Comics page census 2008

[roadrunnertwice]

Webcomics** that I read "regularly:"***

Short form - that is to say, governed by the conceptual unit of the "strip:"

• Written by men: 25.
• Written by women: 11.
• Written by a team composed of both men and women:* 2

Long form - that is to say, governed by the conceptual unit of the "page:"

• Written by men: 5.
• Written by women: 8.
• Written by a team composed of both men and women: 1

Pointless Math:

• Men: 66% of short form, 36% of long form, 58% total.
• Women: 29% of short form, 57% of long form, 37% total.
• Both: 5%, 7%, and 6%.

Yeah, whatever. Where're you trying to go with this?

Y'know, I'm not really sure. That particular conversation rises up from the grave about once a year (though I think it's currently in its dormant phase), but it just occurred to me that I'd never gone in with actual numbers in hand. And then I remembered how, if more than a third of the room is female, most of the people asked to estimate will say that they outnumber the men. So I figured it was worth a count.

Anyone else? Numbers?

_____
* A Softer World counts. Smithson doesn't.

** Aside from always picking up the latest Finder and Scott Pilgrim (which conveniently cancel each other out), I don't read any print comics "regularly."

*** I realize that looks like a fuck of a lot of comics. The magic of LJ and a good RSS reader keep me from looking like a lab rat repeatedly hitting his cocaine button.

Comments

[froborr.livejournal.com]

Not going to bother dividing by form, because I don't read enough comics for that...

Written by men: 9
Written by a mixed-gender team: 1

...Wow, that's kind of disturbing. If you include comics where I occasionally just jump in and read the archives starting approximately where I left off:

Written by men: 13
Written by women: 1
Written by a mixed-gender team: 1

That's still pretty bad. I used to read a lot more comics written by women, but CRFH! got boring, Narbonic ended, that one comic about the girl with the talking ferret never went anywhere, likewise that manga-style one about the girl trapped in her dreamscape, Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden hasn't had a new volume translated in a year, and so on.

[roadrunnertwice]

If you want to leaven it a bit, you might find yourself enjoying Cat and Girl, Templar AZ, Nobody Scores, Family Man, and Dicebox. (Particularly Dicebox, as it may be the best SF comic running right now.)

(Pardon my lack of links, for I am lazy today.)

[roadrunnertwice]

Also, you're reading Garrity's new daily strip, right? That's the mixed team one? Because if not...

[froborr.livejournal.com]

Nobody Scores! is a woman? Oh, in that case I regularly read 8 by men and one by a woman.

[roadrunnertwice]

NO! Excuse me, I seem to have gotten that completely wrong. It's a guy.

[shaenon.livejournal.com]

The 2007 "best of" lists I wrote up for Comixology (http://www.comixology.com/articles/13/All-the-Comics-in-the-World-5) break down like so...

Print Comics: 3 by men, 1 by a woman, 1 by a man/woman team
Webcomics: 2 by men, 3 by women
Reprints of Classic Comics: 4 by men, 1 by a woman
Manga: 3 by women, 2 by men

There are so many great ladies in webcomics. I didn't even include Dicebox on my list, and it's one of my all-time favorites.

[roadrunnertwice]

Dude, yes. (I just about flipped out when I heard she'd be done with Book 1 by the end of the year.)