So, there’s this document floating around, written by the “Friends of Lulu”, that acts as guide to assisting retailers in trying to help them broaden their customer base by becoming more appealing venues to the female audience.
That sentence was typed with me keeping all of my biting sarcasm in check.
While it’s hardly new that the rarity of women in comic shops is an issue to be addressed, the approach taken to pointing out what the actual problem is, perpetuated in a condescending introduction by Neil “I-wrote-one-cool-comic-series” Gaimen, is most bothersome. It seems that the main reason, if not the only reason, women fear to venture into comic book stores is because comic book stores are run-down, dirty little crap holes with lousy customer service and selection.
The article does glaze over the other issues such as, oh, there being a lack of material existing that women WANT to read, but the focus is on what the retailer SHOULD do to make the industry better.
I’m not sure what era this article was written in but within the last 10 years, ya know since the comic book market collapse, the number of shops that resembled porno stores has declined dramatically. Stores have gotten bigger, cleaner, better stocked and more women have shown up behind the counter but for some reason the number of comics aimed towards women have not changed so much.
Oh sure, there’s lots of books out there addressing women’s issues such as breast cancer, lesbianism and child abuse, all the exciting and wonderful topics that inspire weekly trips to happyville but what about writing mainstream comics so that they appeal to a wider audience. Why am I limited to introducing new, female readers to “Strangers In Paradise”, “Astro City”, “Runaways” and manga? Why can’t “Batman”, or at least a “Batman” title, be geared towards women?
I guess my beef is, why is it always our fault that the market isn’t as massive and viable as everyone wants it to be? Why aren’t others stepping up to the plate instead of spending all of their time and efforts pointing the blame downward at us. We have improved, changed and adapted and yet here we are 10 years later still listening to the Gawds on Mnt. Comolympus decry that things aren’t good enough because retailers need to do more.
Bullshit.
If improvement were so important to them there would be more women writers and artists and marketers. If this was such a concern there would be action plans to unify the industry for nationwide advertising and promotions. If things were in such dire straights, the people in the position to do something would be doing something other than flapping their gums and assigning blame.
That said, yeah, there’s always more we can do to KEEP women customers coming back and they all revolve around very basic retail skills that if the comic owner doesn’t have or know by now, they can’t be bothered to read it in the “Lulu” handout. But what needs to happen is a change in perception of what the comics industry is about so women aren’t afraid to check out our stores and there needs to be a significant increase in the appeal of the product to drive them too us.
Once that’s done and tried, and if the industry is still “suffering”, then point the finger at me.
The Shepherd
Andrew Foley said
February 4 2007 @ 11:53 am
If BIRDS OF PREY doesn’t qualify as a Batman book aimed at women, then I don’t see how a Batman book could be aimed at women. And I don’t think BoP does qualify, and at the end of the day, I don’t think it is possible for a superhero book like Batman to develop a strong female audience. Well, maybe if they did BRUCE LOVES VICKI (AND SILVER, AND TALIA, AND…)…actually, no. I don’t think it’s possible at all.
The fact is, there is now plenty of comic product out there aimed at female readers, it’s just that the majority of it isn’t superheroes, and the majority of it is likely never to be superheroes for the same reason that a Rob Van Damme or Steven Seagal movie is never going to have a substantial female audience. That kind of material is and always has been aimed at the 12-year-old boy, albeit these days it’s aimed at 35-year-olds going on 12. Maybe one could take a male-chauvinist pig’s ear and turn it into a silk purse, but it’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to alienate the natural target audience–witness the mostly aborted Tsunami imprint from Marvel.
You ask why you’re limited to offering female customers a few North American books and manga. I am inferring (and I may be wrong) that you would rather sell a woman a copy of BATMAN than a manga volume, and further inferring that part of the reason for this is you prefer superheroes to female-oriented manga (which would make sense–when it comes right down to it, I’m a 36-year-old going on 12 male who’d rather read a superhero yarn than yaoi, 99 times out of a hundred). If that’s not the case for you specifically, it surely is for the majority of North American comic shops out there; 9 out of 10 of which don’t stock material outside the Big 2-4.
It’s interesting that this particular rant comes so close on the heels of the announcement of the Minx line from DC–a line aimed specifically at a female readership, that has a (for comics) considerable advertising and promotional budget. A step in the right direction, surely? Not, I suspect, for the majority of comic shops, the owners of whom have little interest in female characters who don’t prance around fighting crime in high heels and skin-tight costumes with their midriff exposed.
