On -isms: Headliners?

By | Thursday, September 25, 2014 Leave a Comment
Has anyone done a comprehensive comparison of titles Marvel (or DC) publishes now against what Timely (or National) published in the 1940s? Specifically, what percentage of titles were headlined by females? Not just comics that have female leads, but comics whose very titles are centered around the main female character.

Like, right now, Marvel is publishing Storm, Elektra, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, and Black Widow. Six titles. In 1947, they published Georgie, Miss America, Patsy Walker, Jeanie, Millie the Model, Margie, Nellie the Nurse, and Tessie the Typist. Eight titles. But that's comparing one month of Marvel to a while year of Timely. And those are just raw numbers, not a percentage of their overall output.

What I'm basically wondering is, how much more or less are the big publishers catering to women now compared to a half century ago. I'm not talking about the quality level here, or how sexist the stories might be, just how many were aimed at one half of the population.

Better yet, if someone has the time, I'd be curious to see how those numbers tracked month-to-month over the past 60 years.

What good would any of that do? Well, maybe none. But then again, it might show when changes were made, and that might suggest more directly where things went right/wrong.

There's a saying in business: what gets measured, gets improved.
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