Diversity and inclusivity are large topics and important at every level of the content we consume for entertainment, as the world is diverse in of itself and our content should reflect that. With the advent of the new canon in 2014, Star Wars as a whole had a chance to start fresh and work out more diverse stories by a multitude of voices, and while the films (and the TV shows in some regards) haven’t quite lived up to the promise behind the camera (with more happening in front), animation and the publishing side of things gently brought broader representation behind and on the page. We know a lot of this empirically thanks to Eleven-ThirtyEight’s Minority Reports, of which I contributed the comics’ data, but since the data I collected revealed the comics didn’t stray much from the books, it didn’t warrant anything but a mention in the larger conversation in those reports and on the Manor here…that is until 2021 brought a reportable change on several metrics the comics have often lagged behind on. It felt like a good time to finally explore the comics by themselves then, to dig through the data and see what had changed and chart a path forward for how the comics could continue the new trend.
I started taking Star Wars’ comics diversity data after I caught wind of Eleven-ThirtyEight’s (ETE within) Minority Reports and felt like it needed to include the comics because, as far as I could tell from reading and reviewing every issue for the Manor, their overall characters had to be better at parity and at least equal in diversity than the books due to all the exciting new characters. I was so eager to share the data with Mike Cooper at ETE and show how comics were leading the charge with characters Dr. Chelli Lona Aphra, Sana Starros, Evaan Verlaine, and more, imagine the creeping disappointment pouring over me as I actually took the data and realized the comics were basically at the same level as the books. Such similarities in data sets would continue up until Cooper decided at ETE it was time to take a break, having explored not just the data itself, but the quality of representation despite the numbers, as well as the make-up of the creatives writing the content. I took a year off from collecting comic data after he finished the Minority Report series mid-2020, plus the pandemic hit and comic releases were all over the place due to the global supply issues that came with it, but I decided to keep up with the data again the following year, just to have if the need arose. There were no surprises in 2020’s character data, if not a slight reversal of progress, but the year basically has an asterisk next to it due to its delayed releases. Then I collected 2021’s numbers and I was downright surprised by the data, to the point I retook it all again just to be sure I had it right, considering it showed a visible jump for gender parity in its characters. The results left questions: what had changed? What was the quality of the representation? Could it be a trend or aberration? What can be done to keep it this way? Digging through it all, and taking additional data to build the larger picture, there are answers, and while they might be complex, in the end it’s rather simple: more diversity behind the panels is needed.
To prepare you for the discussion ahead, let’s first take a moment to cover how the data is taken and what terms I’ll be using in discussing it. In case you’re unaware of ETE’s Minority Report series, my methods for data collection spiraled out from his: for my purposes, characters are only counted as long as they have a speaking role and are named (though recognizable characters thanks to art that don’t get named but at least speak get counted), while if their gender/species is obscured somehow (helmeted, wearing armor, etc.), the assumption is made they are a White Human Male (WHM herein) due to it being the literary norm for far too long. That leaves us with 4 distinct categories for character data: WHMs, non-WHMs (so everyone else), which factor into the diversity scores; and Male, and Marginalized Groups (MG herein, which for our purposes includes female, trans, non-binary, etc. ETE used Male/Non-Male in their parity discussion), which result in parity scores. With all that in mind, here’s our first graph, charting the comic character data from 2015 through 2021:
You can see in the graphs above how 2021 brought forth the biggest jump in MG characters since the comics first began, but not only that, how close it is to the Male characters that year as well, which had been disproportionate since the beginning. So who or what lit the match that brings the spark to ignite such change? As I said earlier, the answer is more diversity behind the panels, and there are two great examples in 2021 to show how that simple metric changed everything: The High Republic initiative had a big hand in swaying the data, but more important is how a marginalized creator, Alyssa Wong, on an on-going series, Doctor Aphra, helped move things on their own.
Since 2015, there hasn’t been a writer who’s a marginalized creative with more than 5 issues to their name in a given year, and while Alyssa’s first year with the on-going series only had 5 issues due to the pandemic and the delays that stemmed from it, 2021 saw 10 issues of the series release (and they were the only marginalized creative in a writing position covering more than 2 issue that year). With those 10 issues, Alyssa’s Aphra had 45% Parity (which it maintained after doubling the issue count, as the first 5 issues also had 45% Parity). As they said in an interview for Pride Month about Aphra, they write queer characters so those who are can see themselves just like Alyssa did in the stories they read:
“This is why I feel so strongly about writing queer characters because I used to sneak off to the library and I would read library books, and then I would hide them in the stacks so that no one else could check them out before I got the chance to finish them. Because I knew if they showed up on my library checked-out list I’d get in trouble. But it was the only place I ever saw myself, and being able to make that for other people means a lot to me.”
