This Wall Street Journal profile of Dark Horse VP Anita Nelson does not get off to a promising start:

Anita Nelson is one of only two female executives at a comic-book publisher in the last 10 years. Yet she says the only times in her career when she experienced gender bias was while she was working in telecommunications and cable TV, two industries where more women are present.


Huh? DC alone has half a dozen women on the masthead, with Jenette Kahn (now departed for her own production company) and Terri Cuningham springing to mind. So that’s, like, at least THREE. Granted there aren’t a ton, but there’s more than two.

Then, the next few paragraphs are the kind of odious “Wow! She carries a handbag! And yet she is allowed in the workplace!” that shouldn’t even be an issue in this day and age to a professional newspaper or organization.

At Dark Horse Comics, in Milwaukie, Ore., where she is vice president of sales, marketing and licensing, her gender has never been an issue, Ms. Nelson says.

While working alongside seven male executives and supervising about 20 workers — most of them male — she’s never felt like she’s any less valuable than her male colleagues or less advantaged in any way. The culture there is equally welcome to men and women, she says, and it’s one of the reasons she considers herself lucky.


Yes, and the womenfolk are even allowed to eat at the same table as the men, too! We’re very progressive in the US of A.

Yech. Is this part of the new Murdochified WSJ or just busines as usual?

1 COMMENT

  1. Methinks that the journalist views the industry as a mens club of sorts. The headline could be “SHAZAM! Women Make Comics!”
    And while Ms. Kahn is on longer on the masthead, Karen Berger is. Ms. Feierman is still a consultant?, so that counts as a half?

  2. The reporter credited with the story is a woman, which prompts the suspicion she might be telling her bosses, “See? Even comic-book publishers treat their female employees with respect! (Now when’s that going to start happening around here?)”

    However, those of us who know what goes on at large newspapers also know that anonymous copy-editors can twist the tone of a story completely inside-out and bass-ackwards, depending variously on said editor’s own proclivities or pressure from higher-ups. So ultimately all we can do is shrug, and order another drink.

  3. Is it possible that in “one of only two female executives at a comic-book publisher in the last 10 years.” ‘A comic-book publisher’ means just Dark Horse? It would be clumsily phrased, but it might explain the error.

  4. I stopped reading the much respected WSJ after it was taken over by the crazies. :(

    Thanks for the article though H. ;)

  5. omigod! there are WOMEN working in this industry??? no wait…I think I can name at least one other: Liza Copolla at Viz-certainly she counts too. Riiiiight?