman #22, and Amanda Conner is on covers for The Green Team: Teen Trillionaires #3 and The Movement #3.
• Outside of the New 52, our old pal Karen Traviss is writing Batman: Arkham Unhinged #16, Annie Wu introduces a new Batgirl on the cover and interior art of Batman Beyond Unlimited #18, and Cat Staggs teams up Lois Lane and a long-lost Lana Lang on the cover and interior art of Smallville Season 11 Special #2.
• Finally, over at Vertigo, as always, Yuko Shimizu is on cover duty for The Unwritten #51.
• In terms of female characters, there are no new books in July so we’ve got the usual ladies in their usual books.  However, Trinity War begins and the three Justice League books have interlocking covers that show the main players in the crossover.  These include female characters like Element Woman, Katana, Catwoman, Dr. Light, Wonder Woman, Madame Xanadu, Stargirl, Pandora, the Atom, and Zatanna.  All told, female characters account for 10 of the 27 characters on the interlocking covers.

In the June solicits, DC had 8 different female creators on 9 different books, and in July that jumps to a very impressive 12 different women on 12 different books.  And that’s just based on solicits.  With the addition of Marguerite Bennett on Batman Annual #2 it’s unofficially 13 women on 13 books!  These are some fantastic numbers.

As always, though, it’s important to contextualize.  Compared to past totals for female creators at DC, the totals for July are really quite good.  Compared to the hundreds of men also solicited in July, however, 12 female creators seems a little paltry.  But while things may not yet be good, things are definitely slightly better at least.

And more widespread!  DC is usually decent with female writers and cover artists, but in July there are three female artists INSIDE the books, which is good to see.  Usually it’s just Nicola Scott all by herself or, when she has an issue off, no ladies at all.  So three is very good to see.  Cat Staggs has been getting work off and on at DC for a little while now, and Annie Wu is an exciting new up and comer that DC was smart to bring in.

As for female characters, 10 out of 27 characters in the Trinity War cover is about 37%, which is a minority but nonetheless pretty good for a superhero comic.  The real world may be half women, but Gotham and Metropolis and the like rarely are so 37% is a decent amount.  It could be better, but we’ve seen so many events where it’s a lot worse.

All in all, July looks pretty good for women at DC, relatively speaking.  I know that progress is slow, but the more it comes the more it will build.  We’ve got three new female faces on the creative side of things, and even in Trinity War we’ve got several female characters where usually there’d be men, like the new female Atom or Element Woman.  Things are changing bit by bit.  We just need to keep the momentum going.

Women At DC Comics Watch – May 2013 Solicits

After a few months of decline, May looks pretty good for female creators at DC, and the solicits offer up a lot of hope for more female creators and characters next month.  What’s particularly interesting about May is that several female creators are getting multiple gigs now, which is nice to see.  Let’s go through the solicits:

• On the writing side, Gail Simone is on Batgirl #20 and the new The Movement #1, Christy Marx writes Birds of Prey #20 and Sword of Sorcery #8, and Ann Nocenti is on Katana #4, Catwoman #20, and Catwoman Annual #1.
• For art, Nicola Scott pencils Earth 2 #12, Amanda Conner is on covers for the all new The Green Team #1 and The Movement #1, while Emanuela Lupacchino does the covers for Supergirl #20 and Catwoman Annual #1.
• Outside of the main DC Universe, Cat Staggs is on cover duty for Smallville Season 11 Special #1 while Diana Egea is working on interior art for the same book.
• Over at Vertigo, Yuko Shimizu continues her impressive run of covers with The Unwritten #49.
• There are three new books scheduled for May, but we’re not sure on the cast yet for The Green Team #1 and The Movement #1.  The covers are not particularly revealing, but both seem to suggest large casts so presumably some ladies are involved.  The other new book is Adventures of Superman #1, collecting the digital-first series.  It’s got stories by Orson Scott Card, so ugh.
• In other news, six books release their final issues in May, meaning six new creative teams and casts next month!!  Christy Marx’s Sword of Sorcery got cut, but hopefully June will bring more female creators and characters.  Also in the turnover department, all of the Green Lantern book creators are leaving their titles, so maybe we’ll see some ladies there as well, or a shake-up in the books’ casts.  The Green Lantern line has been wall to wall dudes for years now.

