Chris Todd

A couple of years ago I wrote a guest column for Steven Grant's Permanent Damage that he was kind enough to print, addressing some of the hot button debates running around the comics blogosphere at the time. The doom and gloom forecasts for the industry seem to have died down of late, but a lot of what I wrote still seems relevant, so I thought I'd post the unedited version of the original essay.

I'm a passionate believer in the medium of comics, in its ability to tell stories in a way that is unique to the combination of sequential art and (often, though not always) words. For that reason, I’ve made a point of not just reading comics, but reading about comics and the comics industry -- first CBG, then Comics Journal, and then sometime later online resources like Savant, Bad Signal, and CBR. I've read many manifestos, many analyses of what the industry is doing wrong, many gloomy predictions of its ultimate death, and all of these seem to orbit the same assumption: that for comics to survive, it must be embraced by the "mainstream."

To which I say, screw the mainstream.

This isn't about superheroes. It's not about whether superheroes are infantile creations that are somehow holding comics back from their true potential, and it's not about superheroes being some kind of mascot to the rest of the world. That's all beside the point, like arguing about whether Sherlock Holmes is somehow emblematic of the entire mystery genre.

The point is this: that while comics are a rich, inventive art form, they are also a marginal one and always will be. Like opera, Shakespeare, James Joyce, jazz, "The Saragossa Manuscript," and Laurie Anderson, even the laziest of comics requires not only a certain amount of dedication on the part of the reader to learn how to read it in the first place (panel transitions, different fonts, motion lines, all the Scott McCloud stuff), but also an interest in seeing stories told in that fashion at all. And in the same way that a lot of people -- a lot of the mainstream, in fact -- don't enjoy classical music, a lot of people simply don't like to experience stories in comic form. It's not a matter of "if they only knew," it's that they just don't like it. Hey, I don't like Merchant Ivory films; that's not to say that the entire genre of genteel British films is bad or doomed to disappear forever, only that it's not my cup of tea. So to speak. Comics will never be implicit in our culture the way they are in Japan or France, and all the lobbying to change that is simply wasted effort better spent elsewhere. The sooner the industry stops chasing acceptance and starts concentrating on the things it has done well for decades -- telling stories and getting them to a dedicated audience -- then the sooner we can all quit this bizarre streak of self-loathing and get on with enjoying and challenging the art form.

This is not a call to insularity. We've all read about the ailing state of the industry, and maybe it's true, maybe there is an encroaching tide of red ink that threatens to swamp everything. I haven't seen the accounting books. But I do know that I can walk into my local comic shop today and not only select from a vast array of books from a number of publishers (American, European, and Asian), but also from more genres than I've ever seen in my life as a comic reader. In the boom days of the '80s, your choices were basically corporate superheroes or shoestring independents. Today, I can read professionally produced thrillers ("Whiteout"), horror ("30 Days of Night"), romance ("Cheat," "Three Days In Europe"), martial arts ("Lone Wolf and Cub"), fantasy ("Lucifer," "Bone"), action ("Interman"), sci-fi ("Ghost in the Shell"), or what would simply be called "fiction" in a bookstore ("Jimmy Corrigan," "Berlin"). And while X-continuity is, has been, and always will be a tangled mess that makes the Dead Sea Scrolls look like first-grade primers, you've got to admire the fact that it can still be retro-fitted into the templates of social satire ("X-Statics") and gonzo sci-fi (Grant Morriosn's "New Mutants"). We've got manga, manwha, online comics, original graphic novels, reprints of historically important material, magazines on writing and drawing, and it's easier than ever to buy any of these by walking into a bookstore or ordering online.

This is all good. This should be encouraged. This is why we should say "screw the mainstream." Why would we ever want to go back to the days of spinners at a convenience store? Why would we want to limit our genres to juvenile superheroes or abstract underground comix? Whatever the mainstream is, it's usually not about variety or choice, it's about predictability. It's about being able to ensure a bottom line. That's not good or bad, it's just a fact. The mainstream doesn't like new and different things -- at least not until those new and different things start making money. But it's seeing all the new and different things that are happening in comics right now that is so exciting. If you accept the fact that we're entertaining ourselves here, why not have some fun? Run with the art form, push its boundaries, tell stories both serious and silly, stories for adults and kids, stories of superheroic wish fulfillment and heartbreaking works of staggering genius, and when the mainstream leans over to see why we're having such a good time, we can shrug and show them our new toy. If the recent licensing frenzy is any indication, they'll ask us where we got it so that they can go buy their own.

And just because you're not mainstream doesn't mean you're not commercial. There are plenty of artists who operate outside the mainstream with both artistic and commercial success -- directors, writers, musicians, playwrights, screenwriters. The vast majority of Americans have probably never heard of the authors profiled in the New York Times. But all of these artists still manage to be successful in their chosen field, and not only that, many times their influence eventually does bleed over into the mainstream. Would I love to increase the number of artists and writers able to do that in comics? Of course. The more people creating, the more interesting things are created. But I believe that we'll achieve that state not by trying to curry the favor of the mainstream, but by continuing to develop innovative, cutting-edge material that makes them want to come to us.

I'm of the firm belief that individual art forms exist because they communicate in a way unique to that medium. Movies excite in a way that would be impossible to capture in music. Music moves people in a way that be impossible to duplicate on stage. And comics tell stories in ways that nothing else can. We should celebrate this rather than cut off our own nose to make ourselves attractive to a fickle mainstream that, in many ways, needs us more than we need them. So clean up the comics shops, produce more comics for underserved demographics like women and kids, branch away from superhero stereotypes -- but don't do it looking for approval. Do it because it's cool, because it's neat, because it's interesting, and because you care. And if anyone looks funny at you, tell 'em to screw off.