Comic books offer a wide subject matter to appeal to diverse tastes. This is an infant industry based on a fledgling medium. Its potential is as great as any other entertainment industry. For in theory, this industry is like any other--just as there are books, films, and music to suit all tastes, so is there are comic books for everyone. Comics that are geared to entertain any literate person have existed for years, and are currently multiplying every month in wider and wider varieties. But they have not been reaching their potential readers because people do not take comic books seriously. For two decades, comic books have allowed themselves to be sidetracked to a single genre of limited appeal--the superhero genre. For that reason, when people think of comics, they think of the great American superhero--that guy who wears his underwear outside his clothes and lives in a world where right and wrong are black and white. Many people don’t realize that there are comic books that deal with complex subject matter, that present a world in many shades of gray. “I’m a big fan of superhero comics, but I love pizza too. I just don’t want to eat it every day” (Jim Valentino, Wizard magazine, January 1998, p. 54.).

Some comic books deserve to be considered high art. Comic books have received considerable recognition for literary and artistic merit from outside the narrow confines of the comic book field. For example, Art Spiegelman’s Maus won the Pulitzer Award; Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman won both the World Fantasy Award and the British Eagle Award; and Alan Moore’s Watchmen won The Hugo Award. Comic books (especially small press) have received recognition from non-comic book sources such as SPIN, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and even The New York Times. Yet, most people still consider comics to be the lowest of the low art forms. “The comic book genre will always suffer from the fact that it bridges divides that the art world has worked hard to create, between narrative art and the kind of picture making that is not narrative” (Robert Storr, curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; quoted in The New York Times, December 7, 1997, p. 43.).

Comic books are not just for children. The association between comic books and superheroes has mistakenly led people to think that comics are something you outgrow along with your childhood. Have you ever asked someone if they like books, and they said, “Books, I stopped reading those when I was eleven?” Or has anyone ever said, “Music, I stopped listening to that when I was thirteen?” Could you imagine a world where, after people turned ten, they stopped going to museums to see art? Then why, when you ask someone if they like comic books, do they say, “Comic books, I stopped reading them when I was thirteen,” and then laugh and walk away? Comics are just as valid an art form as music, theater, or dance. People in America are particularly narrow-minded in their attitudes toward comics and who should read them. In Japan, you can walk on a subway and sitting next to you will be a man in a business suit reading a comic book; across from him, an old lady reading a different comic book; next to her, a child reading yet another comic. Why don’t you see this in America? To understand the answer, you must first know the history of twentieth-century comic books in America.

The demand for adventure stories spawned a new and highly lucrative vehicle for the comic strip: the staple-bound comic book. Detective Comics (1937) and Action Comics (1938) were some of the first comic books produced in America. Superman first appeared in Action Comics. This hero, who breaks all physical and social laws to punish the wicked in a simple black and white universe, has been widely imitated. These comics were very popular during World War II because they appealed to the patriotic spirit in America. After the war, the comic industry needed something that would hold the public’s imagination. In the 1950s, horror comics became widely popular. To attract readers, these comic books became increasingly more gruesome and violent. When educators protested against this violence, the industry responded by self-censorship. This point in history marked the gradual downfall of the comic market. The worst thing that can happen to any art-form is censorship. This censorship knocked out most of the horror, detective, and crime comics, leaving only the superhero genre. The comic market adjusted and comics got labeled as a one-trick pony. In the minds of the public, comics and superheroes became one and the same.

During the 1960s, a generally narrow-minded attitude toward comics drove many adventurous writers underground. R. Crumb and Gilbert Shelton pioneered the underground comic. Thanks to these two artists and other pioneers of the “indy” or small press comic market, comic books found a forum for experimental creativity.