May looks to be a busy month for female creators.  There are 9 different women on 12 different books, a nice step up from the 6 women on 8 books we had last month.  That’s an increase of 50% for both numbers, in fact, which is great to see.

The women already at DC are getting more work AND their ranks seem to be growing, which is very encouraging.  For example, Emanuela Lupacchino’s had cover gigs here and there over the past few months, but now she’s on two covers in May.  Perhaps it won’t be too long before we see her on a regular interior gig.  The interior art numbers are still rather low, but DC’s continued associated with a few female artists for covers is a positive sign.

As for new female characters, there probably are some on The Green Team and The Movement but we just don’t know yet.  The creators for both books tend to favour diverse casts, which bodes well.  And given that Adventures of Superman is non-continuity, I assume we’ll see Lois Lane around more often than we do in the main line Super-books.

All in all, May looks to be a strong month for women at DC, and they are well positioned to have a fantastic June, what with all the changes and creative turnover afoot.  Hopefully DC fills some of their many new holes with female creators and characters!!

DC Comics’ Artists Appear on SyFy’s Face Off, Including Wonder Woman’s Cliff Chiang and Nicola Scott

I don’t know about you all, but I’ve seen every episode of SyFy’s makeup reality show Face Off.  They give contestants these crazy challenges and the make up artists have to come up with a design, sculpt and manufacture prosthetics, and costume and paint their creations, all in two or three days.  It’s really fun to watch the process, and to see the cool things they come up with.  And the trainwrecks too.  This week was a trainwreck episode for sure.

DC’s Dan Didio and Jim Lee came by the show to give the contestants their challenge: Design a superhero, and the winner’s character will appear in a DC comic book.  To help them with their designs, Lee and Didio brought along six of DC’s artists.  They were (in order of appearance in the above photo, after McKenzie Westmore) Mark Buckingham, Cliff Chiang, Tony S. Daniel, David Finch, Nicola Scott, and J.H. Williams III.  It was a pretty awesome lineup.

They got barely any screen time, and god among men J.H. Williams III was relegated to just a very unenthusiastic “Oh, okay” after hearing a crappy pitch, but things went pretty well for the contestants that got to work with Wonder Woman artists.  Most of the designs were just awful, and totally missed the superhero mark.  It was roof stoof.  However, Nicola Scott’s contestant, Eric, made it to the Top Three with his character Dick Gritty.  Dick was a cop who got killed and brought back to life or something, all 1940s style.  I actually thought it was pretty bad, but the rest of the designs were so terrible that this one made it to the top of the list.

And then, SPOILER ALERT, Cliff Chiang’s contestant, Anthony, won the episode with his character, The Infernal Core, despite a massive chest piece malfunction.  The Infernal Core is from the Earth’s core and is all shiny black with bright yellow and red lava in spots.  It was a good paint job, and I think it was definitely the most superherolike character of the night.  I could maybe see him in a comic book, and I suppose I will soon.  Here’s a look at the character:

So yeah, it was NOT a good night for Face Off at all, but Cliff Chiang, Nicola Scott, J.H. Williams III, and other fun artists were on my TV!!  That was pretty cool.  And good work to the former and current Wonder Woman artists for helping their contestants achieve the best (relatively speaking) looks!!

