Quote Originally Posted by MRP View Post
As Baseman pointed it, it goes beyond comics with the reading public. What are the most widely circulated books at most public libraries? Not the fine literature or new award winning critically acclaimed stuff, nosiree it's series romance books by Harlequin and the like )i.e. thing sread out of brand loyalty or genre fixation). And it's not the well reviewed critically acclaimed books that dominate the best-seller lists, it's the trashy thrillers like Dan Brown or Sue Grafton and the like churn out.

Reality television dominated ratings for how long now? It's a trash culture that dominates and sells lowest common denominator fare. Comics merely reflect the broader culture in terms of the proclivities of what gets consumed and sells and what doesn't. There are a small number of vocal people swimming against the tide, but the tide hasn't changed and shows no signs of doing so.

Enjoy the great books, recommended them to open-minded or like-minded folks, but don't expect them to be embraced by the masses as a whole until the masses proclivities change at all levels, not just in comics, and I doubt that's happening in my lifetime.

-M
Part of my problem is the very concept of "the masses". 250,000 people read the best-selling N American comics as most fans would have it. Think about that for a minute-- a quarter of a million people support an artform in the N American market, and that's before we even get into debates about taste. Millions of people read comics regularly in Europe, Asia, and South America. Millions, and most of them don't care about Secret Wars or Batman.

That doesn't mean that material is good or even should be read, but that it exists and people are buying it. Why don't people buying comics in the N American market acknowledge that Raina Telgemeier is by far the best selling creator of comics in the Anglophonic market? The "masses" buy her books, but they aren't the same comic buying "masses". The 250,000 people that buy Secret Wars don't know that she exists, but she's sold a lot more copies of her work than any given monthly N American comic. More people read Peter Kuper's work through the New Yorker than the best selling N American comic books any given month. Who are these "masses"?

It's not even an us vs them proposition. If you like good comics, they are out there. You can read them. It's not some precious subculture. Stop treating it as such.

(And yeah, MRP, I know I'm yelling at the wrong person.)