Another perspective on the comic...

[pandorasblog]

While delving through my comics/feminism RSS feeds, I ran across an article: Why The Anita Blake Comic Won't Succeed (And Trust Me, I Want To Be Wrong). It turns out to be less an article on the likelihood of that particular comic doing well, and more one on why the author doesn't seem to think that many women read comics at all (began commenting, then realised it was turning into an essay; life's too short, yadda yadda yadda). Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting to have a line on the comic from outside the immediate fandom, and this is a particularly ironic one since LKH seems to have added First Ever Bringer Of Comics To Wimminkind to her list of imagined accomplishments...

Comments

[pandorasblog]

I know; I was bemused! She does say that she's generalising based on romance readers, and seems to use the term 'women' when she means only middle-aged mothers. Had I posted my extra-large comment (it's really awful that typing the words 'extra large' on this community brings up an involuntary mental image of Micah 's schlong), I would have pointed out that:

a) fans in their teens and early twenties, the generation which I'm part of, tend to have higher disposable incomes and therefore to buy more comics (though my general cash-drought leads me to opt for more trade paperbacks: better value);

b) I've always been welcomed with open arms in any fanboy environment, based on the fact that geek guys really dig it when they find women who can converse with them on their favourite subject; and

c) I'd guess that most women even in the age/lifestage group she mentions avoid buying comics not because of the cost or the fanboys, but because as a group they are unlikely to be aware that there might be comics out there to interest them. Comics have come a long way since that generation's childhood, and even so, many people in the mainstream of both sexes and various ages are simply unaware of them because assumptions about the nature of comics tend to be made based on a passing or assumed knowledge of the most famous superhero books.

I do think you're right on the money when you mention the books being marketed to the 'porny end of the romance market' - it would certainly explain how people are gravitating to them who wouldn't previously have been involved with a sci-fi/fantasy/horror fandom. Probably there are a lot of newer fans for whom the books are their token vampire/monster fantasy, rather than one expression of the concept of vampires and monsters. And that's okay; it'd be a dull world if we all had the same background. But it does strike me that there must be a lot more misunderstandings out there...