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Darko Macan on Joann Sfar Striking Me as Being Different Than Industry-Shaping American Comics
posted July 16, 2007
 

>Sfar's work is so assured that my
>own reading abilities, shaped by years of
>reading comics from people creating work
>with a crazed, desperate intensity designed
>to re-shape an industry severely reluctant
>to change

Weird, since -- in its own way -- Sfar's work (and Trondheim's) changed an industry severely reluctant to change. 😊

The difference, perhaps, being in that subversion came from inside the accepted formats (HC 44 page albums) and not by insisting on being radically different in every aspect from the mainstream. I mean, yes, they started differently (b/w, smaller format) but were able to change things once they and mainstream accepted each other.

In the American market things work a little differently -- every alt-cartoonist co-opted into the system ended up swallowed by the system, producing only a little better mainstream comics but of basically familiar flavor. I'd venture a guess that in the end the crucial difference is in the concept of property: Stateside, the property is the king and is of little or no importance who is working on it (if Miller or Brubaker do a good Batman it's still for the greater glory of Batman), while in Europe the glory goes to the creator no matter what he's working on (not counting the "sellout!" cries from those indie-creators who don't have the sellout potential).

Or so it seems to me.