I think there is some confusion on intent here (assumptions are tricky, I realize). When depicting in comics sometimes a short hand is needed and we are filling in the details in the gutter. My reading of this comic is not nessasaraly contrary or revisionist.
By 1972 we are talking about a period of transition in the Comics industry that is clearly set up by the comic. To elaborate a little:
About a generation earlier Congress has backed a witch hunt on Comics as a form of communication. A medium, that has the business history of marketing to anyone who will get hooked on the product. These business men (mostly) were scrappy, perpetuated a business culture that was not driven by ethics, but the bottom line. When the government and "social" groups misinterpreted the product, the business did what it had always done. Found the path of least resistance and most profit. It just so happened the Kirby, Lee and a mix of old and new talent inspired in a crucible of events across the street and the pressures of a golf game above their pay grade & the after math a witch hunt came up with a game changer. They reconfigured the Sci-Fi power fantasy of Superheroes and through inspirations like office gossip about an unconventional family unit, reinterpretations of myths & legends, nostalgia for lost adolescents, the space race, the war, immigration and social politics at the time into Marvel.
10 years into this experiment and most other genre had fallen by the wayside or was on it's way out. EC was reinvented as MAD, Golden Key, Dell ect...were collapsing. There was an emerging underground, but it was confined geographically and not sold at newspaper stands and general stores.
The culture in Marvel & DC offices was like a poor mans Mad Men. The product they sold at the time was seeing success, because the artist and writers had been given the authorization to produce what they wanted, as long as it followed the code. Their own lack of understanding the women's movement and the guidelines set by the code naturally facilitated a product that was difficult to relate to. Kirby and Lee were no strangers to making comics for women (Kirby was part of the team that invented the genre, Romance Comics) and they each had wonderful personal love stories. However, they also were seeing sales as a result of hyping themselves and their product, wich portrayed women in a limited role, even as members of a team. So a decade of dwindling images of covers marketed to women and girls, being replaced by products marketed to boys was taking it's toll in a culture already besieged by outside pressures to label the product as complacent in delinquency. By that time it was not that women were anti-comics, it was the women were being told they should be on one hand and that they were not welcome on the other. By the time a feeble effort of a few issues were shared that were marketed to them (despite the women involved, because in part of the editorial environment they were likely in) it was to little to late.
It is true, that direct to market, comic shops and conventions had not begun yet. These events would insulate the big players in the industry from diversity marketing opportunities for more generations to come. Complicating the cultures ability to open their doors to women and minorities. Isolating their ability to expand readership and delaying advancements in quality and effect on broader culture as an art form. For many still comics are seen as a limited Genre, not a medium. Their IP is easy pickings for other mediums (film, gaming) to exploit and profit off of now that the culture is desperate for a distraction from the harsh reality of modern life. It is no accident that Superheroes are big money on the big screen and comics are ripe for invovation, finally pushing forward artistically and finding more places every day for women and all people.
Frustrations about 1972 comes from the reality, that the people at the time, best positioned to broaden the audience and the potential of the medium they sheprered did what we see people in these sorts of positions today seem to do. They looked out for themselves, their own perspectives, their own desires and found convenience of a path and short profit gains to appealing to take their own place in our community and their own contribution to it a bit more seriously. I love superhero comics. I love what these men made. It speaks to me as a white, Jewish American male. It don't question for a second the notion that I was their target audience and that my daughters interests were never a consideration...until someone told them to take it seriously under duress. And then their harts were not in it, because who likes to work under those conditions and who likes to give up a paying opportunity so someone else can have a voice. That would take superheroic sacrifice.
I think there is some confusion on intent here (assumptions are tricky, I realize). When depicting in comics sometimes a short hand is needed and we are filling in the details in the gutter. My reading of this comic is not nessasaraly contrary or revisionist.
By 1972 we are talking about a period of transition in the Comics industry that is clearly set up by the comic. To elaborate a little:
About a generation earlier Congress has backed a witch hunt on Comics as a form of communication. A medium, that has the business history of marketing to anyone who will get hooked on the product. These business men (mostly) were scrappy, perpetuated a business culture that was not driven by ethics, but the bottom line. When the government and "social" groups misinterpreted the product, the business did what it had always done. Found the path of least resistance and most profit. It just so happened the Kirby, Lee and a mix of old and new talent inspired in a crucible of events across the street and the pressures of a golf game above their pay grade & the after math a witch hunt came up with a game changer. They reconfigured the Sci-Fi power fantasy of Superheroes and through inspirations like office gossip about an unconventional family unit, reinterpretations of myths & legends, nostalgia for lost adolescents, the space race, the war, immigration and social politics at the time into Marvel.
10 years into this experiment and most other genre had fallen by the wayside or was on it's way out. EC was reinvented as MAD, Golden Key, Dell ect...were collapsing. There was an emerging underground, but it was confined geographically and not sold at newspaper stands and general stores.
The culture in Marvel & DC offices was like a poor mans Mad Men. The product they sold at the time was seeing success, because the artist and writers had been given the authorization to produce what they wanted, as long as it followed the code. Their own lack of understanding the women's movement and the guidelines set by the code naturally facilitated a product that was difficult to relate to. Kirby and Lee were no strangers to making comics for women (Kirby was part of the team that invented the genre, Romance Comics) and they each had wonderful personal love stories. However, they also were seeing sales as a result of hyping themselves and their product, wich portrayed women in a limited role, even as members of a team. So a decade of dwindling images of covers marketed to women and girls, being replaced by products marketed to boys was taking it's toll in a culture already besieged by outside pressures to label the product as complacent in delinquency. By that time it was not that women were anti-comics, it was the women were being told they should be on one hand and that they were not welcome on the other. By the time a feeble effort of a few issues were shared that were marketed to them (despite the women involved, because in part of the editorial environment they were likely in) it was to little to late.
It is true, that direct to market, comic shops and conventions had not begun yet. These events would insulate the big players in the industry from diversity marketing opportunities for more generations to come. Complicating the cultures ability to open their doors to women and minorities. Isolating their ability to expand readership and delaying advancements in quality and effect on broader culture as an art form. For many still comics are seen as a limited Genre, not a medium. Their IP is easy pickings for other mediums (film, gaming) to exploit and profit off of now that the culture is desperate for a distraction from the harsh reality of modern life. It is no accident that Superheroes are big money on the big screen and comics are ripe for invovation, finally pushing forward artistically and finding more places every day for women and all people.
Frustrations about 1972 comes from the reality, that the people at the time, best positioned to broaden the audience and the potential of the medium they sheprered did what we see people in these sorts of positions today seem to do. They looked out for themselves, their own perspectives, their own desires and found convenience of a path and short profit gains to appealing to take their own place in our community and their own contribution to it a bit more seriously. I love superhero comics. I love what these men made. It speaks to me as a white, Jewish American male. It don't question for a second the notion that I was their target audience and that my daughters interests were never a consideration...until someone told them to take it seriously under duress. And then their harts were not in it, because who likes to work under those conditions and who likes to give up a paying opportunity so someone else can have a voice. That would take superheroic sacrifice.