A Foot in Each Camp:
Indies & the Mainstream
About a year ago, I read a book about the history of pop music in the age of rock ‘n’ roll: “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah: The History of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyonce.” In the introduction, author Bob Stanley mentioned that he had always had one foot in independent music and one in the mainstream. Stanley wasn’t quite as even-footed as he claimed to be. He definitely leaned toward indies with his expressed interest in studying the new thing over the big thing. Then again, as the Amazon review notes, arguing with the author is part of the fun of a book like this.
I’ve always thought I have a foot in both camps as well, whether that comes to music or to comic books. I’m the opposite of Bob Stanley in that I probably lean toward the mainstream. Yet I’ve always kept a few toes in the indie side of the pool as well. I noticed and reflected on my range of tastes this year as I prepared pull list orders for new comics and opened boxes of back issue from online orders. Whether it came to old comics or new ones, I was buying both mainstream and indie books side by side.
In terms of back issues, I’ve been re-reading some of my favorite indie comics from the 1990s. I just finished reading Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti’s Ash in chronological order. It was neat to see the development of the character. I definitely preferred later Ash stories when the superhero alter ego had developed his own pattern speech. It was also fun to see Mark Waid, Humberto Ramos and James Robinson take turns writing or drawing the character.
Yet, at the same time, I was fascinated by editorial material in the back of the book. Quesada and Palmiotti launched their independent company, Event Comics, at the tail end of the speculator boom. The comic book market crashed before Ash was even a year old. Event Comics plowed ahead but there was a real under-siege mentality to the editorials. There was also a lot of cross-promotion for other indie titles and palpable pride in being part of a distinctive indie movement. Of course, it’s hard to live on indie pride alone. Ash was interrupted when Quesada and Palmiotti found a safer port in the storm as guardians of the “Marvel Knights” imprint. Event Comics then came to an end entirely when Quesada became Marvel’s editor-in-chief.
That reminds of another aspect of the nature between indie and mainstream art. Sooner or later, indie movements cross over and are coopted into the mainstream. R.E.M. and Nirvana go from being indie darlings and alternative standard-bearers to two of the biggest bands in the world. DC buys Jim Lee’s WildStorm so that he can become their new artistic director while Marvel hires an indie creator to helm their entire line. The lines between indie and mainstream aren’t always as clear-cut as fans or historians like to pretend.
Fans may accuse bands of selling out, but usually the band hasn’t changed as much as the landscape has changed around them. In comics, it isn’t uncommon to see an artist move back and forth between indie and mainstream camps. After all, even as Quesada was promoting other indie creators in the back pages of Ash, he was working on an Azrael/Ash crossover with his former employers at DC. Most of the other indie creators he promoted at the time either started out on mainstream books or have long since moved back to doing projects for “the big two.”
I tend to move back and forth between the two, as well. This summer, I completed my run of independent Ash comics. However, I also took advantage of a trade paperback sale to buy the complete “KnightFall” and “No Man’s Land” collections. I may be reading more ‘90s indies at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I’m repudiating my love for mainstream epics. My heart has always had room for both indie and mainstream stories.
Currently, I find I’m buying a greater percentage of indie comics than ever before. I lost interest in DC after their New 52 promotion. I still sample a new DC title now and then, and I follow a couple that I enjoy. However, it’s not uncommon for me to order more comics from multiple indie publishers than I do from DC. I skipped Marvel’s Secret Wars crossover this summer too. Many weeks, my comic book haul was comprised entirely of indie comics and Star Wars. It was kind of weird knowing that I wasn’t following any mainstream superheroes for several months. I’m definitely open to sampling Marvel’s new line and sticking it out with the titles I enjoy. But, for this year at least, I’ve definitely had a bigger footprint in the indie camp.
Independent and mainstream comics have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, indie comics are the best place to connect with an artist’s personal vision and find a character that’s reflective of their personality and sensibility. They can also have a very distinctive voice or push the boundaries of comics in interesting ways. On the other hand, mainstream comics are usually the best place to find wide-screen, blockbuster style action. Mainstream comics also have the advantage of familiarity- these are characters that everybody knows and that we grew up with. For me, indies and mainstream comics scratch different itches. I need them both, though sometimes I need one more than the other. I hope that makes sense.
