[...] Regarding female guests at San Diego, Lea Hernandez has posted two followups: one from Gail Simone, in which she says she was invited to be a guest, and one from Jackie Estrada, chair of the guest committee, with more information on the selection process and information on how to make suggestions. [...]

Alas, LJ is broken right now, so I can’t edit the entry to reflect that, or to add a good point brought up: that it IS unknown how many women were invited and said no thanks.
Chalk a small part of my reaction to not taking the time to remember that I’ve passed on invitations to conventions.

In poking around on old message board threads, I came across one for The Beat, where Heidi wrote the history of CCI as the book of invasions. In answer to a criticism (repeated annually) that San Diego is less and less about comics, Jackie Estrada had said that she had never seen CCI (nee’ San Diego Comic Con) as just about comics. (I am paraphrasing heavily, here.)

But to be completely fair, I WAS invited as a Featured Guest.

Best,

Gail

I do find it odd that there are no female special guests. Where are the manga creators at the very least? Not to mention Marjane Satrapi, Gail Simone and Amanda Conner even if you wanted to keep it “mainstream.”

I can’t ritual disclaimer everything. The most important one is that I do not begrudge my male colleagues their success, but find fault with CCI’s guest list reflecting the comics business in only one way: ignoring women.

Perhaps not, but you summed up well.

Kelson, I am ONLY talking about what I got in the mail and promptly threw away: a newsprint booklet with “Special Guests” at the front, each and every one male.

Something I DO know is special guests know at the previous year’s con that they’re invited.

Tha fact remains that CCI has made, this year, its most glaring diss of women creators so far.

So what we don’t know is:

1. How many guests were invited altogether. (30? 40? 50?)
2. How many women were invited. (Zero? 5? 10? 20?)
3. If any women were invited, how many declined to attend?
4. If any women were invited, how many simply have not yet responded?

If #4 is not zero, or if CCI decides today, “Oh crap, we should invite some women!” how many will decide based on this controversy that Comic-Con doesn’t really want them, and decide not to go?

There’s also the fact that a lot of women do and have done webcomics for years — one might wonder if San Diego only takes notice when visible men start doing them, similar to the way rap songs only hit the top of the charts when white boys started performing them.

I dunno, I can’t speak for Lea.

I also don’t know if they invited a female guest or two who turned them down.

I do know that I am happy they are considering webcomics. They should. Whether the artist behind the webcomic is male, female, or hermaphrodite. (Actually, I’d love to see some hermaphrodites represented!)

I also like to see guests at cons who are new to the business. They often bring a different perspective than those who have been in the business for decades. “Breaking in” is probably different now than it was 10-20 years ago, regardless of the artistic endeavor we are talking about. So focusing on the ‘experienced’ guests is a disservice to those coming to the con to hear the guests on how to ‘break into’ the industry.

I’m just sayinig the complaints about inviting webcomic artists and about inviting new artists rubbed me the wrong way. On the one hand, she is arguing for sexual diversity, which she should, but against other types of diversity, which she shouldn’t.

This is sad to realize, especially since San Diego often has female special guests on their roster in the past.

Johanna, thanks for the catch.

I guess I’m of two minds on this issue — anyone looking for progressive attitudes in comics isn’t expecting them to emerge from the San Diego Nerd Prom. That’s a corporate comics-fueled event, and corporate comics has a longstanding policy of marginalizing female creators.

More importantly, though, when I think about my favourite people who make comics, names like Phoebe Gloeckner, Renee French, Colleen Coover, Diana Tamblyn and Carol Tyler always are near the top of the list, and their work seems pretty popular with the people I know who know what’s what in artcomix.*

None of this is meant to diminish Lea’s point — but I’d like to see her exasperation turned in to a real movement to demand equal time for women and artcomix at the SDNP.

*I use the term artcomix because “independent comics,” these days has come to include junk like Transformers, Ant, and anything that doesn’t have the DC or Marvel logo on it, and yet would dearly love to. I’d prefer the term “alternative comics,” but then some might think I meant Jeff Mason’s company, not that I don’t love Alternative Comics, because I do…