You’re taking offense at an introduction that I’m reasonably sure actually was written more than five years ago. Even if it was written today, I don’t know that it would be inappropriate or unfair in general, though obviously most if not all of what it’s got to say doesn’t apply to the Harbor, if only because you’ve got a female partner who takes a significant role when it comes to ordering, a staff with widely varied tastes whose opinions you consider even though you’re unable to accept that JACK STAFF is the best superhero comic currently on the stands, and a perspective on what makes a good comic shop that is much different from the stereotypical pornshop hole in the wall–an image which is still accurate in many cases, at least based on roughly half the comic shops I’ve been to in Alberta.
I don’t own a comic shop, and I haven’t read the document in question (actually, I might have, but it was several years ago if at all and I don’t remember it if I did read it). But from the description you’ve given, it’s pretty clear that it wasn’t aimed at retailers like you or stores like Happy Harbor. I suspect Gaiman and FoL would like nothing better than to see 3000 Happy Harbors across North America. That isn’t the case yet, not by a long shot, and as long as a substantial percentage of retailers insist on looking at manga and non-superhero books as the enemy, it never will be.
On a semi-related note, check out a post by comiccommentary.com’s Guy LeCharles Gonzales I’ve been meaning to aim you at for some time, entitled “Let’s Stop Blaming Retailers, and Start Blaming Publishers”. http://www.loudpoet.com/comics/2007/01/lets-stop-blaming-retailers-and-start.html#comments
A
Anne said
February 5 2007 @ 12:55 pm
Hey,
Being an 18 year old girl who frequents your shop I’ve got to say that you’ve been nothing but accommodating. The decor is pretty gender neutral (holding true to my belief that any human being, female or otherwise, whose mood isn’t brightened by a little Alex Ross is probably beyond help) and you’ve created what I feel to be the most aesthetically pleasing comic nook in the city. If every shop had the means and the effort to spruce things up it would go a long way calming the fears of every teenage girl who wanders into a “boy store”. As superficial as it may seem, visual presentation is a huge factor in creating a welcoming environment.
On the note of female oriented comic lines… I’m still a bit wary. Although I think it’s an excellent marketing move for publishers to get into the girl market I’m afraid that it might result in a lot of stereotypical garbage with poor writing… which is sadly the case for the majority of girl manga out there. I guess when you try to restrict your audience to a very specific group you lose the ability to write stuff that appeals to everyone in the way that only solid literature can.
That being said, I’m sure that decidedly girly books for the North American pallet will be an excellent hook. It was some truly ridiculous manga that got me started with this sequential art business. My interest in it, however, kind of waxed and waned until I found books like the Sandman, Bone, and Fables and started reading outside my demographic. It seems like the industry has a lot of stereotypes to break down about the stigmata of reading comic books. Reinforcing gender roles, instead of creating things that appeal to everyone across the table, may not be the best way to go about it.
Dustin said
February 6 2007 @ 10:27 pm
You’ve hit the nail on the head in my opinion. Comics are geared towards teenage boys… and grown men who didn’t give up on their imagination simply because “all the cool kids were doing it!”
And the other sad fact of the matter is that most of the comics out there that are North American seem to have some very important, mostly depressing, point they need to make which kind of takes the fun out of reading it.
I mean, I like Powers, which I find horribly depressing at times. But when I need something light to pick me up I can pick up an issue of Spiderman, or Bleach and enjoy some semi-mindless action where the good guy beats up the badguy, the badguy is a badguy, and there are some laughs along the way. Heck, if you put “Ultimate” in front of spiderman you can even have a on going plotline for both of them.
But I can’t remember ever hearing about any comics geared towards women that weren’t rather dark.
Manga, or Shojo Manga as the case might be, seems to be the only solution mostly because comics are more accepted in general in Japan, which means they don’t cut out a whole demographic just because their girls.
The only obvious solution to the large whole in comics geared towards women is: Make them read comics when their young. Hopefully the influx of manga will have the benifit of introducing more women to the joys of comics, and get more women writers and artists into the north american field.
Maybe I’m weird, but the concept of getting more female writers to write comics geared towards females seems like a good idea to me.
Of course in the long run it dosn’t really affect me much, either way, I’ll still get my mindless superhero action that I love, along with some dark stories, and manga oddness.