Just by sticking around, even if there weren’t more marginalized creators added around them, Alyssa has seemingly moved the bar on their own, because they are adamant others like them can see themselves in the stories they enjoy. And to do so much, when they aren’t among the majority, makes one wonder how much things could change if more MG creatives could be added to the comic ranks. But, as we’ll discuss later, it all seems to depend on the roles they get in the creative process as well.
2021 also had the release of the mega-publishing initiative The High Republic, with several comic book series from a stable of familiar authors all eager to expand and feature characters from all walks of life. Across the various comics released by both Marvel and IDW, largely written by Cavan Scott or Daniel José Older, overall they achieved a 90% Diversity score, but parity, while higher than average, wasn’t that much higher at 32%. While it didn’t quite move the bar like Aphra did for parity, it’s still notable enough that combined these two made 2021 a banner year. This builds off a point made by ETE in the Minority Reports,
“…it’s also worth noting that the screen media almost always beat the printed media on diversity—sometimes by a lot—while the exact opposite was true for parity. While much hay has been made over the lack of diversity among film directors and screenwriters I think this speaks to the greater overall diversity of input that goes into a feature film, as well as the very gender-balanced yet overwhelmingly white stable of authors.”
The High Republic’s comic output was mainly written by two males, with the two female writers contributing a short story in The High Republic Adventures Annual, and while the overall diversity numbers are off the charts, the parity isn’t quite there like Aphra’s. To really highlight how much Aphra contributed compared to anything else, THR included, check out these graphs showing the overall percentages for Aphra’s character data, across only 16 issues, THR’s overall character data from 32 different issues, and how that stacks up compared to both the average of 2015-2021’s character data percentages and just 2021 as a whole.
While the Aphra series’ first 5 issues were 6% lower on diversity, it’s 27% higher on parity when going against all of THR’s comic output, and this again speaks to the idea, to really move the needle, not only do more marginalized creatives need to be hired, having them on something substantial or longer than 4-5 issues can bring a great change to the make-up of characters. If Alyssa Wong’s contributions can bring so much, imagine more creatives just like them and how much more diversity or parity could come with it. It’s not a guarantee of course, but it’s a far more promising route for comic publishers to take to help facilitate diversity and parity. In 2021 and 2022, Marvel offered Pride Month variant covers, and while a great and exciting idea it did unfortunately both include some questionable choices with the first batch and most of the covers feature characters not actually in the series they’re on the cover for, but for Marvel’s superhero output they’ve had great initiatives, like Marvel’s Voices: Pride, and hopefully the minds at Lucasfilm and Marvel can put their heads together to make something similar happen, which while wouldn’t lead to consistent data improvements, it could be the gateway needed for another marginalized creative to join the galaxy far, far away.
And to show much more room the comics need to grow in representation behind the panels, it’s time to look at the creative data. To collect the data, I included writers, artists, inkers, colorists, letterers, and editors, though unlike the characters, each year’s creative total only included unique creatives i.e. I didn’t double count Charles Soule if he was writing two different comics and Rachelle Rosenberg or Joe Caramagna were only counted once despite working across several series. My initial thoughts where to take the data this way, only counting each creative once, and working with Cooper from ETE helped solidify the approach, as it better digs into the diversity of the teams working on the comics by both taking into account the proportional hiring for series and making it clear the level of contribution for each creative, as it highlights how while Rachelle Rosenberg is on a ton of comics as colorist, it’s not the same as being the writer and driving the creative decisions on who or what will be in the story. Case in point, a glimpse at the unique overall creatives from 2015-2021 reveals the comics settled into the expected (& industry standard) with 80% Male (250 total), 20% Marginalized (64 total) {and this gap isn’t even restricted to comics, as a giant study released in 2023 found science journals only had 26% female scientific authors in them}.
Of those 64 marginalized creatives, only 37 of them are in positions which dictate story/characters in the panels in editor, writing, or artist roles (a 42% decrease), which in comparison for the male creatives goes from 250 to 169 (a 32% decrease) though the overall percentages are roughly the same: 18% to 82%. It looks even rougher for marginalized creatives when the only ones counted are those who have had contributions to 4 or more issues of a comic, which brings us down to 11 total, and it further drops to 5 when narrowed down to those who are writers and editors. That’s in comparison to male creatives in those roles with 4 or more issues of a comic: 30, which means the percentage difference rises, 85% to 15%.
As grim as it looks when one whittles down the data that way, at least when you break it down year to year, it’s clear progress has been made, even if it’s still in need of drastic improvement:
With need for improvement very clear regardless of unique creatives or overall percentages each year, combing these results with the character data helps back up my earlier inference in what’s driving change in parity and the need for more diversity behind the panels to keep it up. We’ll start with a graph showcasing the yearly total unique characters and creatives with a focus on parity across 2015-2021.
