"How Many Women Are Working In Comics Today?"

I've been doing research lately on exactly how many women have comic books, via Diamond, coming out each month.

It's been quite a learning experience for me. This learning experience is continuing. I haven't even really started the manga yet.

What is the percentage of comics created (in some capacity) by women in Previews in any given month? A rough estimate: about 10%.

Given this, to set out and purchase all the female-created comic books that come out on the stands on Wednesday is no big economic set-back for me. I become so familiar with the comics through the research that once I finally see them on the stands on Wednesday, they are sort of like "old friends." And so I pick them up.

This is not an endorsement of such a method of comics purchasing. This is just what I have consciously decided to do.

I'm doing this research for Friends of Lulu, and a lot of this hard data will be collected and presented, via our newsletter, to FoL members. But here is a list of the female comic book creators who will have books come out, via Diamond, over the next two months.
EDIT: this list does NOT include colorists or letterers. If the coloring & lettering information is not available through the Previews information, I would have to contact each publisher individually and go over every book they have. I do this research on a volunteer basis, as time permits between work. So unless I have volunteers to help gather and collate this information on a bi-monthly basis (we do these lists for two months at a time), it may be unlikely that I can include colorists and letterers at this point. If you feel strongly about this issue and would like to volunteer your time, please email me via the envelope icon on my sidebar
Gail Simone
Nicola Scott
Colleen Coover
Rhianna Pratchett
C.E. Murphy
Trudy Cooper
Rebekah Isaacs
Emily Stone
Charity Larrison
G. Willow Wilson
Barbara Randall Kesel
Ellie Bethel
Alexandra Colombo
Amy Reeder
Linda Medley
Emily Salzfass
Chrissy Delk
Christine Boylan
Bettina Kurkoski
Ariel Schrag
Fiona Staples
Nancy Butler
Robin Furth
Raina Telgemeier
Marjane Satrapi
Lark Pien
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Nikki Cook
Johanna Stokes
C. Tyler
Sho Murase
Sarah Kinney
Miss Lasko-Gross

Compared to the list of male comic creators with work coming out the same time, this is a relatively small group of names. But, to be honest, these are more names than I expected to find.

There are some caveats to this. One, if we added the female creators from independently-distributed comic books and webcomics, the number of women jumps dramatically. Two: like I said, I haven't taken into account female manga creators yet.

But when I'm interviewed, I am almost always asked how many women are working in comics today. I usually have a vague answer, along the lines of "not many," or "not enough."

I don't want to approach this issue in the future as a matter of vague answers. I want data. I want to take this out of the realm of vagueness and get to know names. I want to know names & content. I want the creators and the content to be the focus. I want what has been done to be the focus, not what hasn't.

(this post cross-posted at the Friends of Lulu blog)