Should The Comic Book Industry Explore New Genres?

As You Know, the Comic Book industry of North America has had its entire market on superheroes since the 1930s. That's not a bad thing, but it seems odd that this huge industry has only one genre!

The Japanese manga industry, in contrast, has loads of genres, and a number of them certainly have nothing at all to do with superheroes!

The comic book industry should open up new genres, and be able to access more potential readers that way!

This is kind of a "Duh, No Shit" kind of answer.

Of course they should. The question is will they do it correctly.

There are many other genre of comics out there on the market They may not be the huge top 10 bestsellers but they are out there with dedicated readers

edited 8th Mar '12 7:32:11 AM by betraylawl

@OP: Absolutely fuck yes.

So what genres would you be looking for?

YES. This was one of the things I loved about the Bill Jemas-era X-Men comics, that they decided to explore new genres. We had X-Men-as-high school drama, X-Men-as-crime drama, X-Men-as-mob film... even the flagship title of the era, Grant Morrison's run, wasn't really a superhero book. It all got blown to Hell by House Of M, though.

edited 8th Mar '12 8:49:49 AM by HamburgerTime

That's kind of half-assing it. Regardless of what you pitch the story as, it's still the X-Men. If you're going to make a new genre, then make a new genre.

It reminds me of the Nu Marvel era, where they were trying to reinvent all of their superhero books as something besides superheroes. God, I hated that era.

Of course, that is not really true. It wasn't until 1950 and the comics code that Superheroes became the cancer truly dominated presence in American comics. Other genres also had a brief resurgence in the 1970 and 80s before that Crisis/Watchmen/Dark Knight stuff lead into the dark age we all know and loathe.

Yes, there should be more focus on non Superheroes, there should be less focus on Marvel beloved, all consuming, never ending "universe" in general. It is something the "big two" should be moving toward, the smaller productions already are.

Look at what Image comics is doing with this year with their comics. Fatale is a beautiful comic thats noir/Lovecraftian Horror. How many of those to you see around?

@Zeal: Actually, it was less half-assed than you might think. The only real difference between these comics and a standard high school drama/crime show/mob film is that the characters happened to be mutants. Characters can have superpowers without belonging to the superhero genre, you know.

I don't think it's just a question of genres. There is a surplus of horror comics out there, as well as a surplus of serious and/or grimdark superhero comics. Comics in general could use more humor and a sense of fun.

Did you ever find it ironic that two of the most respected graphic novels of all time (Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns) are just Deconstructions of the superhero genre? As much as I love those books, I've thought about that a lot. Like, we finally showed the world how great comic books could be when we put some genuine effort and imagination into them...and the best we could do was make darker, brainier stories about superheroes? Hell, even The Sandman started out as a reboot of an old superhero comic before it took on a life of its own. I love superheroes as much as the next guy, but I agree. We need to move on.

Yeah, I know there are plenty of great comics out there in other genres (there's The Walking Dead if you like horror, Y The Last Man if you like sci-fi, Fables if you like fantasy, One Hundred Bullets if you like crime, and the list goes on...) but as far as I know, the only comic that's ever gotten anywhere near as much exposure and mainstream praise as Watchmen and TDKR is Maus. If I'm forgetting one, please let me know, but...yeah. I'd like to see the list get a little longer.

I've read plenty of Alan Moore's non-superhero work and I think it's brilliant, but I don't know if he'll ever be able to give us anything with the same impact as Watchmen. If we ever get something in another genre that gets as much attention as it did, it'll probably come from a new writer. Hell, maybe someday we'll get another genre that'll take off and surprise the world just as much as the superhero genre did back in the 1930s. You never know.

On a random note: You know what I'd like to see more of? Space Opera comics. I know there are a few out there, but I'm a little surprised there aren't more. It seems like 90% of the ones that I can actually find on the shelves are just part of Cash Cow Franchises like Star Wars or Star Trek or Marvel Universe tie-ins like Annihilation. It seems like comics are the perfect place fore Space Opera—barely anyone wants to take a chance with it on the big screen because it's so expensive, but the possibilities are endless with comics. Which is kind of why I always loved them in the first place...

edited 8th Mar '12 5:57:23 PM by TheMightyHeptagon

The idea that American comics haven't explored genres other than Super Heroes is a bit of an over-simplification (and not quite an outright myth). Pretty much from the dawn of the industry there has been a wide variety of genres represented: mystery/detective, science fiction, romance, teen comedy, crime, humor, funny animal, etc. Even Classics (remember Classics Illustrated?). Actually, I'd say that, strictly speaking, it wasn't until the early 80's (or whenever it was that Dell collapsed) that the Super-Hero genre completely took over (with the sole aberration of Archie Comics). Even then, you had Gemstone doing Disney reprints. Super-Heroes, as we know them now, were created in the comic book industry, and are the only genre native to it. Super-Heroes are the poster-children of Comic Books purely because of market forces; they've survived, thrived, and generally outdone other genres in comic book form. Other genres have always existed in American comics they just, sorry to say, have not been generally popular in recent decades. Evidence seems to indicate that this may be changing, which is of course a good thing. The more audiences that the comic book form can appeal to, the better. But trust me, folks; DC and Marvel don't do super-heroes to piss you off. They do Super Heroes because their super hero comics continue to make money for them.

I know the Japanese industry is usually held up as a shining example of a diversity of genres, but is it really? It strikes me that in most cases, regardless of how its dressed up, a lot of Japanese comics can be categorized as melodrama.

I agree with this.

There's a multitude of other genres out there, they just aren't mainstream. In the past there were less genres available but a few genres had a bigger share of the market.

The fact that these genres aren't doing so well could be used as evidence that these genres aren't suited to comic books. It isn't true, but it's a similar logic to Cider and Heptagon insinuations that the super hero genre is dead because it isn't doing as well as it used to be.

