Why in the world would that the be the measure of success? The measure oughta be can creators get their work into the hands of the public? Can they make a living while they do so? Can the retailer? Does the public have a wide and varied choice of books?

You wanna’ talk about influence? San Deigo Comicon. That’s influence, baby!

I’ve been reading since the funny books since 1976. From my perspective, there is more being published now that I am interested in reading than there’s been in years.

Hang it in your ear, Oscar Dahl.

Yes, the premise is that “they are stagnant because I haven’t heard of it.” But there’s a point there. Why haven’t things broken through the way Spawn did? Was Spawn just good marketing? Right time, right place? Is there a reason why The Hulk, Spider-man, Superman, and Batman consistently stay in the mainstream while new creations do not? Is it because new creations are not as good, or is it simply because they’re too buried. Or is it because the previous mentioned heroes have had generations to engrain themselves in pop culture?

While I agree that his argument has a lot of holes, the fact that he raises the question says a lot about the industry.

But of course, that’s not a superhero book, so it doesn’t count.

As much as the comic book industry would love to take bows for “Heroes”, it’s got little to do with it. It’s a TV show.

Otherwise the Comic industry would have to take the blame for “My Super Ex-Girlfriend”.

Isn’t there a faulty premise in this? The reason he is judging the comics industry as stagnant is because no “new comics” have achieved mainstream success (by which he appears to mean film and/or television). But that assumes the only measure of the comic industry’s success is its translation into other mediums.

I can judge break-through hiphop artists without following that industry because when they actually come into my radar, it means they’ve broken through.

He’s also clearly talking about super-hero properties, so you have to take it in that context. This all relates to Heroes, so he’s talking about genre-based super-hero material. He’s not talking about American Born Chinese or Ghostworld.

And, by the way? I can ask a dozen people on the street if they’ve read American Born Chinese, and I guarantee you they will have no idea what I’m talking about. But I ask those same people about Spider-man, and they’ll have an opinion based on the movies.

And that’s the point…what pop culture phenomenon has exploded out of comics in the past decade?

So, on that vein, he appears not to have noticed books such as Jimmy Corrigan and Persepolis, or to have been aware of the fact that Men in Black, Road to Perdition, Ghostworld and History of Violence were comic book movies. And what were Buffy and the Matrix if not comics material?

This is just another example of an idiot commentator that doesn’t do any research before running his mouth. Because he’s seen a few comic movies and Heroes he thinks he’s an authority.

I would also argue that prior to The Matrix was the first Next Gen Super-hero, and that was done as a film.