I don't tend to see a lot of Conversation elsewhere on the internet, or forums, or even amongst comic fans about Independent Comics. I guess because probably the majority of really, really Independent stuff, I.E. Stuff what is published by people in their homes by paying for smaller companies to print it doesn't generally involved Super-Humans. A huge amount of it does, but a lot of it is a much more personal tale, or horror based or...all of the other things you get from Independent Comics.
A lot of comic-book professionals actually started off self-publishing. They started off making and writing and sweating over their comics which got ignored by most people because it didn't involve some geeza in a cape whizzing around and punching a glowing monkey through a building. It didn't involve a 70 year old character who possesses no powers outwitting someone because he can't get over his parents Death. It involves, the majority of the time, interesting protagonists and some fairly sketchy art.
Indie comics offer the opportunity for people to read something truly different and changing. Story lines that evolve and grow and change characters, not story lines that go back and destroy continuity and history and storyline potential for the lazy and the non-confident. Comics should be able challenging things and ideas and concepts. So you should all go to Cons and instead of buying that new super hardcore edition of Superman lasering off someone's arms and eating them while dressed as a cheerleader, you should purchase ONE Independent comic you have never read. They will either change your view of comics, or not. Either way, you are paying for someone to become the new Bendis. The New Millar. You are recognising someones creativity on a level that you do not get to do with mainstream comics because you buy the comic from them. They are there with their slightly strange appearing wife, and child who appears to be six but still eats food from a jar. You can tell them it's your first, they will hold you for a while afterwards and you will always have that memory. You will always remember your first time a huge sweaty man with an unkempt beard and a love for drawing crude weaponry.
I'm not calling myself a prophet of Independent Comics or anything, what I am trying to say here, is that in my experience, Independent comics are often better than Mainstream comics. They're not limited by editors enforcing company values, stocks, or previous continuity, or preserving the Status Quo. For an "Indie" comic that busts the Status Quo to pieces storyline after storyline, lets look at Savage Dragon. It's brilliant, it's not got Superman in it, but like Invincible which followed it, Savage Dragon spawned a whole line of books from it's own hugely popular universe based around the idea that anything can happen.
Now drop it down a level, has anyone here read any of Warren Ellis' more Creator owned stuff? Switch-blade Honey, City of Silence, etc. It's short and powerful and full of ideas that wouldn't necessarily make it into mainstream comics. What is essentially a three person sexual and mental relationship would never get green lit by a comic company because it's going against "old fashioned values". Now lets drop down another level.
Actual independent Publishers, we're talking Moonstone press, and companies like Radical, or even companies like Markosia. I often visit the Markosia stand when I head over to comic conventions here in Birmingham, or London, or Bristol. They have a huge rang of material, and a lot of it is very, very good. Fiona Staples of Hawksmoor and North 40 fame started off her artist career there illustrating a Vampire Story.
Finally, we move onto the smallest of the small. Two guys or one guy writing and drawing his own stuff. It's nearly always guys. Often you find that this stuff is either really out there, trying to be desperately mainstream, or just isn't working in a genre that wants it. Books like Mr. Glass, a near-silent comic about a boxer that is drawn in a beautiful surreal style, almost cartoony, but packs a script that'll bring a tear to your eye. Essex County by Jeff Lemire, who's work was so beautifully deep and emotional, it made me, a man without any emotional aptitude, care or any other description for having a hear that isn't moulded from granite actually choke up a little bit.
Go and read some Independent comics. Go and read something that someone put their heart and soul and words and voice and sweat and blood into. Go and read someone's heart noise spread in dead trees across some more dead trees.
Independent Comics aren't the Future. They're the history and the Gods of Mainstream comics, and sadly, like all Gods, they eventually get forgotten once NEW SHINY BURNING GOD WITH LASER COVER comes into play.
Independant Comics (I hate Holographic covers.)
Edited By BKole
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