Women In Comics Statistics: DC And Marvel, February 2013 Odds And Ends

The monthly numbers for February 2013 are up over at Bleeding Cool, so let’s dig into the stats a bit more and see what interesting things were going on this month.

DC COMICS

DC’s numbers improved from last month, but how did they do compared to their 2012 averages?  Here are the numbers side by side:

Their overall average was higher than their 2012 total by 1.3%, which is decent.  Cover artists, writers, and letterers were up a bit from 2012, with assistant editors also making a big jump.  A lot of categories were firmly in the average range, and nothing was lower than the 2012 numbers by any sizeable amount.  That’s a pretty good showing.  Here are some other notes:

• Writers being 2.1% more than their 2012 average may not seem like a huge jump, but relative to that past percentage is an increase of nearly 64%.  With such little numbers to begin with, seemingly small changes are relatively large.
• In fact, there was at least one female writer every week in February.
• The Young Romance: The New 52 Valentine’s Day Special #1 featured 4 female creators: Ann Nocenti wrote and Emanuela Lupacchino illustrated a Catwoman story, Shelly Bond edited two stories, and Eva de la Cruz coloured a story.
• Three new series started in February: Katana #1 at 2 of 7 (Ann Nocenti writing and Rachel Gluckstern editing), Justice League of America #1 at 2 of 7 (Sonia Oback coloring and Katie Kubert assistant editing), and Justice League of America’s Vibe #1 at 1 of 9 (Katie Kubert assistant editing again).
• The busiest book of the month was Young Romance: The New 52 Valentine’s Day Special #1 with 29 credited creators, 4 of them women.
• There was a tie for the highest percentage of female creators, Fairest #12 and Smallville Season 11 #10 both at 3 of 7.

MARVEL COMICS

Marvel was down overall in February, but they were in record territory last month so I suppose we can’t be too upset about the drop.  We shouldn’t expect them to be near record totals every single month.  Let’s look at their numbers compared to their 2012 totals:

Up 1.5% overall from last year is good, and there were some strong showings by category.  Cover artists, inkers, and colourists were down slightly, but not by any huge amount.  Writers and pencillers saw decent gains, while editorial blasted past their 2012 totals!  They remain well ahead of last year’s numbers.  Some other notes:

• The large editorial gap two months in a row is good, but also shows the limits of this format.  Editorial started very low in 2012 and grew over the course of the year, and the average ended up not so great.  Once we’re a bit further into 2013, I’m going to change up the average comparisons so they’re against more recent data.  Or perhaps change it to a rolling six month average comparison.  We’ll see.
• Again, no lady letterers.  That makes it 819 DAYS since Marvel has had a female letterer.
• There were a bunch of new titles in February: Fearless Defenders #1 at 2 of 10 (Veronica Gandini colouring and Ellie Pyle assistant editing), Powers: Bureau #1 at 1 of 7 (Jennifer Grünwald editing), Secret Avengers #1 at 1 of 15 (Lauren Sankovitch editing), Uncanny X-Men #1 at 0 of 16, Alpha: Big Time #1 at 0 of 8, Nova #1 at 1 of 14 (Sana Amanat assistant editing), and Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1 at 1 of 9 (Sana Amanat assistant editing again).
• The busiest book of the month was Uncanny X-Men #1 with 16 credited creators.  There are no ladies on this book or All New X-Men #1, both of Bendis’ new X-books, but Bendis is usually decent for female creators, as evidenced by two of his other titles above.
• The book with the highest percentage of female creators was Monsters, Inc: Humanween Party #1 at 5 of 8.  Dark Tower: Sheemie’s Tale #2 was at 3 of 5, and the main line Marvel book with the best total was Astonishing X-Men #49 at 4 of 7.
• To learn more about this statistics project and its methodology click here, and to see the previous stats click here.

Women In Comics Statistics: DC and Marvel, February 2013 In Review

The full monthly stats for February 2013 are up over at Bleeding Cool, and Marvel was tops again for the overall percentage of female creators.  Marvel was at 13.6% overall, a drop from last month though still high, while DC rose to 12.1%.

We also take a look at how many books feature at least one female creator and how that’s grown steadily over the past two years.  The more widespread presence of female creators gives me some hope that this will become the new normal and the number of female creators will grow even more.

So head on over to Bleeding Cool and check out all the stats fun!!

