a quantitative perspective on the state of women and comic book publishing

1. Brett Schenker got a lot of attention for this survey (on Comics Beat).
The results are promising—suggesting a larger than expected female
readership—but his methodology (counting likes on Facebook) leave
serious doubts about its accuracy and any potential analytical use.

2. Tim Hanley publishes these numbers about female creators at Marvel
& DC each month on Bleeding Cool. He was particularly excited about
these results, from August, which he explained were the best ever in
a regular month. It’s still pretty disappointing.

3. An interesting graph from Walt Hickey on FiveThirtyEight.com.
Progress in representation since the 1940s at the big two publishers
is evident, but perhaps a lot slower than we might expect over so
many decades, with gender parity still at a distance.

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MonthlySalesintheThousands
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Unit Sales of Popular Titles from DC
Superman Flash Wonder Woman
Sales data from Comichron, compiled here, shows that Wonder Woman has
always under-performed, and was likely kept continuously in print largely
for her name recognition and licensing potential. The character still trails
behind marquee male characters today, even amidst low overall sales.

5. There has been immense excitement around new female-centered titles like
Ms. Marvel. But my graph, based on data from Comichron, suggests that
after an initial PR bump, interest and sales quickly faded (settling in around
30,000 copies per month). Notably, this doesn’t include digital, which
Marvel says is very high. Unfortunately the industry won’t release that data.
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#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 #18 Vol 1 Vol 2 Vol 3
RankAmongTop-SellingTitles
NumberofIssuesSold
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Ms. Marvel Sales (Non-Digital) in 2014-2015
Units Sold Units Sold as Reprints Sales Rank