Here's a very well reasoned rebuttal to your logic by Occasional Superheroine
http://occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/2009/01/show-them-money.html

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with the latter category being dominant for a long time now. Also she blocks and deletes contradictory comments, so all the good rebuttals to *her* post must be found elsewhere.

But the rebuttals hinge on the fact that a) many of these "strong female character" books actually stunk (or were mediocre), in various ways, including b) they're *still* primarily being made to appeal to the stereotypical fanboy gaze and taste, and some of us get damn sick of trying to overcome all the buttfloss and lordosis to read a story that may or may *not* be "empowering" or even meaningful in the slightest to us, c) they were NOT promoted by the studios, at least not on any of the comics blogs or media sites that I couldn't click on a single page without having either Wolverine's claws or Witchblade's tits shoved at me multiple times.

And if "you have to buy the crap they're shoveling" is her argument for us to get *less* crap - well, that just doesn't work. All that does is get *more* crap, which is what we're frustrated with. Painting crap pink, as someone else said about a similar situation of "games for girl gamers", doesn't make it stink any less.

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I'm not sure that her point was "you have to buy the crap they're shoveling", rather it was simply a recognition that the companies don't have an obligation to keep female centered books on the shelves if the sales numbers don't add up. I agree with that.

I'm someone that really really liked Minx and thought that with more than 12 months support it would have started to really become something special. A year is not long enough of a saturation time for a publishing business model.

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then a) the sales numbers WON'T add up, because it's crap and pandering crap too, b) to interpret this as "there is no market for GOOD female-centered materials" is both intellectually dishonest, and stupid from a business perspective, but that has never stopped a single businessman (or woman) from making such a decision. (Jennifer of Hathor Legacy has gone into this from the Hollywood insider's perspective, repeatedly: the big boys don't *want* to believe that women could be a good market, and deny all counterevidence that contradicts this, even if it means that they are passing up potential markets. Girl cooties on money = bad.)

Now, myself, I would never have picked up Minx, because I'm a thoroughgoing genre fan and it was marketed as Srs Literchoor for the Young Ladies, which neither my teenage self nor my current incarnation would have touched voluntarily with long poles. Plus a twee & patronizing title. Maybe I would have liked some of it (especially seeing as there was more genre cooties to it than they let on) though I remain doubtful from the reviews, but even so, they did everything wrong to reach the target audiences, starting with the book cover designs - demonstrably, with decades of book marketing to YA readers out there - that they could have, as if they *wished* it to fail so that they could say "See? We tried, but nobody was interested!" the way that Jennifer Kessler has described, again, how so many action-heroine and female-centered drama movies have been set up to fail by the studios.

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I loved Minx and bought every book. I was willing to give new authors a try just because it was under the Minx line.

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I agree to a certain extent but I don't think a poor writer should be supported if she is writing a female superhero. White Tiger was cool. Wonder Woman is tanking because, from my understanding (behind on Wonder Woman) the story isn't good.

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Wonder Woman has been spiraling down since Eric Luke left years ago. George Perez put life into her for YEARS; John Byrne put the first stake in her heart. Eric Luke resisitated her for a while, then there was a collective cluster f-ing of her character - the worst being Walt Simeonson who should never be allowed near the character again.

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I liked Greg Rucka's run.

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Interesting topic...I've linked back to this in my personal journal.

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I like your icon! Did you get any good response in your personal journal?

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They weren't impressed with Tyler's article, and they also commented how they would like to see more female villains and less women in skimpy outfits. So generally the responses were okay.

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I agree about women in skimpy outfits! I remember I was reading Green Lantern once and some villians busted Fatality out of jail and her prison uniform was tight and low cut and all I could think was "really? really? really?"

The best thing to happen to Catwoman was her new outfit and they just made it skimpier over time. Sigh.

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Pshawf. Female superheroes only exist to serve as eye-candy, anyway.

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Tell that to Wonder Woman...

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Wonder Woman is the quintessential eye-candy.

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you mean the traditional target of sapphic imagery and and bondage scenarios.

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That's the one.

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