Wall Street Journal reports on comics shocker!:
Industry heavyweights including DC Comics and Marvel Entertainment Inc. are betting that girls represent a big growth opportunity for the traditionally male-dominated medium. It’s part of a renewed push in recent years to court a new audience with products aimed squarely at teenage girls.
The new titles are inspired in part by the growth of translated Japanese comics called manga. While violent themes aimed at boys are staples of manga, fantasy and romantic storylines have helped manga capture female readers.
Just the other day I was in our local Border’s with my family, when I saw two teenaged girls walk up to the spinner rack looking at what was available. They both talked about reading Sabrina and one recommended “Teen Titans Go!” but not the regular Teen Titans book to the other girl. Those are also books my 11-year old daughter reads and would recommend.
I thought it was interesting for a couple of reasons:
1) They were at the spinner rack, not the manga section. Publishers please take note.
2) This Border’s is in a mall. No need to go to a comic store when the books are at the mall! This Border’s also orders more copies of the books they mentioned than the local comics retailers do. DC’s Johnny DC books and the Archie books are always well-represented at Border’s and seem to sell well.
3) The books they mentioned have strong TV ties. I know the Big Two are trying to sell their universe franchises, but maybe stepping away from them a bit would be good. Dark Horse’s Buffy series regularly sells out at this Border’s.
No conclusions. Just reporting what I saw…
Reading comics, hell. Getting ready to take over is more like it! Any publisher who doesn’t know this needs to have its head examined.
I suspect, however, that many publishing accountants will notice before the editors – this trend will effect the bottom line.
Our local Border’s is a zoo on weekends. The manga aisle is always packed.
Can’t recall the last time I saw that many kids reading comics at a comic shop.
Of course girls read comics! Everybody knows that comics are a subliterate medium, requiring pictures and words to tell a story. As such, they are ideally suited to the lesser cognitive abilities of the fairer sex.
hmmm. My Friends Of Lulu membership card just burst into flames…
At my B&N, the floor fills up after school. Wish they would hang out at the cafe…
Yep, the ladies do read comic books. All kinds of ’em, too.
I’ve noticed women at conventions, comic book shops, bookstores and online chatting about them.
I hear there are female comic book journalists as well… but that just sounds crazy.
DUH! These guys are really on the ball!
Girls read comics? You don’t say! ;)
But yes, I’m a girl who reads comics (Superman!!) and I’m trying to persuade two of my female friends to get into them, too. Superhero comics no less but maybe that’s too big a leap right now and I should lure them in first with Spider-man loves Mary-Jane (they’d love it) or Supergirl and THEN go with Superman, Batman, etc. ;) Kekekeke. They do love the movie versions, so…
I wish I could have a pull list but we don’t get American comics here in my part of Europe, at least I’ve never seen any, and online comic stores (mostly from the UK, they’re the closest English-speaking country) won’t accept a pull list that has less than 5 titles or something like that. *sigh* I could have saved a lot on international shipping and wouldn’t have to browse eBay all the time… My list would consist of Superman, Action Comics and Supergirl for starters but it’s too short a list for most stores! Too bad, really.
When I visited a comic shop on a trip in Germany, I nearly jumped up and down with excitement because I never saw so many American comics at a glance! *laugh* There was a girl with blue colored hair (an anime/manga fan, probably) looking at me oddly when she saw the titles I brought to the counter. There was one manga (“Honey and Clover”) and about 5 Superman related titles. :) She must have thought the manga was for me but Superman was for my boyfriend or brother. But the owner gave me a huge grin which was really cool.
That was my first time reading US comics. “All-Star Superman #2”. I’ll never forget the day.
I got started reading comics b/c of there being a comic rack in Chapters and Indigo :D It was much later that I decided to venture into one of those scary comic shops. XD