Women in comics: as rare as tangerine unicorns, apparently

This week at San Diego Comic Con when Dan Didio, current co-publisher of DC Comics, was asked by a fan during the panel why more women didn’t work for DC, he responded by asking: “Who should we have hired?”

Maybe someone should send him a list:

• Jill Thompson
• Ming Doyle
• G. Willow Wilson
• Jen Van Meter
• Emma Rios
• Colleen Coover
• Nicola Scott
• Fiona Staples
• June Brigman
• Katie Cook
• Barbara Kesel
• Jo Chen
• Trina Robbins
• Chrissie Zullo
• Cat Staggs
• Bettie Breitweiser
• Pia Guerra
• Laura Allred
• Mandy McMurray
• And the list goes on!

There are hundreds of women with experience writing, drawing and creating comics– not to mention the infinite number of women writing indie comics. Women like Adriana Ferguson and K. Van Dam, who write and draw popular superhero webcomic Minor Acts of Heroism or M. Palumbo, the artist behind the popular queer sci-fi comic Starfighter.

DC Comics is giving its universe a facelift this coming September, but it’s not just the characters that are being cut off the roster. Before the reboot 12% of DC’s staff was females– post reboot? It’s cut down to 1%. So much for a more “diverse” company.