Brigitta:
>>>>>And what do you do for female fans? Or maybe the question is "are there any female fans at such conventions?" -- here in Italy female fans are a minority, although I have no idea why.
Well, I don't know about Italia, but it's very obvious why there are virtually no female comics fans in America -- just look at the violent testosterone-charged stuff we exclusively have now as "comic books"! There are still the readers of Archie comics who are mostly girls, and 40+ years ago there were all the more "female-friendly" romance and teen-humor and funny-animal comics, so there were plenty of girl comic readers in those days -- after all, remember I would not be who I am today (whoever that is!) if not for my older sister, the comic book reader/hoarder. But, for whatever reason, girls never became COLLECTORS of the comics they loved as kids... maybe they don't have that "collector gene"? So, here, I'm sure even more than in Italia, one sees virtually no females at comic shows other than those who accompany their mates or kids. (Obviously there are some exceptions to this, but not many.) I also know of a few lady comic book artists, even rarer than lady comics fans, but they do either retro-style comics based on satellite TV cartoon shows or covers for super-hero comics featuring sexy gals (which ladies seem to be able to paint as well as guys can).
Now, it seems to be quite different in Northern Europe. There are LOTS of female comic fans up that way. *Especially* in Finland where sometimes I think that MOST fans who come to see me at bookstore signings are girls/women. I don't try to figure out the reasons, I just bask in the pleasure of it (and wonder why I couldn't have been regarded with "rock star" status in Finland 30 years ago when things might have gotten interesting... sigh).
As for my fans at American conventions, as I may have explained, about 95% of the people who come to my table have NO idea who I am or what I do, or that Disney comics even exist... but they see my booth as something DISNEY and kid-friendly in that whole hall of violent comic book imagery, so they stop and have a look. Sometimes they'll want a print of Donald Duck, and I have one print of Daisy *just* for women. They know those characters from DisneyWorld. They won't know $crooge, though I'm getting quite a few twenty-or-thirty-somethings (in age) now who recall the brief existence of "DuckTales" on TV 25 years ago -- they are always shocked to learn that there were $crooge *comic books* but they usually want drawings of "Launchpad McQuack" or "Darkwing Duck" or characters I don't know and I can't help them.
The other portion of that 95% of people who come to my table, having no idea who I am and having never heard of the existence of Disney comics, want me to draw "Donald Duck dressed as Wolverine" (or replace that with any other violent American super-hero) and I say no, thanks, I am there for Duckfans, not Wolverine fans. I do the drawings for FREE, after all, so I only draw what I want for whom I think deserves a free drawing.
So, anyway, the few American comics fans who know something about Barks and Duck comics are the ones who want that Duck Family Tree print, and thus far I think only one has been a lady, and I put her husband's name on that name-plate.