Comic Con: Women Dominate?

This year I had a table at Wizard World’s Chicago Comic Con.  I enjoyed the Con, met a lot of great people, and made several very good contacts.  (I also bought stuff.)  On Saturday there were over 100k people who attended.

I started doing comic conventions this year with Planet Comicon in Kansas City, which set attendance records for Bartle Hall this year.  That was also an excellent show and I definitely intend to do Planet again in 2015.

While fantasy novels are not exactly an exact plugin for a comic book convention, there is a lot of overlapping interests and I will likely also do another Wizard World show next year as well.

Observations

From these cons and other related events, I did want to mention one item I’ve been noticing: I am seeing more and more women attending.  And not just as someone who is there because of someone else.  In fact, I would say that I saw more women in the Artist Alley section of Chicago’s Comic Con than I saw men.  Granted, that is not a scientific polling by any stretch of the imagination, but I saw ladies across all age spectrums from young to … more senior.  I saw people of numerous backgrounds and interests, but one thing the huge majority had in common was their personal interest in being there.  They were buying art, comics, books, and merchandise of all types.  These attendees are really into the shows and artists and books.  They enjoyed being there!

Sure, there were a lot of men present as well (and some unfortunately fit the stereotypical form of ‘that guy’ as though they were photocopied from it), but seeing the diversity across gender and background was incredibly refreshing to me.

While I am not the uber comic fan, I do enjoy comic books and I am thrilled to see it becoming less and less of a male dominated passion.  There is still a lot of work left to do, but the more women show themselves as consumers, the more ‘those’ shops and people will be marginalized and the richer the environment will become for everyone.

I think a lot of it is that comics, as well as the science fiction and fantasy genres, are be coming more mainstream.  We have huge block buster movies, quality television shows, and even more books making what one time had been an insult, into something cool.  Today, being a geek is no longer a bad thing!

Pictures

Okay, so here are some of the pictures I took at the Con.  I know I should have taken more, but I didn’t.  I always mean to, but get busy and then I’m behind a table … (excuses, I know).

However, here are a few I have that came out, though only one provided me with a track-back.  This is Maya Dinerstine (aka #AskKalyeeFrye).  She’s got an excellent cosplay of Kaylee (who is one of my favorite characters). She’s shiny and definitely worth a follow!

Below are a few more shots

Here is the actual robot head from the Lexx TV series.  This was the stunt double for the head with the video screens and the actual radio controlled cart (they only made the one cart).  The gentleman who had him drove the cart around for me.

 

 

 

 

I loved that Goot’s hands articulated!  He even picked up merchandise from some tables with those hands.  Great execution!