People need to broaden their Horizons when it comes to American comics

I always see people complaining about the inconsistency of DC/Marvel Superhero comics, yet many of these people don't pick up comics from Vertigo, Image, Valiant, Dark Horse, First Second, Boom!, etc (I know, I checked comicchron)

That's very true. There's a wealth of titles to choose from in American comics, many of which don't get the attention they deserve. The Japanese comics market has a decades old, tried and true model for getting their product in front of their audience. The traditional model for American comics distribution has largely collapsed, and what's replaced it doesn't really do a great job of getting the product (if it's not from one of the big publishers) in front of a general audience.

At the same time, you have to understand that, however much they complain, a lot of fans have a lot of emotional investment in the DC and Marvel characters. They care about the characters and what happens to them. You'll occasionally hear the indy comics crowd complaining that super-hero comics suck all the air out of the room and get all the attention; what they fail to realize (or don't want to consider) is that the absence of super-heroes would not immediately turn super-hero fans into fans of other kinds of comics. A fan of one kind of comics is more likely to be a fan of comics in general, but such is not always necessarily the case. One has to accept the possibility that if super-hero fans aren't reading other comics, it's because of no greater reason that they don't want to.

Even Japanese comics, with Manga's multitude of genres and settings and subjects, tend to be the same kinds of stories regardless of the details. Melodramas tailored to fit the artist's chosen set dressing. That's not at all meant as a criticism.

Edited by Robbery on Jun 28th 2021 at 1:13:07 AM