I wrote a post earlier this week about the relaunch of DC’s regular titles which includes their entry into same-day digital. In that post, I lamented that DC’s digital marketing was lacking and that the company wasn’t even trying to reach out to new readers, particularly women.
The post was noticed on some popular comic book sites, which was gratifying, but more than a few of those commenting on the subject basically said “girls just don’t read comic” or “girls just don’t like superheroes.”
Womanthology Cover
But now there’s proof that not only do “girls” read comics, they’re willing to quickly back up that desire with hard, cold cash.
Womanthology, a massive independent all-female comics anthology with an all-star lineup of female creators, asked on Thursday for funding to pay IDW Publishing the cost of printing the anthology. Within 24 hours, Womanthology had reached their funding goal of $24,000. As of this writing, the project had received over $36,000.
They had over 600 people pledging dollars and almost 293 of them pledged over $50. In less than one day.
Now, it’s true that there are some big name creators associated with the comic, including Barbara Kesel, Annie Nocenti, Gail Simone, Devin Grayson and Ming Doyle.
And it’s true that to make a outreach a success, DC needs more than 600 new female readers.
But this interest is for an independent project of original stories, traditionally a much harder sell in the comics market which tends to be dominated by Marvel and DC.
Creators involved in Womanthology gave the fundraising a push via social media sites like Twitter and Facebook but I can only imagine what would happen if DC Comics put the full force of their marketing behind a project with their heroes by female creators. And I mean full force, such as getting into social media and create a buzz among the bloggers that are so key to success in the digital market, something DC hasn’t done yet, as I pointed out earlier this week.