But I can’t complain about seeing more cute girls in the store… uh… who arn’t there with their boyfriend. Heh.
oops.
Seeing as I’m not a business owner myself I don’t have any good ideas for getting more people, male or female, into the store beyond raising the visibility of the store, and from what I’ve seen that’s already being done.
As a average Joe Shlub, on the other hand, I suppose I could be more helpful on that front by some good ol’ fashion guerilla marketing around my college. Just need to stay away from flashy lights, look what they did to the yankees! ;~)
Jessica said
February 7 2007 @ 7:15 pm
Its an interesting debate, isn’t it? I’ve been an avid (sometimes rabid
fan of comics ever since I pined my first terrycloth towel around my neck and ran around pretending to be Wonder Woman…
I’ve always been confused at the notion that there aren’t enough “stories for women” out there… What does that even mean? Not enough graphic adaptations of Little Women and Pride and Prejudice? Frankly, I think anything with great art and a great story is fair game for the female audience.
I’m been encountering variants of this dilemma throughout my life- in elementary school I was part of a club called “Women do Math” designed to convince other little girls that they were capable of comprehending calculus. And in university as one of 3 women in my physics class (a class of 200) I was constantly being prodded to help convince other women to take an interest in Quantum physics.
Now I spent a while noodling on why so few women seemed as interested as I was in Math, Science, Sci-Fi, comics etc… We’ve certainly put to bed the myth that women were not smart enough to grasp the concepts… I though perhaps it might have something to do with the fact that women tended to gravitate more towards interests and careers that involved more human interaction (like being a Doctor or Psychiatrist rather than Statistician or Physicist), then again I thought it might have something to do with the fact that my Dad was really into science and math and raised me to have an interest there…
But I ultimately came to the realization that the question to ask is not “why aren’t women as into comics as men” but rather “does it matter that women aren’t as interested in comics as men?” And to be honust, I’m not so sure that it does matter.
There will always be a handful of women like myself who, for whatever reason, just love comics, but we may never be a huge force. And hey- that’s okay! Women on average tend to enjoy watching romantic comedies more than men, but there is no public outcry to make romantic comedies and the theaters that offer them more accessible to men. At the heart of things, I think a lot of people will look at a social trend where disproportionately fewer women are involved and see a sinister intelligence behind the phenomenon. When it comes to comics, I think that is baloney. So what if most women prefer to buy Manga to Batman? No one has ever accosted me in a comic shop with an “excuse me miss, but I can’t sell you that copy of Walking Dead- you’ll have to choose from the selection of girl comics over here…” And until I (or any other woman) get a response like that, I think the whole debate is a bit of a paper dragon.
Dollman said
February 7 2007 @ 11:11 pm
I’ll reiterate my position on a forum on C-geek…this whole position of attracting more women into our hobby is like Hillary Duff’s song…So Yesterday! As a guy, I’d love to have more gals interested in comics. Yes there have been great strides in our hobby from when I started collecting 30 years ago, and more gals would help in removing the geek stigma that our hobby suffers from.
But, from observation at HH and the other shop that I frequent in Edmonton, for retailers like Jay to be successful, it would be better if you attract more guys than gals into the hobby. Why? Because guys tend to spend more money on the big ticket complimentary items.
I’m talking toys, statues, T-shirts, and posters. Maybe I’m wrong, but of the 5 buddies of mine that collect comics, they all have a toy or statue collection to match. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the sense the gals in our hobby tend to buy only books, hardly ever pick up the collectibles.
In a general sense, for our hobby to grow, the objective shouldn’t be to focus on one gender. The focus should be on anyone who isn’t a comic reader.
I find it odd and somewhat disconcerting that a vocal segment feels our hobby needs female acceptance for validation. It’s the only geeky hobby that I’m aware of that seems to suffer from this insecurity complex.
Video gamers, wrestling fans, Star Wars and Star Trek fans certainly don’t seem to share this complex. If women are interested, they will come, if not, who cares.
Look at the flip side of this, or hobbies that tend to be predominantly female. Are scrapbookers, yoga clubs and book clubs in a perpetual tizzy because there are so few men interested? I sincerely doubt it.
Robyn said
February 8 2007 @ 8:51 am
I am one female who started to read Neil Gaiman in the early to mid 90’s, ( I am 33) but have not read much else. The few times I did try to find comics I loved I was unsuccessful and put off by the gore. Having said that- I’ve been reading Eddie Cambell which made me curious about
Alan Moore’s From Hell, which made me curious about The Victorian- and Ranklechick.
