A Call to Arms!

I have to say that Indy Comic Book Week fits in well with my current philosophy of comics. When the news broke about Disney buying Marvel and then Warner restructuring DC, my first thought wasn't what was going to happen to say Batman or the Avengers. My thought is what can the rest of comics do with this news. To me it's a sign, that the top of comics is starting to calcify and become too corporate. That this is a time for the rest of comics to make more strides to promote itself and it's creativity because the top of comics are going to become too concerned with the bottom line.

When I talk to young aspiring creators at comic shows, they typically say the same thing "I'd like to build my name for myself in the Indy Comics and then work for Marvel and DC." And I think they're not seeing the bigger picture. Yes, characters like the X-Men or Sgt. Rock provoke an emotional response in people which in turn makes them attached to these characters. But the characters didn't make them "feel" anything. Those characters can't because they're not real. It's the creators behind the characters that make you "feel" because the creators are people too and they're taking a part of themselves and putting it on to the page. That's why fictional characters can make you "feel" is because the creator's "blood" is on the page. It's just like when an actor states they put a part of themselves in the role, comic creators are putting a part of themselves in the story, in the character on the page. And that's why these young aspiring creators are missing the point. They should make their own stories and find their own way to bleed onto the page. They shouldn't try to recapture the past on what other creators have already done with a corporate owned brand. They should be free to express themselves and a corporation isn't the sort of place that's going to allow for proper risk for a young aspiring creator to find his voice and style. Indy comics is the only way to way in this industry to be allowed to chance to express yourself.

That's why I think Indy Comic Book Week is a great thing. It's a chance to show people what's really out there in comics. It's not all event comics and alternate covers. There are such array of stories from the heartbreaking to the utter bizarre, that you're only cheating yourself for not trying just a few of those books.

Maybe next post I'll get off my soapbox and talk about the comic, Dusk, that I'll have out for ICBW.