Women At DC Comics Watch – April 2013 Solicits

DC Comics’ solicits for April 2013 came out last week, and as always we give them a look to see how they’re doing with their promise to include more female creators and characters.  The good news is that Gail Simone is back writing Batgirl after that big kerfuffle in December, but the bad news is that a few other female creators are gone now.  Let’s go through the solicits:

• On the writing side of things, Ann Nocenti is on Katana #3 and Catwoman #19, Gail Simone writes Batgirl #19, and Christy Marx carries on with Sword of Sorcery #7 and starts a new gig with Birds of Prey #19.
• For art, Nicola Scott is penciling Earth 2 #11 and Sandra Hope is inking Batman #19.
• Over at Vertigo, Yuko Shimizu carries on her impressive cover run with The Unwritten #48.
• There are no new series in April, nor any noticeable additions of female characters to existing series.

We were pretty disappointed with the March solicits, where we had 8 female creators on 9 books, but now we’re down to 6 female creators on 8 books in April.  This is not a positive trend.  DC had been doing well for a few months, with numbers hitting double digits several times, but they’ve been in decline lately.

Individually, there’s good news and bad news.  Gail Simone is back, which is great, and Christy Marx is writing another title, which is fun.  Unfortunately, there are rumours that Sword of Sorcery isn’t long for the world, and Sandra Hope’s gig inking Andy Kubert on Batman ends in April as the regular art team will be back in May.

It’s a very quiet month for new books, so the representation of female characters is about the same.  DC does have a number of female-led books, and the relatively new Ame-Comi Girls ongoing series continues with its second issue in April.  And there also might be some surprises because all of the covers in April are fold-out covers that unveil a shocking second part to the cover scene.  There could be a plethora of female characters on the backside of the covers we’ve got.  I wouldn’t bet on it, but you never know.

Overall, April’s not looking great.  DC’s got only 3 female writers, 1 penciller, 1 inker, and 1 cover artist.  That’s not at lot at all.  We’ve seen sporadic appearances of other female creators over the past few months like Emanuela Lupacchino, Fiona Staples, and Jill Thompson, but they’re nowhere to be found in April.  Hopefully May is better, because it’s getting to the point where it can’t be much worse.  We’re nearing our record low here.

Women At DC Comics Watch – March 2013 Solicits

The big story for March is that Gail Simone is off Batgirl, and DC’s all around bungling thereof.  In terms of the numbers, losing one female creator isn’t so huge at first glance, seeing as hundreds of creators get solicited each month.  However, when of those hundreds only ten or so are women, losing one is sort of a big deal.  Gail Simone represents roughly 10% of the solicited female workforce each month at DC, and that’s a lot to lose.

Luckily, Gail Simone is still in the March solicits. “HOW?!” you may exclaim. “Was there a reprieve?!”  No such luck.  There’s a new Vertigo anthology issue, Time Warp, that she has a story in, so she’s in the solicits.  Just not for Batgirl.  Barring a new series in April, Simone won’t be officially gone until next month.

Let’s take a look at the rest of the March 2013 solicits:

• Ann Nocenti writes Katana #2 and Catwoman #18, while Christy Marx writes Sword of Sorcery #6.
• Nicola Scott pencils and does the cover for Earth 2 #10, Sandra Hope inks Batman #18, and Emanuela Lupacchino is on cover duty for Birds of Prey #18.
• Over at Vertigo, Lauren Beukes writes Fairest #13, Yuko Shimizu does the cover for The Unwritten #47, and Gail Simone has a story in Time Warp #1 (the only lady in a lengthy list of creators on the book).
• For new series, Constantine #1 premieres in March, written and drawn by dudes and starring a dude.  However, Ame-Comi Girls is now an official ongoing series!!  There have been a series of character-centric issues for the past few months, but now it’s a regular ongoing book starring everyone: Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Supergirl, Batgirl, Robin, Steel and The Flash!!

March doesn’t look like it’s going to be the busiest month, really.  We’ve got 8 female creators on 9 books, down from 11 female creators on 12 books in February.  This is still better than when we used to have 4 or 5 ladies each month, but it’s a drop nonetheless.  And, again, it’s set to drop further in April if Gail Simone isn’t on something else.  Plus Fairest #13 is the end of the arc, so Lauren Beukes might be gone too.  Hopefully we’ll see some new names or familiar faces in new places in April, or it could be a bad month.

