I can remember only seeing one female pre-Vertigo at the place I picked up my comics and she would be reading a Wonder Woman comic at the end of the aisle. If you got to close to that end she would start making noises and slapping herself. She was overweight and at best plain looking. She was somebody I worried about and felt bad for. Life couldn't have been kind for her. After Vertigo I not only saw other women in the comic shop but even ran into coworkers that were regular comics buyers.
As to G-man's comment, despite my bitching I did enjoy Sandman and many other titles too but I suspect I would have been more into it if I had been younger. Than again I was pretty much a lost cause when it came to being "hip" at any age.
In high school I felt like an outsider, but I was kind of one of the somewhat cool kids without really knowing it. I got along with everyone at school, but had few friends that I socialized with outside of school. I didn't make the effort because I didn't feel like I was part of the clicque, that they'd want me around outside of school. But in the years after we were out of high school, they were glad to see me, and feeling welcome, I made more of an effort to socialize with them. They'd be like, "Hey it's Dave!", and I'd think to myself, wow, I didn't know they had such enthusiasm for my company. So when I realized this, things improved for me.
Mostly in high school I went to school and worked in a restaurant, and in between worked out and read and listened to music.
Up until I was 15, I was always a small and skinny kid, one of the smallest in my class. One of the last kids picked in P.E. when they were selecting players for teams. And then I worked out with weights all summer and grew several inches in height, and came back for 10th grade almost another person, and was much more athletic. There were many who didn't recognize me when I came back to school after summer break. But I never forgot what it was like to be one of the smaller kids, and always at school, work or wherever, have made an effort to include people who don't seem to feel as welcome. I remember what it was like to be on that side of things.
I saw that happen for girls too. Girls you thought were doomed to the social trashbin, would come back beautiful and wonderful girls, maybe more so for the isolation and rejection that other always-popular girls never had to deal with.
That said, God bless the hot SANDMAN-reading women, whichever side of the tracks they came from!