I don’t know about comics culture at all I don’t know if I just said the comics equivelant to I love to rock out to Kenny G whilst idolizing Celine Dion (joke!)in comic talk but I figure the Eddie Campbell comic “How to Be An Artist” was indispensible due to it talking about comic artists and hisotry - and anything that caught my eye I was able to google and then get from the library or online. As a Mum of 3 daughters who are starting to read I would love to encourage them to read comics too- i would love to see them reading comics alongside their Big Books - I have been noting how comics combine both art and literature in a very unique way which is inspiring!
I did try to get into Manga but I got tired of it’s seeming uniformity (again this is from a comic newbie point of view):-)
The only thing that has prevented me from going regularly to comic stores was the sheer number of comics- I did not even know where to begin!
I don’t know why Neil Gaiman resonates with me being a woman and I am sorry that it is a lame cliche (women readign Sandman) because I really do love his work and for me he has opened up the doors to a very amazing world!
cheers!
Robyn
K Tisch said
February 8 2007 @ 11:13 am
Some valid points on the lack of material for female readers - however it should be clearly stated that this lack of material is a problem with North American comic publishers. Not to weigh in too heavily on the side of Manga publishers, but if anyone has opened comic stores to female readers it must be the Manga Publishers of North America.
DC has introduced the Minx line, to my understanding, modelled after the manga lines of delivering fun, flimsy, thoughful and / OR serious content.
I’ve been trying to get my girlfriend and other female friends into comics. Works like Blankets and Carnet de Voyage were big hits, as was Persepolis. But Birds of Prey and new Batman/girl/woman comics don’t bring them in. And the lack of continuous titles of the Persepolis nature means that even after I’ve intro’d there women to comics, they are 100% more likely to source them from Chapters than from a comic shop just because they have a reason to go to a book store regularly, but not to a comic shop.
The difference to be made here is in Manga. From what I’ve seen in comic shops that are carrying full lines of manga, GIRLS are coming in by the groups and building their own libraries of reading material they share within their group as everyone explores new series and reads more and more comics (Manga comics). These readers are getting into the comic-shop visiting habit, and that habit is what will see the demographic correction happen slowly but surely. Female-targetted Manga series/female readers already account for the majority of sales of these materials.
Those are my thoughts on female-content in the comics world…
-k
Brian Guay said
February 10 2007 @ 11:37 am
Wow, a lot has been said here already
Many good points!
First off, I’m glad to hear DC stepping up to the plate in trying to bring a bit more diversity to the comics medium. Part of the reason Manga is so popular in Japan (imho) is they have Manga about everything! Cheating spouses, funny animals, super heroes. The medium is treated like a medium, and not a genre. I understand that Marvel, and DC have to try, and maintain sales for their shareholders, so treading too far out on a limb is not wise, but damn, their missing out on a huge market.
In my mind’s eye, I always wanted to see comic shops looking a little more like bookstores. Warmer, more neutral, plants, and carpet, but the fact is, that unless the material is there to attract women into said store, the look is a moot point.
And was again!!! Marvel, DC, Darkhorse!!!! Advertise your comics outside of the comic circles!! Did Playstation get as big as it is, by throwing a ad in a gaming magazine (did these type mags exist before PS made them big? :?) Sure you may not have the money to throw away on a worldwide campaign, but a few ads might be in order, eh? I’m betting good money that ads before movies in the theater would be a great value!
Anyways, off to make my comic
Bri
Happy Harbor Comics said
February 10 2007 @ 12:48 pm
Thanks to everyone! Awesome insights and commentary and everyone should read the link Andrew posted.
Should all Rants inspire such response.
And to Robyn, there are stores that would be more than happy to spend time talking to you and making suggestions for future reads. One such store springs immediately to mind…
Robyn said
February 13 2007 @ 9:01 am
I will take you guys up on that!!
cheers and all the super best!
I must say that Anne’s post:
“On the note of female oriented comic lines… I’m still a bit wary. Although I think it’s an excellent marketing move for publishers to get into the girl market I’m afraid that it might result in a lot of stereotypical garbage with poor writing… which is sadly the case for the majority of girl manga out there. I guess when you try to restrict your audience to a very specific group you lose the ability to write stuff that appeals to everyone in the way that only solid literature can.” was bang on for me too