Go, Read: Alt-Comics Vs. Kids Comics

Brad Mackay's interesting article on the role that alt-comics has played vis-a-vis kids comics has yielded this equally compelling response from Christopher Butcher. I think Butcher's more grounded in reality. The author Michael Chabon gave a nice speech at the 2004 Eisner awards about comics somehow getting out of the habit of writing for children, but it was hardly informed enough I'd lead with it in an argument.

If kids comics suffer, and Butcher provides a long list indicating the relative health of such efforts, it's hard to believe a few cartoonists pursuing ambitious work for adults has a billionth to do with the shape of the marketplace compared to decades of various corporations falling over themselves to cynically exploit a shrinking but dependable hardcore fanbase, gleefully locking into place a restrictive market where almost no one can successfully introduce even slightly innovative new material. In fact, to be really specific, both Kitchen Sink and Fantagraphics pursued kids lines in the mid-1990s, but neither could get their effort successfully over the hump I believe in large part due to the incredibly hostile market conditions. Art comics talent from Art Spiegelman to Jules Feiffer to Lorenzo Mattotti to Richard McGuire to Kim Deitch to Sam Henderson have always pursued kids-friendly work in those arenas where it had a chance to thrive. All that's happening now is that outside forces are slowly chipping away at the American comics industry's ability to assert the self-fulfilling, DM-myopic dogma that only certain kinds of comics have an audience. Both comics for kids and a certain kind of comics for adults have suffered from the hands of aggressive narrowcasting; it's silly to play one off of the other.

Jay Stephens responds.
 
posted 5:10 am PST | Permalink
 

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