Weekly Reports

Settling into a Trend

A small-ish week for the pull list sees things pretty much on trend. A little low on the number of diverse books, but with the margin of error. I'm traveling next week so things will be late and I may quite possibly not get all the books I want! Heaven forfend!

Speaking of which, I had to back-order Nancy Drew #3, Flavor #4 and The Seeds #1 and they all came in today, so while they aren't reflected in this week's totals, they're brightening my smile. David Aja and Ann Nocenti? More Kelly Thompson than expected? What a world!

Let's talk about what's good this week:

• Speaking of Kelly Thompson, Mr. & Mrs. X #2 and West Coast Avengers #1 are out today, and I'm ready for her to be the chief architect at Marvel. I hope the industry at large is paying attention to how fun, smart, and rooted-in-continuity her work has been. Her Hawkeye run leads pretty directly into West Coast Avengers, and if you didn't read it, do yourself a favor and get the trades.
• The Life of Captain Marvel #2 is out and while I liked all of Margaret Stohl's previous work on Captain Marvel, I didn't connect with it the way I did the Kelly Sue Deconnick run - which is certainly not an insult. This run seems to be playing better to her strengths and I'm excited to see where it goes.
• Lumberjanes is out and as always it's the book that always puts the biggest smile on my face on the whole list. If you think this middle-aged man is embarrassed to be delighted by a middle-grade book for girls, you haven't read Lumberjanes. What are you doing with your life?

Well, that's enough cheery news. It's 2018 so let's get upset:

• Doctor Aphra and Darth Vader are both out today, and for reasons I can't understand, stay men-only. How does Hollywood understand that women like Star Wars better than Marvel comics? 
• Frank Tieri's Jughead-as-werewolf once again needs 8 men to put out one book. Part of the reason the stats by creator look so damning is that men are more likely to work on big high-profile books that have stricter deadlines, and when they get delayed they throw more men at the problem.
• This also explains Jason Aaron's 7-man Avengers creative team. You managed to put two women on the Avengers, but you can't get any to draw the Avengers? Weak sauce.
• It's not like I'm not excited about comics in the "zero gender diversity" pile. Phil Noto is great on Daredevil, Black Hammer is consistently great, and more Beasts of Burden means more Evan Dorkin. It's just that when I look at the books in the other pile I feel like there's a better chance that female characters will get represented as fully human.

Okay, that's it for this week. Things are pretty stable, but it's a pretty shitty level to be stable at. 

This Week's Books

• The Amazing Spider-Man #4 - (1+4) 👍
• Avengers #6 - (0+7)
• Beasts of Burden: Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men #1 - (0+3)
• Black Hammer: Age of Doom #4 - (0+4)
• Black Panther #3 - (0+3)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 12: #3 - (0+9)
• Curse Words Summer Swimsuit Special #1 - (0+5)
• Daredevil #607 - (0+3)
• Detective Comics #987 - (1+4) 👍
• Die! Die! Die! #2 - (0+5)
• Hit-Girl #7 - (1+3) 👍
• Hunt for Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor #4 - (0+6)
• Jughead: The Hunger #8 - (0+8)
• The Life of Captain Marvel #2 - (2+4) 👍
• Lumberjanes #53 - (5+0) 👍
• Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur #34 - (2+2) 👍
• Mr. & Mrs. X #2 - (1+3) 👍
• Quantum & Woody #9 - (0+4)
• Real Science Adventures: The Nicodemus Job #2 - (3+1) 👍
• Royal City #14 - (0+2)
• Shanghai Red #3 - (0+3)
• Star Wars: Darth Vader #20 - (0+6)
• Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #23 - (0+4)
• Wakanda Forever: Avengers #1 - (1+3) 👍
• West Coast Avengers #1 - (2+2) 👍
• X-Men Red #7 - (1+3) 👍

Titles in bold are new #1s and a 👍 indicates a book with a least one non-cis-male creator. Numbers in parentheses are the total non-cis-male and total cis-male creators.

This Week's Stats

All Posts