Well, no. You did say that.
I really hate this insidious little meme, that comics=superheroes, that infects 95% of the American comics industries and has killed so many excellent non-cape books that easily would have been bestsellers if they'd been printed in Europe or Japan.

You should give The Losers from Vertigo a try. It's basically The A team, except with former marines who can actually shoot, and turns into a Bond movie towards the end.

I consider comics, manga, graphic novel, BD... all to be pretty much synonymous. I try to keep an open mind about what I could enjoy.

Just because I like superhero comics doesn't mean that the only reason I read them is because it's heroes in bright colored tights. Like I said, I like hero comics because they have what I want: good vs. evil, climatic fights, etc.

You do realize that the reason why most of the books didn't do well is because they didn't sell, right? It's not because the companies hated them, because God knows that they tried to publish them. It's that, as a whole, when people read comics, they want super heroes. They want the classic hero vs villain. They want to read something that can help them take their minds off of the problems they had that day/week/month.

Thank you for your suggestion. I'll keep that in mind.

See, I don't consider them the same thing. A classic American superhero comic book is different from a graphic novel is different from manga. They may be similar in the way they were made and in the way they are sold, but the content is completely different. This is like trying to call Punk and Ska the same thing. They may be packaged similarly, but their contents are different.

And non-superhero comics can provide that just as well.
One of the best books in recent years was Sleeper by Ed Brubaker. It lived longer than it had any right to, considering the sales, and at least Ed was allowed to end it properly at #24 (or Season 2, #12 to be exact).
It wasn't canceled because people didn't like it, or people liked their cape books better, it was canceled because 90% of its audience had never even heard of the book because almost everybody in America who reads comics is infected with the comics=supers meme and doesn't even bother to look for anything else.

Dude... are you Warren Ellis? You're starting to sound like him. Except not as hypocritical because he says all that stuff and then 95% of what he writes is superheroes.

Um...I know it's been said before, but I've been enjoying The Walking Dead and would recommend it.

Your a Packers fan, you owe no justification.

I guess that makes as much sense as anything else right now.

You got that right.

One of my favorite comics of all time was a non-Superhero comic: Jon Sable, Freelance

At first I was surprised it hadn't been mentioned by anyone, then I realized it's been the better part of 20 years since the original series wrapped

Man, I'm older than I thought.

Blame the british. One of their freaking quaks killed our horror/mature line back in the 50's, and we've been suffering ever since.

It's hardly as simple as "you American's suck."

America pioneered the comic. Back in the day, pulp heroes and general adventure reigned. Superheros popped up in the late 30s, and only him and a handful of others were actual successful, with, Western, Romance and other lines standing next to them. Horror was HUGE.

Then came "Seduction of the Innocent." British psycologist claimed comics will make kids gay, parent hating murders. It freaked out the 50s generation, and the only comics allowed to be published were of the Adam West variety.

This led to only "silly heroes" for over a decade. The only maturing occured in the 60s as Marvel popped in with a slightly more real world view on heroes. We had to wait until the late-70s/early 80s to break the hero genre, but by then it was too late. We had nearly three decades of of the public seeing comics as mostly a kid thing that would rot the brain.

Other countries did not have to suffer through "Seduction of the Innocnect." Japan gets to have a wide variety of genres within their magnas, and I'm jealous.

But to come here and blame a single person for the society handed to him by 50's American values/crazy British psycologists is unfair and rude.

Guess what? I read plenty of non-superhero comics. Heck, Owly is probobly my favorite thing ever, and it's a freaking owl that talks via pictures and has plant growing contests with woodland creatures! I've read:

• 300
• Sin City
• Blankets
• Liberty Meadows
• Lady Death
• From Hell
• Sandman
• Knights of the Dinner Table/Knights Illustrated
• Hellboy/BPRD
• Friday the 13th
• Nightmare on Elm Street
• Meridian

and dozens of others. You know what? I still put large chuncks of the super hero comic industry up against them. Are we oversaturated? Yes, but there's so much of it, there's genres within genres and if someone born in this world where they're stuck with so much of it, if that's all they enjoy? GOOD FOR THEM.

Back off and worry about something more important, like cheese. It's gonna ruin the world, man.

While I enjoy superhero books imensley, I have to say that (in general) they lack the kind of depth that most of those other books offer. The kind of depth I am referring to, is the kind that gives me that youthful enthusiasm, but appeals to me as an adult. I want well-rounded stories that either appeal to my sense of (something) or give something to think about, has a meaningful plot, and has well-rounded/developed characters.

Again, I'm not saying that comics of the spandex variety don't provide that, just not to the degree that I would like. If I did not throw in reads like Pride of Baghdad, Sandman, or the recently read Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm...I think that spandex comics as a whole, would leave me wanting and I would eventually find myself bowing out of reading them.