By now you’ve all heard that women are the fastest growing demographic in comic book readership. While that is true, the thing that comic book publishers large and small need to notice is that we’re nearing parity as well. Almost every other comic book that is sold is being bought by a woman. And we come out to play as recent surveys show. Virtually half of the attendees at the 2015 edition of the San Diego Comic Con were women. But when I go to my local comic book shop and check out the shelves or attend a con, I come away noticing that all of the creative aspects of the comic business are still dominated by men.
So what to do about this? One alternative is to keep gnashing our teeth and preaching to the choir but here at Kymera Press we’ve chosen our own path. To paraphrase Yoda, “Do. Or do not. Just do not ask for permission.” So our mission, one for which we are surely NOT asking permission, is to give women creators and artists a venue where they can create the women-friendly comics that both men and women can enjoy. In doing so, we promise to portray our female characters in a realistic fashion, without relying on impossible (and sometimes quite ridiculous) physical characteristics to get a reader’s attention.
Kymera Press, from the moment of its conception, was intent on being a harbinger of change. That’s why we’ve chosen the Chimera as our logo. This mythological creature is said to be a powerful and dangerous being, a harbinger of cataclysmic change. While we’re not actually aspiring to be cataclysmic, we are intent on bringing change to the comic book publishing industry by giving women a chance to be involved in all aspects of this business we so love.
The Kymera (as we choose to spell it) is a female creature that represents strength and diversity as evidenced by the typically three headed nature of the beast; a lion, a goat and a serpent. Over the years the term chimera has also come to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling. And that’s our goal, to join together with women world-wide to create stories and art that are exactly that; wildly imaginative and dazzling stories that will entertain us all.
So welcome to Kymera Press, where women don’t need permission to strut their stuff.