An ongoing series starring a group of female superheroes is exciting news, though, even if it is inspired by somewhat problematic statues.  The cover for Ame-Comi Girls #1 isn’t too bad in terms of skin showing and sexualized posing, so that’s a plus.  And the character-centric issues and digital stories seem to have been fairly well received across the board.

Overall, March 2013 doesn’t look like it’s going to be DC’s best month for fictional or real life women, but it’s not terrible either.  Hopefully we’ll see some growth in both in the April solicits!!

Women At DC Comics Watch – February 2013 Solicits

Knowing DC Comics like I do, I keep expecting this decent run of female creators to come to a grinding halt at any moment, but it just keeps on trucking.  February 2013 looks to be a solid month for female creators AND characters, continuing the trend we’ve seen in the solicits in recent months and that we are just now starting to see in comic book shops.

Before we run through the solicits, though, I need to issue a correction.  I’ve been counting Fairest artist Inaki Miranda as a female creator, when he is actually a man.  I had him designated incorrectly in my massive creator gender spreadsheet, and so the articles since the October solicits have overstated the number of female creators by one each month.  Luckily, I caught it before compiling the official stats for the full credits in October, and he’ll be tabulated accurately in my women in comics stats.  I apologize for the mistake, and I’ll definitely double and triple-check things in the future.

Now, onto the February 2013 solicits:

• DC’s longest running female writer, Gail Simone, continues on with Batgirl #17, while Ann Nocenti writes Catwoman #17 and moves from Green Arrow to the all new Katana #1, and Christy Marx writes Sword of Sorcery #5.
• On the art side, Nicola Scott is on pencils and the cover of Earth 2 #9, Sandra Hope inks Worlds’ Finest #9, and Rachel Dodson inks a variant cover for Action Comics #17.
• EDIT: The artist for DC Universe Presents #17 is listed as “Ricken”, which as far as I can tell is a female artist from Japan who’s popular on DeviantArt. So that’s cool!!
• The Young Romance: A New 52 Valentine’s Day Special #1 includes Ann Nocenti writing a story, and art by Becky Cloonan and Emanuela Lupacchino.
• We’ll also see Emanuela Lupacchino again on the cover of Ame-Comi Girls #5 Featuring Supergirl.
• Over at Vertigo, Lauren Beukes writes Fairest #12 and Yuko Shimizu continues her impressive run of covers with The Unwritten #46.
• In terms of female characters, the new Justice League of America #1 features Catwoman, Katana, and Stargirl.
• Plus, Katana has her own brand new series, as mentioned above.  It’s a big month all around for Katana!!

There were 8 female creators on 9 books in the January solicits, which is pretty decent comparatively, but in February we’ve got 11 female creators on 12 books!! (EDIT: Tentatively, if I’m right about Ricken).  That’s a nice jump.  Of course, one of those books is a one-time special, but there’s always specials of some sort each month.  So long as DC continues to make an effort to include women in these specials, the numbers could hold up.

DC also seems to be cultivating a group of female artists who don’t have regular gigs but who’ve popped up here and there lately.  Becky Cloonan has been in a bunch of books since August, while Emanuela Lupacchino looks to have several smaller jobs booked at DC.  Sandra Hope, an inker, is another artist who’s appeared in a few books lately, often to help finish an inking job, and who seems to have found a regular gig with Worlds’ Finest. Given the many months we’ve seen with no female artists at all, this is a pleasant change.

Katana wins the month for female characters appearing in new series, but she’s got some company in Justice League of America.  It’s got three times as many female characters as Justice League ever did.  I mean, I know Wonder Woman is as awesome as any other three heroines combined, but still… it’d be nice for her to have some company.

All together, February is looking good for ladies at DC Comics, real and fictional.  As always, parity, or even like a tenth of parity, is a LONG way off, but things have been better in recent months and are continuing to improve, and that’s a positive sign.