I think this all comes back to the fundamental concept that not every comic book is for every reader. It is possible for us to be doing more than one thing at a given time.
So yes, we are striving to do a greater number of titles that will appeal to women. But we’re also continuing to try to do a great number of titles that will appeal to other people as well.
Every book cannot be all things to all people.
I believe that the discussion about the depiction of women in comics is valuable, and that necessary change will only happen will only happen in the wake of such conversation. But I also believe that change of this nature is typically a long, slow process. Things do not improve overnight, and even after months or years or decades, there may still be further to travel. (Which is a depressing thought, I know, but there you have it.)
dust-libation
The whole answer is utter bullshit i don’t even know where to start.
~~So yes, we are striving to do a greater number of titles that will appeal to women. But we’re also continuing to try to do a great number of titles that will appeal to other people as well.~~
“Other people”? Do you mean (white straight) men?? Basically, that’s what you’re saying: “We’re aware that some of our readers are women so we try to bribe them with some female titles but our main attention is still on male audience”. Do you know that about a half of comics readers now are female? So why do you dismiss and avert a h a l f of your audience so easily and clearly on purpose, not only by putting the highly questionable male artist and the inconsistent male writer onto the female book, but also by stating that female titles won’t be appealing to anyone but women?
~~I think this all comes back to the fundamental concept that not every comic book is for every reader. It is possible for us to be doing more than one thing at a given time.~~
Translating: “Sorry, we’re not so interested in you now, a random female reader, you’re not so important. Oh, you don’t like the book we are/were/will be creating for you? Well, you can’t please everyone with just one book.”
~~Every book cannot be all things to all people.~~
No, perhaps it can’t. But to make a book that will be read by both men and women with equal pleasure is not hard a t a l l (i don’t think you need any examples, there are plenty), so these are just your shitty excuses and you surely won’t help the dying industry with them.
Back to Spider-Woman issue: i put aside the awful Manara variant cover, let’s talk about the casual Land’s cover the book will be selling with: why would anyone (especially women) want to buy the book where on the cover they see one woman with as-if-amputated legs and the other with clearly wrong anatomy? Do you think it’s pleasing to the eye? Let me share a secret with you: it’s absolutely not.
I love Jessica Drew a lot and i was happy to hear that she would finally get an ongoing, but with the announcement of the book’s creators all my excitement came to naught; now, seeing the covers and previews, I know I won’t be spending my money on something like this and it makes me extremely bitter because I was ready to buy the well-written and well-drawn book about Jessica. The thing you’re pulling is insulting not only to the audience but to the character too. Jessica Drew surely deserves a better fate than this.
It’s laughable that later you wonder why female books are not selling and “the changing of depiction of women in comics is such a long process”. It’s just company’s laziness, negligence and carelessness towards female characters and almost total ignorance of potential female audience. It’s not so hard to continually start hiring more and more women and pull out more female high-quality books with respectfully treated ladies in there to change the situation; so everything you say now is just, i repeat, shitty and ridiculous excuses.