Colleen Coover (Again)

Writing for The Oregonian, Steve Duin reminds us that there are other women working in comics besides than Gail Simone; in this case YACB fave Colleen Coover. It's a rather nice profile of her career so far.

In regards to our previous post about women creators at the big four, I am reminded that, while Coover has been doing semi-frequent back-ups for X-Men: First Class, they are rarely if ever mentioned in the solicits. On the one hand that makes it always a nice surprise when her work shows up; on the other, maybe it would behoove Marvel to mention her participation as a selling point?

Women Creators at Marvel & DC (and Image & Dark Horse)

David Welsh's recent post about tips for media writers when writing about female comic creators got me to thinking: just how many women are writing or drawing comics at the major pop comics publishers?

Let's go counting through the April solicits!

(Note: I'm not counting manga or OGNs.)

Marvel:

Writers: 2: Robin Furth on Dark Tower & Lords of Avalon; Jessica Ruffner on Anita Blake.

Artists: 1: Adriana Melo on Ms. Marvel.


DC:

Writers: 2: Amy Wolfram on Teen Titans Year One; Gail Simone on Wonder Woman & Welcome to Tranquility

Artists: 2: Nicola Scott on Birds of Prey; Sandra Hope on World of Warcraft


Image:

Writers: none

Artists: 1: Laura Allred on Madman Atomic Comics


Dark Horse:

Writers: none

Artists: 1: Jan Duursema on Star Wars: Legacy



So as far as creator gender representation in mainstream comics goes, things are no better than they were ten, twenty or thirty years ago--the days of Louise Simonson, Jo Duffy, Ann Nocenti, June Brigman, Marie Severin, Ramona Fradon, etc.

One might think that, with more titles being pushed out these days, there would be opportunities for more creators, and that some of those slots would be filled by women creators.

It's hard to address the why of the gender imbalance without speaking in supposition and generalities. I think that there are a combination of factors at work, some of which boil down to a lack of desire on the part of female creators to work on corporate super-hero comics when there are plenty of other avenues available for their creative expression.

(1/28: Edited, 'cause I totally spaced and left off Jan Duursema.)