Oh definitely. I wasn't making any conclusions with my data--simply presenting them. In fact I've been playing devil's advocate with most of the people here. I only did it because DC was claiming to be more diverse, and I wanted to see if they lived up to their promise.
I purposefully avoided putting my opinions in with the numbers in order to prevent them from being skewed one way or the other, and to enable people to draw their own conclusions. That being said, here is my personal opinion on the matter:
I believe they're making a step in the right direction, but the numbers show they're far from perfect. Both companies need to improve upon diversity in their comics, but I also feel like while Marvel doesn't have more solo titles, they tend to treat their minority characters with more respect. Luke Cage is one of the greatest characters they have, and though he doesn't have his own solo he's in a lot.
I doubt most of those titles, ESPECIALLY the minority ones, will last. I'm not wishing death upon them by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the fact of comics publishing. And I think the minority ones will suffer the most simply because there isn't a lot of name recognition in most of them. I'll be picking up a bunch of them to support them, but if the story isn't strong enough, they won't last. That, to me, is the greatest difference between DC and Marvel. Marvel (typically, but not always) gives readers a reason to care about a character (no matter what), before haphazardly giving them their own title. X23 was in NYX and X-Force before getting her own ongoing. Daken was in Wolverine Origins, then Dark Avengers before first stealing his father's ongoing (all of the "Dark" Avengers stole their real counterparts ongoings if applicable with the exception of Venom), before finally getting his own. If they came out with a Luke Cage ongoing tomorrow I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. I'm not saying that minority characters need to be shoved into team books before being analyzed and potentially given their own books. I'm saying that minority characters (and even all those white men they're fond of publishing) need to be interesting and engaging for people to read them. Sadly, it's just harder for minority characters.
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timeasmymeasure
I apologize for the incoming wall of text
Date: 2011-06-10 03:08 am (UTC)I purposefully avoided putting my opinions in with the numbers in order to prevent them from being skewed one way or the other, and to enable people to draw their own conclusions. That being said, here is my personal opinion on the matter:
I believe they're making a step in the right direction, but the numbers show they're far from perfect. Both companies need to improve upon diversity in their comics, but I also feel like while Marvel doesn't have more solo titles, they tend to treat their minority characters with more respect. Luke Cage is one of the greatest characters they have, and though he doesn't have his own solo he's in a lot.
I doubt most of those titles, ESPECIALLY the minority ones, will last. I'm not wishing death upon them by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the fact of comics publishing. And I think the minority ones will suffer the most simply because there isn't a lot of name recognition in most of them. I'll be picking up a bunch of them to support them, but if the story isn't strong enough, they won't last. That, to me, is the greatest difference between DC and Marvel. Marvel (typically, but not always) gives readers a reason to care about a character (no matter what), before haphazardly giving them their own title. X23 was in NYX and X-Force before getting her own ongoing. Daken was in Wolverine Origins, then Dark Avengers before first stealing his father's ongoing (all of the "Dark" Avengers stole their real counterparts ongoings if applicable with the exception of Venom), before finally getting his own. If they came out with a Luke Cage ongoing tomorrow I'd pick it up in a heartbeat. I'm not saying that minority characters need to be shoved into team books before being analyzed and potentially given their own books. I'm saying that minority characters (and even all those white men they're fond of publishing) need to be interesting and engaging for people to read them. Sadly, it's just harder for minority characters.