Superheroes Suck - the Alt-Comic Thread

OK, so maybe they don’t suck - though Hopey Glass says they do - but they’re kind of played out and there can be such better uses of the medium.

What I’m getting at is there is so much more to do with comics than the standard superhero adolescent power fantasy that’s been the mainstream for nearly a century. I’d like this thread to be about those sorts of attempts outside the mainstream.

Get me, I’m not bringing down mainstream comics. I’ve got original pages up in my branch office by Mark Buckingham, Matt Wagner and Eric Powell as well as an original Will Eisner cartoon. I’m there. But I’ve been reading comics since the early seventies and I find as I age that superhero books are repetitive and overly simplistic for me now.

But again, a place to discuss worthwhile efforts outside that genre is a good thing. I hope there are other posters interested in such. So here’s where we - hopefully - begin.

Displacement
by Lucy Knisley

This is a raw book of a travelogue. It has Knisley accompanying her 90+ year old grandparents on a cruise to the islands. She volunteers to go when her parents and such are fretting about their parents wanting to go and how they need someone to go with them.

This is really a book about aging and the two sides to it. Knisley’s grandparents are extremely infirm - her father has trouble with physical issues such as elimination and her mother has dementia - and require a lot of care. But in addition, it’s about Knisley’s ability to look at growing old from a younger perspective. During the course of the cruise - which she breaks up into days - she also gives us some excepts from her grandfather’s reminisces during his days as a pilot during WWII. The contrast between where he is and where he was is stark and difficult to read.

There’s humor through the book as well. Enough to lighten what could be a fairly heavy piece of writing. As she goes through the tasks required to be the daily caregiver for her grandparents - she’s in no way prepared for it, God help her - she occasionally has to just stop and deal with the ridiculous and it breaks the tension.

It’s a worthwhile book for someone who wants to learn about aging and generational and familial responsibilities and affection. Even when frustrated, Knisley clearly loves her grandparents and it shows through in her writing and artwork. I recommend it highly.

I’m fond of non-superhero comics inside superhero universes, such as Gotham Academy. (The crossover with Lumberjanes was fun!)

John Constantine, Hellblazer, and Sandman, and much of the rest of DC’s mystical universe are jolly fun.

And, yeah, there are “just ordinary people” comics (?) like Love and Rockets.

Nothing wrong with alternatives. Now, hand me the latest issue of Gold Digger.

Sorry but comics like Thor, The Unworthy Thor, the Great Lakes Avengers, Ms. Marvel, Astro City, Doom Patrol and the online comic Grrl Power convince me that superhero comics aren’t dead yet.

Giant Days is one of my favorite print comics right now. It’s by John Allison, the same writer as the webcomics* Bobbins*, Scary-Go-Round, and Bad Machinery.