Women In Comics Statistics: DC And Marvel, January 2013 Odds And Ends

Hey gang, we’ve got a new format!  Running through the weekly totals for both companies was fun and all, but I don’t think it’s all that necessary.  Monthly seems like more than enough, and seeing as most books come out on a monthly schedule anyway that’s probably the best way to look at the numbers.  I find the weekly numbers interesting because I’m weird and super into charts and such, but monthly more than accomplishes a comprehensive look at women in comics statistics.  My monthly “Gendercrunching” column will continue at Bleeding Cool, but instead of accompanying it with two round-ups of weekly stats we’ll have this new column!

DC COMICS

I thought it would be interesting to compare our monthly numbers to an average, to see how the month stacks up, and seeing as we’ve just finished 2012 we’ve got a nice annual average to work with. Thus this is our new chart set-up:

Overall, January was slightly above average for DC, which is good to see.  Writers, letterers, and assistant editors had particularly strong months, while pencillers, colorists, and editors saw some noticeable drops.  Other interesting notes:

• Writers in January 2013 were actually more than double their 2012 average, which is huge!
• Letterers more than doubled their 2012 average as well!
• Whenever I say “letterers”, I mean Saida Temofonte.  She’s the only lady lettering comics at the Big Two right now.  If there’s ever another one, I’ll let you know.
• Because Boxing Day was on a Wednesday, DC rolled their usual fourth week comics into the first week of January, taking advantage of January’s five weeks.  Thus there are a lot more books than usual.  Also, the rolled over December books accounted for DC’s second lowest week of the month.
• There were three new books in January, Threshold #1 (1 of 8, with Kate Stewart assistant editing), the print version of the digital series Injustice: Gods Among Us #1 (1 of 10, with Sarah Litt assistant editing), and a non-New 52 book I know nothing about called Insurgent #1 (1 of 6, with Kristy Quinn assistant editing).
• The busiest book of the month was Action Comics #16 with 16 credited creators, 1 of them a lady (the always excellent Jordie Bellaire colouring the backup story).
• The book with the highest percentage of female creators were Fairest #11 and Smallville Season 11 #9 at 3 of 7, with Catwoman #16 at 3 of 8 as the best New 52 title.

MARVEL COMICS

Marvel had a great January, coming very close to their record setting overall total from December.  They’ve broken the record twice in the past five months, and been over 14% for three of those months.  It’s been quite an impressive run.  Let’s see how their January numbers stack up against last year’s averages:

The total is 2.1% more than their 2012 average, which is a solid improvement.  Only inkers and colourists were down, and by fairly small margins.  Cover artists, writers, and pencillers were all slightly better than average, while editors and assistant editors blew last year’s totals right out of the water.  It was a really impressive month for Marvel.  Other interesting notes:

• Both editors and assistant editors were 10% better than their 2012 average, which is huge.  Marvel’s female representation at editorial has been growing like crazy.
• Still no female letterers.  The last time a woman lettered a Marvel comic was January 26, 2011, so as of now it’s been 796 days.
• Marvel had a ton of new books in January.  They were: Marvel’s Iron Man 3 Prelude #1 (1 of 7, with Sana Amanat editing), Morbius the Living Vampire #1 (1 of 9, with Sana Amanat editing again), New Avengers #1 (2 of 12, with Nei Ruffino colouring a variant cover and Lauren Sankovitch editing), Punisher: Nightmare #1 (1 of 8, with Lauren Sankovitch editing again).
• And that was just the first week!!  Here are the rest: Dark Tower: The Gunslinger – Sheemie’s Tale #1 (3 of 5, with Robin Furth co-writing, Sana Amanat editing, and Ellie Pyle assistant editing), Superior Spider-Man #1 (1 of 12, with Ellie Pyle assistant editing again), Marvel’s Thor Adaptation #1 (1 of 5, with Sana Amanat editing), Savage Wolverine #1 (2 of 9, with Jeanine Schaefer editing and Jennifer M. Smith assistant editing), Deadpool Killustrated #1 (1 of 7, with Veronica Gandini colouring), Uncanny X-Force #1 (1 of 12, with Laura Martin colouring the cover), and Young Avengers #1 (1 of 10, with Lauren Sankovitch editing).
• Whew.
• Marvel NOW! is kind of exhausting.
• You’ll notice that while women are getting lots of gigs, it’s a lot of the same ladies in a lot of the same jobs.  There were no female writers, pencillers, or inkers in those many new books.
• The busiest book of the month was Avengers #3 with 14 credited creators, 1 of them a woman (another now-familiar name, Lauren Sankovitch, editing).
• The book with the highest percentage of female creators was Monster’s Inc. #2 at 9 of 12 (the Italian team of artists who drew the book included a lot of ladies), with Captain Marvel #9 (3 of 6) and Astonishing X-Men #58 (4 of 8) tying for the top spot among Marvel’s superhero books.
• To learn more about this statistics project and its methodology click here, and to see the previous stats click here.

