“If you want to work in mainstream comics, style matters. I’ve reviewed hundreds of portfolios and I’ve been surprised to meet many women who draw in a very manga-influenced, storybook, or cartoon style, but have ambitions of breaking into Marvel and DC. Marvel and DC have to run a business around a franchise of instantly-recognizable characters, so it makes sense that they mostly hire artists who draw in a “superhero” style for consistency. It’s possible to change your style — I did quite a lot in college — but there’s nothing more heartbreaking than seeing an artist change they unique personal vision just to try to get a job. If you find yourself having to do this to get closer to a “house style”, then you might want to reconsider how passionate you’d really be about the job if you did get it.”

so there probably is something sociological to our general cultural expectation of female creators’ audiences…

I honestly think that female readers and younger audiences are more willing to read a looser, more cartoony style. Adult males still seem to gravitate towards either the more realistic Neal Adams style or the hyper-muscular “Image” style.

You see this even in manga – I would be surprised if manga like “Fist of the Northstar” or even “Akira” have a huge female audience compared to adult males. The manga popular with female audiences and younger audiences is more cartoony and exaggerated.

DC discovered this back in the early 70′s when having Captain Marvel drawn in the traditional Fawcett style (which was always more cartoonish than the DC house style) was very unpopular with the fan base. Even back then, the general newsstand audience was drying up and the more hardcore collectors were driving the market (with the exception of Archie and Harvey/Gold Key, which were primarily for females and a younger audience).

I would guess that if you looked at the ALA lists for popular graphic novels in the library system, the more cartoony, loose style is more popular overall – it certainly seems to be at our local library. The standard DC and Marvel books are usually there on the shelf waiting to be checked out while Bone and Smile and others like it are never available because they’re always checked out.

Also, in our culture all men who do anything involving kids are viewed as secret child molesters in waiting. Who wants to deal with that sort of crap?

Not that there aren’t great comics for youth done by males. Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley, Akiko by Marc Crilley, anything written by J. Torres, and Owly by Andy Runton. Yet they are fewer and far between.

The sociologist in me will claim that women rely less on violence, so their stories are seen as more kid-friendly.

(Which the cynic in me says is saying the same thing…)