Are there any women out there (or men, for that matter) who were moved to add Supergirl to their pull lists after Eddie Berganza's heartfelt passionate desperate plea in the back of last week's DC comics? Show of hands!
Posted by Doug at January 31, 2007 2:13 PM
I already read it but what is interesting to me is that they are making this plea for a book that is doing reasonably well sales wise. Perhaps the older men in trench coat demographic is not who they want.
Given that I just finally dropped Supergirl a few months ago in disgust (erratic schedule+incomprehensible storylines+at best so-so art=no sale for me), not me. I guess I'll be getting my Supergirl reading in the Legion for right now....
Like Jonathan, I'm already reading a good comic with Supergirl in it. Plus I don't have enough of the ready to add any more comics to my pull list these days, and if I did, Supergirl wouldn't be a prime candidate.
But these pleas don't work on me anyway. I didn't start buying Manhunter just because everybody wanted me to; I'm not going to start with Supergirl just because this guy can elbow his way into the DC Nation column for a week. I'll buy what I want to buy.
Still traumatized from Eddie's interminable 6-year run on the Superman titles, I've sworn off anything with Eddie's name and an "S" shield in the same book.
It sounds like his appetite for Joe Kelly's incoherent tales hasn't diminished a bit from Kelly's too-long stint on "Action Comics".
Couldn't even remotely care about Supergirl under any of the creative teams on the book so far.
Well, it was quite convincing. I was thinking I'd pick up Supergirl again when they changed artists, just to try it. Mr. Berganza convinced me even that would be a waste of money, because they clearly have no idea what to do with Supergirl.
If you want a well-written and well-drawn story about a super-powered young woman, you can read _La Muse_ on-line for free at http://www.bigheadpress.com/lamuse .
@ Lewis:
Supergirl has good sales, but you have to remember that it DROPPED over 100,000 sales anyway. Sure, it's still doing well, but that drop is startling and last time I checked it was still dropping. That's the real reason they want girls to read Supergirl--not because DC values our readership (this book's existence thus far nullifies that idea), but because they're desperate.
I gave up on superhero comics some... lord, eight years ago? I don't think this is going to be what brings me back into the fold, somehow.
The real kicker is, at the time I quit in disgust, I WAS a teenaged girl. They had me. The treasured, sought-after teen female demographic that doesn't read comics. I was reading comics. They had me. And then they lost me. I stopped.
Why? It actually wasn't the sexism, so much, although some of the art DID bug me, and I DID get some really stupid comments and looks from a few of the guys who saw me reading.
Mostly, though, it was the... well, the EVERYTHING. The forty-plus years of complicated contradictory continuity that kept rearing its ugly head and forcing me to spend hours online surfing fan-sites just to keep track of who the hell all these people were and why it matters who fought who in issue #109. The constant swapping out of creative teams that would change the look and tone and direction of the book so often that I didn't dare get settled into a story because any second they could switch writers and it would suck again. The endless, stupid, incessant EVENTS. Characters dying like flies, characters getting back up before the funeral wreathes had time to wilt, gasp shock rinse repeat. Crossover after crossover. More time on the net finding out what the hell happened in this other series that I didn't read, didn't care about, and couldn't afford to buy anyway, just so I could understand what the hell was going on in MY title.
I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't take it. So I stopped. I found better ways to spend my money. I discovered indy comics, and manga, and webcomics.
But I MISS superheroes. God, how I miss them. I miss the flying and the worlds and the colours and, heaven help me, I even miss the silly spandex. But I haven't gone back, beyond dabbling in the occasional TP and GN signed out from the library, because from what I can tell, nothing's changed, and there's no way in.
You want me reading Supergirl, DC? Don't promise me man-boob windows on Power Boy. Don't just promise me to put a few pounds on Supergirl, though that would be nice, thanks.
DO promise me that I could just read Supergirl, that I don't have to read anything else I don't want to. Promise me that I don't HAVE to know decades worth of comic history just to know what's going on. Promise me that you aren't going to yank the floor out from under me in a couple of years right when I'm getting comfortable. Promise me that the stories and plot twists will matter, that I can safely invest myself in them and believe in them without fear that they'll be ret-conned away.
Can you promise me all that, DC? Indy comics can promise me that. Manga can promise me that. Webcomics can promise me that. Can you?
Dani: Some of your problem isn't the history per se--it's that writers have forgotten how (or in some cases are forbidden) to explain it!
That is, absolutely you should be able to read the current issue of Supergirl and have everything you need to know in that issue--who the characters are, what their motivation is, a précis of important history, and so on.
That writers can't do this anymore is a failure of craft.
Dani: You are Johanna Draper from 1997 and I claim my five pounds.