Women In Comics Statistics: DC And Marvel, January 2013 In Review

Aw yeah, stats!!  The monthly stats are up now at Bleeding Cool, and it was a decent month for both publishers.  Marvel was firmly in front at 14.2% female creators, but DC’s 11.7% was a relatively good total for them.

We also take a look at Marvel’s 2012 stats in review, seeing how they compare to 2011 and what trends we can see moving forward into 2013.

Also, look for a brand new stats follow up early next week.  I’m replacing the week-by-week rundown with a new look at the stats that I think should be a good time.

Head over to Bleeding Cool to see all of the stats fun!!

Women In Comics Statistics: DC And Marvel, December 2012 In Review

The monthly stats are up over at Bleeding Cool, and Marvel AGAIN broke the record for best overall percentage of female creators!!  They had 14.4% female creators overall, while DC put in a very strong showing at 12.5% female creators.

We also take a look at all of DC’s stats for 2012.  Comparing the averages for the year to the 2011 numbers, there were no real changes at DC, which is good in that nothing dropped too far, but terrible in that nothing improved either.  We also look at the trends for each category over the course of the year, and while the year as a whole might not have been great, things actually seem to be moving in a positive direction for 2013.

Head over to Bleeding Cool for all the stats fun!!

Women In Comics Statistics: Marvel, December 2012, Week By Week

Marvel finished off the year with a very strong month, posting some great overall numbers.  Things were up and down by category, but there were some surprisingly good numbers in the mix.  Here are Marvel’s overall totals for December 2012:

Just like with DC, we’re going to ignore the fourth week this month.  Marvel put out only two books, so the percentages are not at all statistically significant.  Both books featured female creators and in good numbers, which is great, but the small sample size makes percentages fairly meaningless when compared to the other weeks.  The first three weeks of December were great for Marvel, with all of their totals in double digits and an impressive high of 18.2%.  These are great totals.  And the mega-chart had some decent numbers too:

Last month, Marvel had 10 zeroes, and this month they’re up to 11.  However, we need to remember that the fourth week is wonky.  Given where the zeroes are located, if we’d had a usual slate of books in the last week of December then Marvel would probably only have 9 or 10 zeroes.  Of course, this still isn’t good, nor is it much of an improvement from November.  So it’s maybe not quite as bad as it looks, but it’s still bad.

Cover artists had an okay December, even hitting double digits in one week.  The other two relevant weeks weren’t so hot, but at least there was a strong week to counteract the bad a bit.

Writers did great, though!!  Hitting 10% one week and almost again in another is fantastic.  There were 6 female writers in the 3 statistically relevant weeks, and 7 overall.  That 25% is misleading as it accounts for only one female writer, but it still means representation every week.  It was a fantastic month for female writers at Marvel.

AND things didn’t suck quite as bad as they usually do for female artists.  Four zeroes isn’t so great, but pencillers hitting 9% one week is a big number compared to what we’re used to seeing.  Same with 6% for inkers.  And while the fourth week numbers are skewed, percentagewise, there was nonetheless some art made by a lady in a Marvel comic that week.  There are still ludicrously few women drawing comics at Marvel, but December was slightly less ludicrous than usual at least.

Colourists started out poorly and then improved as the month went on.  Yet again, disregard that fourth week, but two statistically significant weeks above 20% is a good scene.  As for letterers, there remain none at all.  And so we turn to our monthly vigil:

DAYS SINCE MARVEL COMICS HIRED A FEMALE LETTERER:

761 DAYS

Editors had a pretty solid month.  A week in the teens isn’t so good, but the other two weeks had solid numbers.  The 45% in particular is quite a good number for editors at Marvel.  Assistant editors just absolutely KILLED it.  They were over 70% one week, at 50% another, and had a low of 37%.  These are huge numbers.  December might be the first month in the two years since this project started that the overall total of a female category had a majority.  That would be very cool.

