Female Fans Give Boost to Comic Book Publishers

Comic-Con attendees are known for wearing elaborate superhero costumes, not high fashion. But the San Diego convention in late July featured a first: a runway show called Geek Couture. Rows and rows of women watched the presentation of fantasy-inspired gowns and other attire from 36 designers. The revelers, some dressed as robots from Star Wars and wizards from Harry Potter, came to see sci-fi dresses or catch another of Comic-Con’s dozen panels on gender topics, such as “Female Heroes, Then & Now” and “The Most Dangerous Women at Comic-Con.” This year women made up almost half of the conference’s 130,000 attendees.

The demographics of nerd culture are changing: A Publishers Weekly report released in May found that women ages 17 to 33 were the fastest-growing group at comic book retailers nationally. “There’s a lot of fan-driven momentum that is largely coming from our female audience,” says Eric Stephenson, editor in chief of independent publishing house Image Comics, which puts out 7 of the 10 comics on the New York Times bestseller list in July. Six are centered on women. “The thing we can see driving this is social media—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,” and other online communities where women congregate to chat about their favorite characters. This audience helped the industry grow from $805 million to $870 million last year, according to comics researcher Comichron.