I expect that I’ll always have one foot in each camp. And I suspect that’s true for most of us.
Replies
What do you consider indies, Chris? I get a lot of non-Big-Two review copies, so that's what I'm reading. Do you consider Archie, Action Lab, Dynamite, IDW, Oni, Titan or Valiant to be Indie?
That's a good question, Cap. Most of the time, indie is used in comics to refer to anything that isn't the Big Two of Marvel and DC. I used the term indie that way for this article as a lot of the current comics that were on my mind were Image titles like Copperhead, Deadly Class and Manifest Destiny (though, to my shame, I neglected to mention them by name). They have that indie sensibility even though they have a big market presence. However, I generally like to borrow a term from college basketball and call Image, IDW and Dark Horse the Mid-Majors. They're consistently in the top five in comic book publishing and two of them have been around for about 25 years. Archie probably belongs in that category as well, even though their direct market impact isn't the same. The rest of the names on your list I would definitely count as indies: Action Lab, Dynamite, Oni, Titan and Valiant- though some of them are trying to get to Mid-Major status. I'd also add Boom to that list and, of course, everything smaller than that.
I left Image off the list because how could the No. 3 company be an indie? But you're right that a number of their titles have an indie vibe. Some Vertigo titles do, too, so I guess it's hard to make blanket statements.
I like the Mid-Major distinction. For me as a reader the indie vibe is the key factor, which is why I've generally liked Vertigo so much. They have the resources of DC for production and promotion, but produce work similar to the indies. Another big draw is the fact that they're rarely superhero stories. I turned to indies when I lost interest in superheroes, so that largely closes off the mainstream publishers for me. An indie superhero story like Irredeemable or Invincible is just as uninteresting to me as a mainstream one. There are occasional exceptions, but that's the general rule.
These days e-sales may be very significant. (I don't know for sure they are: I don't have information one way or the other.) But Comichron still posts lists of estimated Diamond sales. According to it in September
-Marvel's Star Wars Shattered Empire #1 was way ahead of everything else with estimated sales of 208,884
-four more titles had estimated sales over 100,000 (Star Wars, Batman, Deadpool Vs Thanos #1 and Darth Vader)
-twelve had estimated sales between 100,000 and 50,000 (6 Marvels, 5 DCs, and 1 Image [The Walking Dead])
-fifteen had estimated sales between 50,000 and 40,000 (10 Marvels, 3 DCs, 1 Image [We Stand on Guard], 1 Dark Horse [Fight Club])
-twenty-seven had sales between 40,000 and 30,000 (11 Marvels, 14 DCs, 1 Image [Tokyo Ghost], 1 Oni [Invader Zim])
-fifty-three had estimated sales between 30,000 and 20,000 (29 Marvels, 15 DCs, 5 Images [Outcast, Plutona, Bitch Planet, Wicked & Divine and Sex Criminals], 2 IDWs [Star Trek Green Lantern and Danger Girl Renegade], 1 Archie [Archie], 1 Valiant [Book of Death])
-and eighty had sales between 20,000 and 10,000 (15 Marvels, 24 DCs, 18 Images, 2 Dark Horses, 1 Oni, 7 IDWs, 2 Valiants, 3 Dynamites, 1 Benitez, 2 Avatars, 5 Titans).
When you get down lower on the list you run into reorders (e.g. no.300, Sex Criminals #11). Sex Criminals #12 is listed twice at no.110 (20,348) and no.161 12,657). I've haven't noticed any other twice-listed issues and someone else will have to explain if this is something other than an error. Comichron only lists scattered titles after the top 300, so I can't be sure it provides a complete list of titles that sold between 10,000 and 5,000. No.300 sold an estimated 5,049.
The remaining one hundred and eight titles of the top 300 were 4 Marvels, 7 DCs, 26 Images, 14 Dark Horses, 16 IDWs, 4 Archies, 6 Valiants, 8 Dynamites, 4 Avatars, 1 Titan, 9 Booms, 4 Bongos, 1 Graphic India, 1 Abstract, 1 United Plankton, 1 Space Goat and 1 Broadsword.
Remember, these are Diamond sales only (that is, the sales of comics distributed through Diamond). Some of the items on Comichron's list are starred as having had "their reported orders slightly reduced due to returnability".
My apologies for any errors.