No Woman, No Cry?

Here's a question I often ask myself when con season rolls around and panel reports start coming in: where the hell are the women? I'm not talking about female creators like Colleen Doran and Gail Simone; I'm talking about women in the audience, women like Ragnell, Kalinara and Karen Healey, who have a lot to say about certain practices by the Big Two. Why is it that when Frank Miller holds court, there are no women with rotten tomatoes handy to show him what they think of Vicki Vale's ass?

It's sort of an extension of what bugs me about WizardWorld con reports, where EIC panels are so banal, so heavily involved in mutual masturbation (Joe Quesada: "Hey, kids! We've got a new 80-part crossover coming!" Audience: "BOOYAH!"), and if someone does step up to the plate, it'll usually be some incoherent fanboy who embarrasses himself by, I don't know, screaming that Brian Vaughan is a racist (based on... what?). In effect, Marvel and DC go unchallenged at the one venue where they're on equal ground with their readers and the comics press. And because there's no backlash, because no one contests the assertion that yes, we really need another weekly series to tie-in to other books that set-up the next crossover, the companies keep doing wrong what they've been doing wrong, and nothing changes.

What's so shocking is that there's an entire blogosphere of intelligent people like Lea Hernandez, Paul O'Brien, Graeme McMillan and Heidi McDonald - people who see the flaws, and can express themselves in a way that can't be ignored or laughed at by company administrators (see above, re: "BKV's a racist!"). So why do we never see such clear-headed individuals at cons, stepping up at a Cup of Joe hype session to announce "Joey, you've gotta lotta s'plainin' to do!"?

You just know that Paul O'Brien would reduce Quesada to tears and possibly seppuku in under five minutes; we'd all be better off.