Monday, July 10, 2006

In defense of Joey Q

In a recent post I invited readers to respond to Joe Quesada's peculiar comment about why there were no women creators on any of Marvel's major titles by posting to a thread at Newsarama. The support was a bit pathetic, and only two people followed it up.

So I doubt it will get any further, but interestingly I did get a response in the thread.
It's interesting because this is quite specifically not a discussion thread so it is out of order for someone to comment on another person's post. And it almost guarantees that the response will go unopposed, because the original poster would also have to break the rules to respond, and then the whole thing starts to get messy.

It's just as well I have a forum all of my own, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Marionette
from this week's Joe Friday:



So there are no female creators at Marvel because Marvel doesn't have any female creators working for them? That's not exactly my idea of an answer. Perhaps I can rephrase the question; why are there no female writers working on any major Marvel titles? And "because there aren't any" is not an acceptable answer.

It also begs the question of who is ultimately responsible for there not being any female writers working on any major Marvel titles (are there any women writers on Marvel titles at all right now?). Would that perhaps be you, Joe? Could it be that the actual answer to "why are there no female writers working on any major Marvel titles" would be "because I didn't hire any"?

Many, many people would be interested to know.

Beta Ray responds:

Breaking format here sorry... Just wondering, what answer would possibly satisfy you?


Would Joe saying "We asked them but they all did not want to join" be good enough? It's not like there are no females working at Marvel...



What answer would satisfy me?

The head of Marvel saying "You know, maybe there is a bit of an imbalance here, and since our industry is dying for lack of an audience it might be worth trying something totally off the wall and radical just this once and hiring a representative from the other half of the population to do something creative."

If Joe said "We asked them but they all did not want to join" I would like to know what was so different in the terms of employment he offers women from the ones he offers men, since he doesn't seem to have any problem hiring them.

It's not like there are no [minority group] working at [almost anywhere].

Fish, here is your barrel.

Aren't you just embarassed for even writing that?

But remember the circumstances of the original question was the Marvel "summit" where the big dogs plan the direction for their books in the months ahead. No women present = no women have any input into this important creative strategy session. It doesn't matter how many female editors they have, how many women in any positions in the company; they weren't there so they don't get a say. Joe's lame obfuscation is irrelevent and so is yours.

10 comments:

S Bates said...

No women present = no women have any input into this important creative strategy session

Actually, if you read the interview apparently there were female editors at the summit. Just no female writers.

To be honest, DC isn't much better. It has, I think, one female 'creator' working on its major titles and that is Gail Simone. Jodi Picoult is coming along to write Wonder Woman (I'm surprised to see you haven't mentioned that, btw. It's about time a woman wrote WW) in the near future but that's about it.

It's sad really. I'd like to think that the reason isn't due to prejudice but perhaps due to the general lack of 'superhero-genre' female writers in the literary world or female writers lack of interest to do superhero titles. Or something?

Marionette said...

So there are no female writers at Marvel because women aren't into superhero comics? Is that what you are saying?

Wake up and smell the estrogen. The fangirls are as mad as hell and they are not going to take this bullshit anymore. Follow my links to When Fangirls Attack and girl-wonder.org for updates on the revolution in progress.

the prophet king said...

So are a few fanboys. (still fuming over that damn "Ten Comics Your Girlfriend Will Like" List)
--
prophet king

S Bates said...

So there are no female writers at Marvel because women aren't into superhero comics? Is that what you are saying?

Erm, no. I don't know what the reason is. I said, "I'd like to think [it was due to some other reason other than prejudice]". i.e. I'd hope that the people hiring writers at Marvel aren't sexist. I suspect though that this isn't completely the case in reality.

But, then, I don't work there and so really can't comment with any authority.

Marionette said...

That's all well and cool, but the "some other reason" you posit appears to be a lack of female interest in producing superhero comics.

This is an incorrect assumption, and the two sites I mentioned give a wealth of evidence to refute it. In detail.

S Bates said...

That's all well and cool, but the "some other reason" you posit appears to be a lack of female interest in producing superhero comics.

No, that was just one of many possible reasons that could possibly explain the lack of female writers that popped into my head. It wasn't the only reason. Or even a valid reason. Just a possibility.

If there are as many women interested in writing superhero comics as there are men then, okay, this possible reason for the lack of female writers is incorrect. And, as I said, I suspect this is the case and that you are right.

In summary, I'm agreeing with you.

Anonymous said...

I'm fairly new to being on-line, can you refer me to somewhere which explains why the initial response is a breach of etiquette? Is there some general faq for interacting on blogs?

Anonymous said...

Sort of to the side of the topic, what happened to Devin Grayson? I thought she had penetrated the boys' club, but I don't think she has a regular assignment right now.

Phillip said...

david m, I believe the "ettiquette breach" occured when someone responded directly to Marionette's comment, instead of the original post/topic. Apparently, that's a no-no on that particular Newsarama board. Although, not here, that's why I can respond to you.

Marionette- Good on ya for pointing out Joe Q's meaningless statement. "Because"? No, that's not good enough.

Anonymous said...

I hate Joey Q especially for what he did to x-23. How in hell are you going to have a children's character become a prostitute that cuts herself? The character originated from the X-men Evolution cartoon and should have been off limits.