Legendary comic book writer Chuck Dixon explained that the comic book industry’s strategy of “feminist” storylines will not bring back a once formidable audience of young women, nor will Disney’s transformation of male-centric franchises into “girly stories.”
The former DC Comics and Marvel Writer, who now writes for the independent Rippaverse Comics, called the comic book industry’s latest attempts at storytelling tired injections of “third-wave feminism.”
Dixon added that not only are the new stories void of what comic book readers enjoy, the content actually turns the typical fan away.
Dixon spoke to Bounding into Comics‘ Brett Smith, who pointed out that companies have been abandoning the key male demographic in recent years.
“Something else we’ve talked about is that it’s always been a ‘male-centric,’ or it’s been a industry which has been driven for male readers, for boys,” Smith said.
Dixon interjected saying “Not always! Not always.” Dixon then explained that in the “’50s and ’60s, it was girls buying the comic book market.”
“‘Archie, Young Romance’ sold three and a half million copies a month for years,” he noted. “You had lots of romance titles. You had ‘Archie.’ And girls were reading regular comics too! They were reading ‘Little Lulu’ and ‘Uncle Scrooge’ and ‘Green Lantern’ – my sisters read Green Lantern because they though Hal Jordan was cute!” the writer continued.
Dixon, who was recently quoted as saying that new comics are “literally shaming the reader” with woke storylines, said that the industry “totally abandoned that [female] market,” and now “they don’t know how to get it back.”
“They think third-wave feminist comic book stories are going to bring girls back to read; no, no they’re not. Because girls, your female readership – I was successful on ‘Nightwing Vol. 2’ because I was writing the kind of stories girls like too, you know, there was a lot of inner relationship. It was a more dense plot. It wasn’t just about guys punching each other,” Dixon detailed.
Male audiences need to continue to “reject what they see,” the writer went on, soon taking aim at Disney. “That has to happen over and over and over and over again … the streaming services, movie attendance, television series, everything else falling apart; because they’re not aiming it at [what] an audience wants to see.”
“Look what Disney did,” he continued. “[The company] spent $8 billion to get two male-oriented franchise and immediately turned them into girly stories.”
“[Disney] needed material for boys, they didn’t have anything for boys in their library, and and then they screwed both of them up in the worst possible ways you can imagine,” he added.
Dixon noted in the summer of 2023 that Marvel — now owned by Disney — sometimes has disdain for its own readers, particularly in the case of “The Punisher.”
“The main reason they wanted to get rid of the Punisher is because they hated the Punisher [for being blue-collar], and they hate you for liking it. It’s that simple.”
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