Basically, nothing sucked for Marvel in December.  The things that are usually bad weren’t quite as bad, and the things that are usually good were extra good.  This month’s stats also provide us with a fun lesson.  In the first week, assistant editors were at 71.4%, which is just enormous.  Yet the overall total for the week was only 10.7%, the lowest all month, because none of the other categories had much going on.  However, in the second week assistant editors fell to 50%, but the overall total rose to a whopping 18.2% because there was decent representation across the board.  One category can’t carry the load.  We get the best numbers when there are women working everywhere.  Several smaller upticks in the second week were FAR more impactful than one huge number in the first week.  The lesson is: It doesn’t take much to have a great percentage of female creators.  Just some decent representation across the board.

NOTES:

• The busiest book of the month was the special, over-sized Amazing Spider-Man #700 with 22 credited creators, 3 of them women.
• The book with the highest percentage of female creators was Monsters, Inc. #1 at a massive 9 of 12.  There’s an Italian art team on the book that’s mostly ladies, plus a few female editors.  As for regular books, Captain Marvel #8 was tops at 3 of 6.
• To learn more about this statistics project and its methodology click here, and to see the previous stats click here.

Women In Comics Statistics: DC Comics, December 2012, Week By Week

DC keeps doing better and better overall with female creators, which is good to see after the rut they got into over the summer months.  There are still some issues with distribution of the numbers, but the rate of improvement overall has been quite good lately.  Let’s take a look at those numbers for December 2012:

First off, disregard the fourth week overall and for each category.  This year, new comics day was Boxing Day, and so DC released only three books.  In fact, their usual fourth week titles (DC ships 13 mainline superhero books each week, along with others) didn’t come out until the first week of January because January is a five week month, so next month’s stats are going to be jam-packed.  Anyway, disregarding the fourth week’s statistically insignificant 8.3%, these are some solid numbers.  The first three weeks are in double digits, and a high of 16.2% is great compared to what we’ve been used to seeing from DC lately.  There are some ups and downs by category, though, as you can see on the mega-chart:

There were a lot of zeroes in December, but again the fourth week kind of screws things up.  We’ll have to asterisk the Zero Counter for this month when these stats are recorded in the annals of history.  Last month, DC had only 4 zeroes, which is remarkably low and impressive, while this month they have 13, more than three times as many.  If we take away the fourth week entirely then we’re left with 6 zeroes, and that’s still an increase.  So that’s a bit of a bummer.

Also a bummer: These numbers for cover artists.  They are paltry.  Usually, there’s one really good week that makes the low weeks not seem so bad in comparison, but everything was small in December.  A high of 5.6% is not good at all.

Writers, however, had a decent month.  Forgetting the fourth week, that’s some decent representation, with 5 female writers over the first three weeks of the month.  These still aren’t huge percentages, but consistently not terrible numbers are a positive step forward.

Artists remained consistent as well, but they’re consistently bad.  There were ZERO female pencillers at DC in December, and only 2 inkers.  Of almost 200 combined credits for interior artists, only 2 were ladies.  This is miniscule.  I understand that given the makeup of the industry right now there are going to be more men working on books than women, but 99 to 1 seems more than excessive.

Colourists had a nice month, fourth week aside.  Every significant week in double digits plus two in the 20s is good to see.  Letterers (and by “letterers” I mean Saida Temofonte) also did well, with a ridiculously good first week and then decent representation in the following two.

Editors had one strong week, topping 30%, but the other two significant weeks were firmly in the teens.  That’s not what you want to see.  But assistant editors knocked it out of the park, with two weeks over 50%!!  A low of 31.6% is fantastically good.  And the 75% they pulled in the fourth week is fun, however skewed.  Assistant editors had a fantastic December.

All together, DC seems to be improving overall each month, but still has lots of room to improve by category too.  A few categories are downright bad, but if DC moves to remedy that then they’ll continue their upward trend.  If not, they’ll level off soon.

NOTES:

• The busiest book of the month was Action Comics #15 with 15 credited creators, 2 of them women.  That’s a lot of ladies for a Superman book, actually.  That department is usually pretty bad when it comes to female creators.
• The book with the highest percentage of female creators was Fairest #10 at 3 of 7, followed closely by Smallville Season 11 #8 at 5 of 13.
• To learn more about this statistics project and its methodology click here, and to see the previous stats click here.