Welcome to the second year of women in comics stats here at Straitened Circumstances!! The first year was pretty depressing, really, but certainly informative. Plus as a result I’ve gotten to e-meet a lot of cool people, which is very fun. And who knows, maybe DC and Marvel will pick it up some in 2012 and it’ll be less depressing. Don’t hold your breath on that, but don’t lose hope either.
So, onto DC Comics’ first month of 2012. Overall, January got better week by week, but it started terrible so that’s really not so impressive a feat. Let’s take a look:
Staring out the month at 6.6% is just awful, but the next two weeks were fairly average and they closed off January with a solid number. It probably won’t be the best month overall, though. That first week is really going to bring the whole thing down. It’s ridiculously hard to finish strong after you start in the sixes. But perhaps they did better by category… to the megachart:
Well, that’s not so awesome. First up, though, is the zero counter!! Last month, 13 of the 32 spots in the chart were zeroes, which is more than a third and quite a bummer, really. This month, it’s 12!! So that’s better, but still more than a third and still pretty terrible. Not good, DC.
But let’s look on the bright side. Cover artists did have two zeroes, but the other two weeks were quite good!! Though writers also had two zeroes, and their other weeks were rather paltry. This is turning into a downer again…
Until you see that there are actually pencillers and inkers this month!! December had none, so this miniscule representation (there was one of each… sarcastic woot) is a definite step up. Literally the tiniest step up possible, but you’ve got to take what you can get.
And then the colourists!! Screw it, colourists sucked. Only one week in the double digits, and barely at that? Pitiful. Colourists used to be a bastion for female creators at DC, but they’ve not been great for a while. It must be a casualty of what seems to be DC’s get rid of all of the ladies on the creative side of things campaign. There was some lettering action, though… hooray for Saida Temofonte, holding down the fort for female letterers at the Big Two.
Editorial was all over the map. Putting up a 40% is pretty huge for full editors, and the 25% is about average, but the first two weeks were not so hot. However, assistant editors were the bright spot of the month. Those are some fantastic numbers, and they even hit 50% one week!! That’s only happened once or twice before. As always, assistant editors saved the day at DC. They’d be nothing without them. Actually, if you take out assistant editors, DC would be down to 6.8% ladies… they’re REALLY carrying the load.
All told, it wasn’t the best month. The creative side was nothing to write home about, there were zeroes all over the board, and only assistant editors did anything impressive. I know there are more female creators set to arrive in the months to come, but right now DC’s not looking so hot.
Notes:
- There was a tie for busiest book of the month. Fables #113 and Justice League #5 both had 14 credited creators, 1 and 2 women respectively.
- Want to be surprised? The book with the highest percentage of female creators was Voodoo #5… that seems like it shouldn’t be right, but it is. It was 3 of 7. Batgirl #5 and Birds of Prey #5 were close seconds at 3 of 8.
- To learn more about this statistics project and its methodology click here, and to see the previous stats click here.
TIM HANLEY 