Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, dc, dc comics, entertainment, female heroes, gendercrunching, marvel, Marvel Comics, marvel now, women in comics

Gendercrunching January 2014 – Including Female Characters At DC And Marvel

Tim Hanley writes:

For the first time in a long time, DC has posted a higher overall percentage of female creators than Marvel for two months in a row. Both publishers improved on their December numbers, and while DC is above their average total, Marvel remains far below their past highs. We also take a look at female characters at the Big Two, and see some uninspiring trends.

DC COMICS

DC improved in nearly every category, but interior art remains a very low spot in an otherwise decent month. In January 2014, DC released 76 new comics featuring 682 credited creators, 599 men and 83 women. Let's look at their stats:

DC rose 0.8% overall from their December total, a relatively notable improvement. Every middle category in the chart increased, including gains of 2-3% for writers, colorists, letterers, and editors. The end categories faltered, though, with cover artists down very slightly and assistant editors losing just over 4%. And while pencillers and inkers improved on last month's totals, the numbers there remain ridiculously small. Nonetheless, it all added up to overall growth from last month, and that's good to see.

Compared To A Year Ago: DC was at 11.7% overall last January, so they've improved 0.5% since then. Not a lot, but not a loss.

MARVEL COMICS

Marvel's getting better, at least, after spending the second half of 2013 in a fairly steady decline. In January 2014, Marvel put out 73 new comics featuring 657 credited creators, 581 men and 76 women. Here are their numbers:

They gained 0.6% overall, a decent increase and a lovely change after months of losses. Pencillers, inkers, and colorists all rose 1-2%, and cover artists were up nearly 4%, while writers fell a bit. It was a grim month for editorial, however, with editors down 2% and assistant editors falling 4%. Editorial is a huge component of both publisher's overall total, and Marvel's big losses in both categories over the past few months have been sinking them like a stone. Luckily, other categories did well enough in January to buoy them a bit, and they ended up improving overall.

Compared To A Year Ago: Marvel was at 14.2% overall last year, 2.6% better than where they are now.

FEMALE CHARACTERS AT DC AND MARVEL

We've run data like this before, using a very straight forward method: Look at the covers, count the characters, and note who are men and who are women. It's fairly simple, and while you need to come up with rules occasionally (for example, anthropomorphic, speaking animals get counted, normal pets don't), it's a decent way to get a rough idea of character breakdowns.

It's not an exact accounting of characters. There are often characters in the book who aren't on the cover, and being on the cover doesn't necessarily mean the character will actually appear that much in the book. A more thorough examination of characters may result in different numbers (though I suspect it wouldn't be a substantial change). But for what we're looking at today, the raw numbers are not so important as the trends therein.

In the following charts, we have numbers from the January 2014 comics put out by DC and Marvel, as well as some past data we've gathered with the same methodology. We did both publishers in Fall 2011, adding together their September, October, and November covers, and we also looked at Marvel in September 2012 in a Marvel NOW! discussion because it was their last month pre-Marvel NOW! With this data, we can see that things are not really changing all that much for female characters at the Big Two:

DC is up slightly from Fall 2011, which is good, but it's hardly a substantial increase. Marvel was up a bit in 2012, but has now fallen back near their Fall 2011 level, though the highs and the lows are rather close together. Basically, female characters at Marvel seem to hover around 25% while at DC they hover a couple percentage points above that. By this reckoning, they are a clear minority at both publishers, outnumbered roughly 3 to 1 by male characters.

More importantly, not a lot is changing. More than two years after we first counted up comic book covers, things are about the same for female characters. Covers are a comic book's best advertisement, the thing that says, "Here is a peek at what fun things are inside this publication!" And what these covers are saying is, "Hey, check it out! We've got a lot of dudes!" Women, both real and fictional, remain underrepresented at both publishers. This isn't groundbreaking news, but a lasting improvement somewhere would be an enjoyable change of pace.

On the positive side, though, there is something that the stats don't show: What the covers look like. When we looked at the covers in Fall 2011, there was some gross stuff. Characters dressed like Playboy bunnies, there were ridiculous levels of cleavage and midriff baring, and ladies posed sexily while blood rained down on them; it wasn't a good scene. Not only were women rare, but they were quite sexualized when they did appear.

Now they're still rare, but the art in January is worlds better. Most of the ladies are fully clad, and in cool, kickass poses. The sex has been turned down and the power and awesomeness has been turned up. That's definitely a positive development.

Moreover, we may be poised to see numerical improvements in the months to come. Marvel has a lot of female-led books out now and coming soon that weren't out in January. Similarly, DC has the upcoming Batman: Eternal each week, which boasts a strong female cast. So here's what we'll do: Let's table our disappointment that female representation hasn't grown in over two years, and check back again in six months. If it's not better then, we'll flip some tables, rhetorically speaking. But hopefully things will improve. We'll find out when we do the July 2014 stats!

To learn more about this statistics project and its methodology click here, and to see the previous stats click here. You can visit Tim at Straitened Circumstances and follow him on Twitter@timhanley01. His book Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World's Most Famous Heroine is available for pre-order, and comes out April 1.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!