One of the arguments I often hear is that reading comic books is mostly a male hobby, and the 'core' audience for comics is male. Comic book fans are often depicted as socially inept males by mainstream and pop culture media. You can see examples of this in the Simpson's 'Comic Book Guy' to the main stars of the 'Big Bang Theory'. To be a comic book fan is to be a male (and almost certainly straight and probably white) according to popular wisdom. This is not unique to comics. Assuming the main audience is straight, white males is a phenomenon seen in other 'niche' hobbies like video games as well as mass market entertainment like Hollywood movies.
Recently many fans online have expressed displeasure and discomfort when they see their favorite publishers or titles 'targeting' a demographic other than this assumed 'core audience' of men. The argument goes something like: 1. Your loyal audience who has kept you in business for years is male, so you should always consider their desires first and foremost. 2. Women don't buy comics and never will, so wasting money and energy trying to publish comics that will appeal to them is futile. 3. if you don't give us (men) what we want, we'll stop buying your comic books and you'll go out of business, so listen up!
Are the vast majority of comic book fans really male? Is it impossible to attract new female readers? Finding stringent research on these questions is difficult, in part because comic book readers have been such a small, niche group for a long time. But there are several indicators that indicate a fairly large number of comic book fans and readers are female, and this group is increasing in numbers.
The website, Graphic Policy, tracks monthly 'likes' and key terms related to comicbook fandom that people post on their Facebook profiles. When they first began mining data from Facebook, males did indeed outnumber females. Going back to 2013 there were twice as many male comic book fans as female comic book fans on Facebook, 2.5 million males to 1.2 million females. However this month (April 2018) female fans outnumber male fans on Facebook. There are 32 million female comic book fans on Facebook in the US and 28 million male fans, with 2 million unknown. Female fans have been the majority for the last 6 months, according to the article, and before that the split was 50/50 for a while.
Publisher's weekly surveyed physical comic book retailers in 2015, and although it was a small sample (ten stores) 60% responded that women accounted for 40-50% of their customers and the remaining 40% of stores responded that women accounted for about one third of their customers. All stores responded that women aged 17-30 accounted for the fastest growing segment of their customers.
I've mentioned in a previous blog, a 2015 study showed that half of the attendees for the nation's largest comicon were women. This MTV article, 'Why 2016 is the year we need to stop pretending women aren't geeks' mentions several of the data points I've already discusses and also points out that the audience breakdown for superhero TV shows and movies is fairly close, with women often accounting for somewhere between 40 - 50% of the audience.
Women appear to make up a large chunk of comic book fans, between one-third to half, based on what we can see. And historically, we've seen periods where women read comics in large numbers. During the 1940's, when both men and women read comics in massive numbers, and comics were more of a mass-market entertainment choice than the niche one they are today, according to this Atlantic article, 91% of all girls between 6-11 (and 95% of boys) read comics. 81% of girls between ages 12-17 (and 87% of boys) also read comics. That's HUGE! Another survey published by newsdealer suggested that more girls than boys were reading comics during this time.
So women have been and once again appear to be checking out comics and identifying as comic book fans in large numbers. But I still here people discussing female comics book readers as if they are such a tiny, tiny minority as to not even count. Why are these studies not more known to comic book fans? Is it because this information makes them uncomfortable?
This impression of women being such a tiny minority of comic book fans has fed into the common perception / meme of 'fake geek girls'. Next blog, I want to take a more in-depth look at the discussion the comic book community had about the existence of 'fake geek girls' after a comic book creator, Tony Harris, posted on facebook calling out many cosplaying women as 'fake geek girls.
Recently many fans online have expressed displeasure and discomfort when they see their favorite publishers or titles 'targeting' a demographic other than this assumed 'core audience' of men. The argument goes something like: 1. Your loyal audience who has kept you in business for years is male, so you should always consider their desires first and foremost. 2. Women don't buy comics and never will, so wasting money and energy trying to publish comics that will appeal to them is futile. 3. if you don't give us (men) what we want, we'll stop buying your comic books and you'll go out of business, so listen up!
Are the vast majority of comic book fans really male? Is it impossible to attract new female readers? Finding stringent research on these questions is difficult, in part because comic book readers have been such a small, niche group for a long time. But there are several indicators that indicate a fairly large number of comic book fans and readers are female, and this group is increasing in numbers.
The website, Graphic Policy, tracks monthly 'likes' and key terms related to comicbook fandom that people post on their Facebook profiles. When they first began mining data from Facebook, males did indeed outnumber females. Going back to 2013 there were twice as many male comic book fans as female comic book fans on Facebook, 2.5 million males to 1.2 million females. However this month (April 2018) female fans outnumber male fans on Facebook. There are 32 million female comic book fans on Facebook in the US and 28 million male fans, with 2 million unknown. Female fans have been the majority for the last 6 months, according to the article, and before that the split was 50/50 for a while.
Publisher's weekly surveyed physical comic book retailers in 2015, and although it was a small sample (ten stores) 60% responded that women accounted for 40-50% of their customers and the remaining 40% of stores responded that women accounted for about one third of their customers. All stores responded that women aged 17-30 accounted for the fastest growing segment of their customers.
I've mentioned in a previous blog, a 2015 study showed that half of the attendees for the nation's largest comicon were women. This MTV article, 'Why 2016 is the year we need to stop pretending women aren't geeks' mentions several of the data points I've already discusses and also points out that the audience breakdown for superhero TV shows and movies is fairly close, with women often accounting for somewhere between 40 - 50% of the audience.
Women appear to make up a large chunk of comic book fans, between one-third to half, based on what we can see. And historically, we've seen periods where women read comics in large numbers. During the 1940's, when both men and women read comics in massive numbers, and comics were more of a mass-market entertainment choice than the niche one they are today, according to this Atlantic article, 91% of all girls between 6-11 (and 95% of boys) read comics. 81% of girls between ages 12-17 (and 87% of boys) also read comics. That's HUGE! Another survey published by newsdealer suggested that more girls than boys were reading comics during this time.
So women have been and once again appear to be checking out comics and identifying as comic book fans in large numbers. But I still here people discussing female comics book readers as if they are such a tiny, tiny minority as to not even count. Why are these studies not more known to comic book fans? Is it because this information makes them uncomfortable?
This impression of women being such a tiny minority of comic book fans has fed into the common perception / meme of 'fake geek girls'. Next blog, I want to take a more in-depth look at the discussion the comic book community had about the existence of 'fake geek girls' after a comic book creator, Tony Harris, posted on facebook calling out many cosplaying women as 'fake geek girls.
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