A Way Of Life

Women read comics. Anyone at all engaged in social media knows this. Women read comics and are a driving force behind fandom. I think I could call them the driving force behind fandom and put up a convincing argument. Just think about it: what fandoms have driven America crazy in the last decade? Could anyone dissuade me from saying that they were Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games? “Avatar” may have put butts in theater seats, but you don’t hear about it… ever. No one is immersed in the world of “Avatar” except James Cameron and people who enjoy wearing Na’vi Zentai suits. “The Avengers” was pretty darn huge and, if Tumblr is any indication, a whopping portion of the people driving that fandom online do not possess a Y chromosome. Women engage in fandom to levels that men do not. When women get behind something, their sheer numbers and passion force it into the mainstream. That’s why you can name the actor who plays that werewolf kid in “Twilight” and probably sing at least the chorus to one Justin Bieber song. What do tween boys like? I have no clue. Sports? Probably sports.

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Brett White, Comic Book Resources (via wandrinparakeet)

and yet men remain the most marketed demographic for just about everything.

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I’m pretty sure the only men who spend more time thinking about DC than women on Tumblr are the men who actually work there.

(via touchofgrey37)

people still act fucking surprised when women show up for genre shit

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Holy shit—seeing a quote with over 14,000 notes from one of your oldest friends is… amazing. Tumblr! Women. Nerd stuff? Brett White!

(via khealywu)

LISTEN TO BRETT WHITE

(via deantrippe)

This is why we need more epic Young Adult-themed comic series, with great characters and worlds you can just get lost in. Imagine if a series with the imaginative scale and characters of Harry Potter were a comic first… Imagine if you could get the young adult female market engaged far beyond what we see today… A fraction of the success of series like HP, Twilight, or The Hunger Games (all of which are pure genre fiction, which comics excel at) would change the comics marketplace forever…

It drives me insane that this isn’t happening on a larger scale. Young women read more than ANY OTHER demographic. And in the digital age, there’s no barrier to entry. If someone wants to read something, it’s right at their fingertips. And yet so little of the market is trying to tell those kinds of stories, that have that kind of appeal. It practically dares the existing female audience to give up on the medium. It’s infuriating. There’s an incredible power to harness here, and I think people are starting to see it… But there’s so much more to do.

All it takes is one entryway. Harry Potter transformed Young Adult fiction from a couple shelves in your local book store to a whole wall of shelves with its own subgenres. I’m waiting for the comic that does that. 

(via jamesthefourth)