First off, thanks to everyone who voted. Its nice to get a general idea of your audience, because you never know who is silently reading and loving your comic, but doesn’t feel right leaving comments.
As for the age breakdown, it’s basically about what I thought, and I fit right into the demographic age-wise. I am not surprised the majority of my readers are male, I knew from the get-go that webcomics.. and well, comics in general.. are a male-dominated industry. It’s cool, I’m used to being “one of the guys”. But I was expecting a slightly bigger turn-out from the gals than I got. Maybe… um, like 40% or so? I mean, almost 75% of the readership is male.
This makes me contemplate what makes a webcomic “guy-friendly” or “girl-friendly”… and what about Z&F turns off (most) women (or doesn’t attract them)? I mean sure, I would figure there’s more male webcomic readers than female. So, already, the scale is probably tilted. An interesting side note is that often new readers figure I’m a guy off the bat. I wonder if that’s a “male-until-prove-female” assumption that is applied to every webcomic author anyway, or if the writing and/or art in Z&F somehow exudes testosterone, LOL.
I could get totally, insultingly, stereotypical here and figure that most women would prefer sappy romantic manga type webcomics, that’s why they wouldn’t give a rat’s @$$ about 2 alien-dogs. But the other side of that stereotype is that men only prefer to read superhero action blood-and-guts type stuff. Which leaves goofy little humor strips like mine somewhere in the middle. Maybe the sci-fi element is way more masculine that I had thought. Maybe my social networking activity (that gets me new readers) tends to draw in more males. Maybe women don’t like to take polls. Who the heck knows.
I wonder what the demographic of other female cartoonists (who do a unique type of comic) is like. Does Danielle of “Girls With Slingshots” have more female readers than male, overpowering the general demographic? What about Jennie Breeden of “Devil’s Panties”? Now, those are two comics centered around an atypical heroine (or multiple ones)… a bit different than androgynous alien-dogs. Maybe in there lies the reason.
So, faithful readers, what do you think? Is Z&F a more male-oriented comic? Or is the discrepancy due to the demographic being already skewed?
P.S. my apologies for using the stereotypical “pink for girls” and “blue for guys” on the chart. Oh, the irony! Or is it hypocrisy?
First comment! Score!
Okay, to be even more stereotypical, guys read comics more than women. Comic books have been a guy thing since they were created, so it’s not unusual to have it skewed like that. We’re guys. Also, Sci-Fi skews a bit male too, but that’s changing rapidly. In my day, girls played with Barbies and guys played with robots and guns. It was a crazy world in the 60s.
This is very cool to see the breakdown. Glad I’m not the only old fart reading you comic too! I feel better already…
Good work, kid! 🙂
Maybe it’s just a matter of time til it evens out? I remember when I was a kid I didn’t know ANY women that watched football for example. And now I know TONS of women that watch it, although Ironically, I only watch baseball now, haha. Interesting graph though…. 🙂
Ironically enough, just got a bunch more votes in since I posted this pie chart. It evens out the 20-30 and 30-40 male crowd, and actually lessens the female vote a tad more.
I could be convinced to give a slight bit of the credit on “male dominated” comics/webcomics thing, but I find a lot of females that love a good Sci-Fi element. Honestly, I don’t have any real suggestions on this (maybe besides “Trix are for kids”, people were also raised to believe that only 40% of ladies were raised to take webcomic surveys), and wish I could add something solid, as this is an interesting topic.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta get back to shopping until I drop, applying large amounts Mary Kay, and dragging my husband to Hugh Grant movies… 😉
The graph might look different in a few years; originally computers were most interesting to male geeks and nerds — especially PC’s, which were built from do-it-yourself parts. Time’s shifted, now it’s normal for anyone to use a computer, regardless of sex.
However, I do think the elements of Z&F tend to lean towards the more male-dominated areas of comics: Aliens, dogs, and sci-fi.
I don’t have an answer at all for you. I just follow comics that I find consistently funny. I did vote which I don’t do hardly ever.
I fall within the 30-40 male age range 😀 – Looks like im in good company there lol