There are plenty of comic books in non-superhero genres. The trouble is that the comic book industry as a whole has a hard time attracting new readers, so what genres are most popular among comic book fans tends not to change much.

Which begs the question: how does the comic industry attract new readers? It really is a chicken-and-egg dilemma regarding comic audiences and genres. On the other hand, I don't see the big two really thinking outside the box when it comes to, say, attracting women, children, and nonwhite readers.

@Gray64: That's not entirely right.

Superheroes took over in the early 1960s. The genre had been in decline since the mid to late 40s, with horror comics, westerns, romance comics, and Funny Animals being the big sellers. However, a variety of factors led to the introduction of the Comics Code in the late 50s, which severely restricted what was permissable. Horror became impossible and westerns were gutted, but superheroes were easy to rework into good clean fun, which made them the best choice for people looking for action and adventure. The launch of the innovative Fantastic Four on 1961 and Spider-Man in 1963 brought a new level of maturity and artistic merit to the genre, and so it took off, leaving other genres in the dust.

By the was, I don't consider manga to be the paragon of the comic medium. That honour belongs to bandes déesines

I'd generally agree with you, but I'm pretty sure the Comics Code came about in the early 50's. You're right about the "gutting," though; Batman, for instance, was reworked into a more science-fictiony, super-heroey comic to make his adventures "less imitable." However, what I meant by super heroes not dominating the market completely until the early-to-mid 80's was that, until then, other genres were still represented. There were lots of romance comics in the 50's, and lots of humor/straight cartoon comics in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. You started seeing horror comics coming back in the late 60's (with titles like Eerie and Creepy and even Vampirella, and DC's House of Mystery and House of Secrets in the 70's) and Westerns (like Jonah Hex) in the early 70's. War comics like Sgt. Rock and GI Combat were done in the 70's, too, as was fantasy with Marvel's Conan the Barbarian and the Pini's independant Elfquest. I remember, as a kid, being able to get Woody Woodpecker and Bugs Bunny comics in the early 80's, and just a few years later, they were completely gone. It seemed for a while there, in the mid-to-late 80's, you couldn't get anything that wasn't a super hero title from the Big 2, an Archie comic, or a small press independent. Even so, while super heroes have dominated the American Comics market, they've never had it completely to themselves. It just may have frequently seemed that way.

On another note, anyone remember Marvel's Star Comics line? It was a line aimed at kids and had some licensed titles (like He-Man, Heathcliff,and the Thundercats) as well as some original titles (Top Dog, Planet Terry, Royal Roy. etc) that were done by ex-Harvey cartoonists. It was a noble effort on Marvel's part to expand the scope of their offerings, but unfortunately it didn't last long.

Gray 64: The Comics Code (and the kerfuffle all around it) WAS the reason there were many other genres in the 1950's. Superheroes were thought to be a bit risky and losing popularity - DC cut its stable to just a handful of ultra-popular figures (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and, surprisingly, Aquaman, and introduced more Westerns (this was thought to be the "hot" genre then), funny-animal books, sci-fi adventures, romance, etc. etc. etc. Timely (later to be known as Atlas, and still later Marvel) went further and dumped ALL superheroes overboard, concentrating on everything but. (Their best-selling title, for a long time, was "Millie the Model" and spinoffs!!!)

DC cautiously and gradually expanded its superhero line in the late 1950's, introducing the "new" Flash, Green Lantern, and Atom, who had absolutely nothing in common with their Golden Age counterparts but their names. (The Martian Manhunter was a special case, beginning as a sci-fi character, rapidly branching out into detective stories, and gradually evolving into a full-on superhero.)

When T Imely-Atlas reinvented itself as Marvel in 1961, it began with "safe" popular genres: sci-fi (Journey into Mystery), teen humor (Patsy Walker) and Westerns (The Rawhide Kid, which was actually a revival from the mid-1950's). Then they cautiously followed DC's lead into the superhero genre, but in their own style (The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Spiderman, etc.).

It wasn't until the 1970's that superheroes forced all the other genres out of the Big Two and most of the indies.

I thought Marvel was always in the Superhero biz, what with Captain Marvel and Captain America?

Avoiding the very complicated Captain Marvel issue, Timely ( which eventually became Marvel) did superhero comics such as Captain America when they were popular, basically during WW 2. After the genre became less popular they moved on to other things, apart from a brief mid 50's revival they only returned to superheros I'm 1961 with Fantastic Four.

Marvel (in the late 60's?) developed their own Captain Marvel, but he had nothing to do with the Fawcett character (Shazam and all that) who originally had that name. There was another character named Captain Marvel from a different publisher, I think in the late 50's or early 60's, who could make his body separate at every joint, and could then control the individual bits and make them fly around. It was just as lame as it sounds.

So, the real question here isn't "Should The Comic Book Industry Explore New Genres?" but "Should Comic Book Readers Explore New Genres, therefore inspiring the publishers to produce more non-superhero stuff?"

Well, comic book readers are a part of the industry, for better or for worse.

I, for one, would be interested in exploring new genres. The superhero genre is great and all, but it has "the more things change, the more things stay the same" written all over it! At least other genres wouldn't suffer from that problem as much!

How about you guys? Would you be interested in exploring new genres?

Those who criticise superhero comic books often state that certain works have taken the genre to it's full potential and it's now dead. What they seem to neglect is that most other genres have been more thoroughly explored, just in other mediums. And I take that into account when I'm reading, that this sort of thing has been done better in novels or on film. The stuff I've read in the crime genre seems to be very unoriginal and not really that good quality, I'm not going to cut it any slack just because it's in comic form.

That said, I think war comics would be an interesting genre that could work well with the medium.