Even the small increase in MG creatives from 2017 to 2019 brings a corresponding increase for MG characters, though through the same period, you can see the sharper increase in Male creatives and the even sharper increase in Male characters. As stark those increases are, it didn’t mean MG characters decreased, so there’s some solace in that inference from the graph. As the comic industry and Star Wars comics got back more towards normal in 2021, including the release of THR and more of Alyssa’s Aphra, we see how the greatest increase in MG creatives leads to an intense increase in MG characters, especially when the Male creatives didn’t increase as much as they have prior, with a corresponding increase in Male characters that doesn’t outpace MG characters as bad as it has in the past. I think it’s important to see how the aforementioned work by Alyssa Wong and the diversity minded THR team, even with the largely Male creatives, helped pushed the overall numbers in an unprecedented way, only furthering the truth of their impact.
When we look at the same graph but focus on diversity instead, a very interesting trend appears as well. The amount of Male creatives, who aren’t specifically all White themselves, is virtually one for one on the amount of WHM characters year after year. Non-WHMs, so our diversity score, continues to be leagues above, so such a close correlation hasn’t affected diversity much, but the same time Non-WHMs spiked far beyond their previous high is when we saw the MG creatives increase above their normal…yet WHMs continued to match Male creatives. To keep diversity and push for parity, we can see the need for more MG creatives. There’s no ideal score for either parity or diversity, and I’m not actively wishing for a lack of WHMs in the comics or less Male characters, so this is where the discussion begins to delve into the strength of representation as I mentioned ETE waded into with an earlier Minority Report, where an interview with #SWRepMatters organizer Swara Salih brought forth this quote which our data and Alyssa Wong’s earlier quote backs up:
“We need directors and writers of color, especially women of color to work on these films. There’s so much that goes into the creative process and the creator brings their personal and individual experience with them to writing these characters of color.”
This can easily be applied to comics and the roles of Editors, Writers, and Artists, the main roles which actually dictate what’s on a panel in any given issue. Expanding all three of these with MG talent is definitely a priority, but industry standards as I touched on earlier are why my yearly details on the comics data in the past have largely been small mentions in ETE’s Minority Reports or minor parts of my year-in-reviews, as there’s not been enough movement to make a meaningful mention. 2021’s data meant it was finally time to put it in the forefront, give the comics their own article, as we had change and a clear way to define how it was achieved, but my gut feeling about 2022 reverting us backwards (which I’ll discuss briefly below) means I likely won’t have a big article like this going forward and won’t attempt to do so until there’s notable, consistent change. I’ll continue to watch the data and comment on it in my year-in-reviews still (which 2022’s will be publishing February 3 and will have a little more on the subject), though I hope I’ll be able to put one of these together again sooner than later.
Why do I have a gut feeling 2022 will set us back? Even with a quick look at the comics in 2022, its data will more than likely end up making 2021 the outlier and not a growing trend. As while I’ve not taken the data for creatives or characters just yet for 2022, considering all the new comics and one-shots released for the year by Marvel (Halcyon Legacy, Yoda, Hidden Empire, Revelations, Obi-Wan, Visions, The High Republic – Phase II, The High Republic – The Blade) have been made up of male creatives almost exclusively, leaving Alyssa Wong as one of the very few marginalized creatives around, doesn’t portend good things for the progress made, as we know from the data and can see in the graphs above. The High Republic content, while all three series are written by men (besides MG creatives in colorist or lettering roles), assuming similar numbers to 2021’s character data leaves the situation for 2022’s THR and overall data only slightly more hopeful, mainly diversity-wise. Dark Horse’s contributions could keep things stable, as two of the three writers for their 12-issue maxiseries are female, though there are two male artists and one marginalized for the three 2022 issues. In the end, only time and the data will tell, but both the trends already seen in the data so far and the glimpse ahead at the overall creative make-up are why I’m concerned for 2022’s numbers, so I’m thinking about turning my ever-endless hope towards 2023 to be different, with content like the Sana Starros miniseries (out February 1) by Justina Ireland coming (and two female writers contributing to a Darth Vader miniseries, of all things), but I stopped holding my breath years ago.
2021 brought comic fans their best dose of parity yet, and thanks to the data and trends, there’s a clear path for publishers like Marvel and Dark Horse to take to ensure it stays that way. Unfortunately, due to the general knowledge of the comics’ industry hiring habits and what’s already been announced, 2021 looks to be an aberration in the data since 2015. Thankfully, the variety of characters and their roles has already contributed greatly to the franchise, so while the data might not reach the same heights, the characters and their impact will outlast the decline.
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.