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This Makes Sense

Did NYCC Prove The Need For Diversity In Comics?

by Jill Pantozzi | 2:47 pm, October 20th, 2011


The New 52 has been a success at getting outliers interested in comics again. But looking around the Javits, at the ocean of non-white faces, and of female faces, it became VERY clear to me that all the angry blog posts begging for more diversity in the comics isn’t just a few loudmouths—even though they are treated as such by the big companies. It’s the reality of the world. Reaching this audience through inclusion might just be the most important goal for the mainstream comics industry’s continued survival. – Heidi MacDonald writing her New York Comic Con wrap-up for The Beat.

It’s just a little maddening having been one of those “loudmouths” myself to see this particular aspect of conventions, and in turn comics, so obviously noticed by what seems like everyone but those like DC Comics who really need to experience it. Not having attended any of the DC panels at NYCC (a first for me), I can’t say whether or not the demographics were represented the same way there but the point is – if they are at a convention they are potential readers/new readers. Wouldn’t it make sense to provide something they can see themselves in?

(via The Beat)

Previously in NYCC 2011

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  • Anonymous

    Been saying it for years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3bwHtwQviw

    (Excuse the slapdash editing).

  • Liz Damnit

    Hi, that was my first ComicCon – I’m one of those Elusive New Readers ™!  And I was simultaneously gladdened and cheesed off by that weird effect you mention.  Fandoms are (and have been for ages) way more diverse than “we” are “told”, witness the wonderfully diverse crowds at NYCC for one.  But to hear of big names continuing to treat it as a sideline problem, or (worse) simple griping drives me farther away from mainstream fandoms.  Did you catch the Queer Women of Comics panel on Friday – it was pretty late and out of the way but one of the better ones that tackled this issue.

  • http://twitter.com/WhamCalker Cameron Walker

    Seems to me like the new 52 was almost business as usual for DC in terms of diversity and the representation of women, but with a heightened readership came more critical attention. I myself started a blog to write about it and was consistently surprised by the new 52′s failed attempt at progress.

    I hope that this increased critical debate, and what it took DC to task on, will actually encourage them to pander to us. To, you know, draw women as women and not bodies, and realize that not just white men would have super powers.

    I’m not typically an optimist, but the power of capitalism is at least predictable.

  • Anonymous
  • Anonymous

    tiny.cc/qcfnd

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=742530231 Amanda Jean Carroll

    I think the only thing that would “prove” it to DC would be some sort of cash reward. For all that I’m frustrated and kinda hurt by this entire New 52 fiasco, DC is a business — and I happen to not think that they’re running it very well, but the only things that will make them diversify are money and time — because the root problem here isn’t only that the cast of characters isn’t diverse, it’s also that DC doesn’t have a diverse group of employees. 
    And the reason for that is, I think, not racism but cronyism. DC doesn’t seem to be much on the lookout for new talent — they just hire people they know, people they’re friends with. So, mostly white dudes who themselves don’t always fit into DC’s much-vaunted demographic due to age. If they want their books to have diversity, THESE are the people creating it. And some of them are incredibly talented, but others… not so much. Some of them can write a black woman and others… not so much. 

  • Life Lessons

    Yes. And I think I would like to go to the NYCC soon.

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