Nonetheless, from the late 1970s through the 1990s, the superhero continued to rise in popularity. Batman and other franchises were produced. The comic X-Men became extremely popular in the 1980s and still remains the best-selling comic book today; its only contender, the hugely successful Spawn. The market reached its peek in the early nineties, when there wasn’t a kid on the block who didn’t read some form of superhero comic. By 1994, the market started to decline because many of those kids had grown up. Superheroes weren’t popular anymore. The general public did not recognize that comics had more to offer than the superhero and people avoided comic shops. The comic market became depressed during 1995, 1996, and 1997. Because of this, approximately 50% of the comic book shops in the United States had to close due to lack of interest. The remaining comic market started to look for new ideas beyond super heroes to rejuvenate the industry.

Amazingly, well-known comic publishers, DC and Image, created lines to carry these new comic books such as Jim Valentino’s Shadowline, and DC’s Vertigo, and Helix. “What’s going on here? Even if you were the world’s greatest psychic, you could never have predicted that Image Comics--the industry’s third largest publisher, known for its colorful high-profile superhero books--would count such diverse small-press books as the mystical fantasy Starchild, the political satire of Ragmop, or the introspective autobiography of A Touch of Silver among its diverse line of comics” (Tom Palmer, Jr., Wizard magazine, January 1998, p. 53.). In addition, Fantagraphics, Slave Labor Graphics, Caliber, and Dark Horse, companies that publish small press books, have become highly respected in the comic book community. The comic books produced in the last two years are the most interesting, varied, and best written. Small press comics offer other subjects besides superheroes; such as crime, comedy, drama, science fiction, adventure, detective, fantasy, non fiction, historical fiction and many other forms. Comic books became as varied as printed books. Recent movies such as Men In Black, Spawn, Starship Troopers, Aliens, The Crow, Predator, and The Mask were all originally small press comic books. Yet, for some reason, people still don’t realize that there are comics out there besides Marvel and DC.

“People tend to think of DC, Marvel, and Image as the comics business, and that is bullsh*t. They are not. They are a part of it, but they are not it. I guarantee that if those three companies disappeared off the face of the earth there would still be comics. There may not be 3,000 comic book stores in America, but we would still have comics. We may go back to the 1950s, in that mode, with comics in drugstores and such. You are not going to kill this medium on the whim of three CEOs in suspenders who are trying to make a power play and get another 20% profit for their board members. The comics industry isn’t built on that, whether they believe that or not.”
--Terry Moore (Independent publisher of Strangers in Paradise)

The work being published right now is the best work that has ever been published in comic book format. History shows that the most developed and rich cultures were also the ones that had to fight the hardest to survive. These people had to work together to survive, and out of that struggle vast, wonderful empires were created--such as Ur and Mesopotamia. Right now the comic book market is struggling, and creating something wonderful. Through this struggle comics have become rich with beauty and art. But these great works of art might be forever lost if the general public doesn’t realize that this is happening.

“I think there is more and better work being done right now than has ever been done. It is perhaps harder to find, but almost anything worth looking at you have to search for. I find myself looking for things off in dimly lit corners that are not mainstream, because the more mainstream it is, the more likely it is that all the edges have been knocked off of it, so that more people will supposedly like it and there’s no real personal intent in the drawing of the story. But when you go off to the corners and people are producing a book they really want to produce, then often times it will have a really personal touch to it, an interest, and a quirkiness. Not always. Sometimes they’re just as dumb and boring. And the same thing with the mainstream. Every once in a while Frank Miller will come along and do a mainstream book. When he was doing Daredevil, nobody had ever heard of him, but he was extremely interesting and he had a great idea and he just did it well. So it can come from anywhere, it’s just more apt to happen in the independently produced comics.”
-- Charles Vess (World Fantasy award winning artist of The Sandman)

As you can see, comic books have importance as an entertainment medium and art form. The comic book industry is at a major turning point in its history, where it shall either die or grow and flourish. It is in a state of change, like a caterpillar in a cocoon on the verge of becoming a butterfly. For the comic book medium to soar like a butterfly, people must first realize that there is something rare and wonderful to be discovered in comics. So go to that dreaded comic book store and try out a small press comic book.