This has been boiling round my brain for a while, and it's not quite ready to come out yet, but just to warn you: I may at some point blog at length about why I think so many US 'mainstream' comics are so disappointing, and what kinds of comics I'd like to see being made. And I don't mean in the usual whiny sense of 'Oh there's too many bloody superhero comics and they're choking the market'. I mean in the sense of a paucity of imagination on the part of many comics creators and, probably more pertinently, on the part of many editorial and management bods.
So the gist of it will be: when the only limits are imagination (and we all know they're not, but this is part of the argument), why are so many superhero and adventure comics so pedestrian? And, conversely, if the only limits were imagination, what would superhero and adventure comics be like?
Discuss. Soon.
While I don't necessarily agree that we're suffering from a broad lack of imagination in superhero comics (there's a ton of amazing, inspiring work coming out all the time), I wonder if any perceived lack has something to do with the business model. These comics have to come out, they don't just come out whenever a creator or creative team feels inspired (which is how the rest of art and literature works). With so much story needing to be shoved through the pipeline ever year it would make sense if some of it was less imaginative and more phoned in. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI'd agree there is a lot of good work coming out, but I do think it's outweighed by the run-of-the-mill. Which is true of any medium (as is having to come out: a hell of a lot of books, movies, art is made to deadline too, and often helped by working to a deadline)... but the point I think I'm gonna make when I get round to making it is, comics have become slightly complacent. Too much decompression, not enough condensed madness. I'll expand on this...
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