Are you Indy or are you Indie...? Options

[wwi3313]

I think if you look at the history of the comics industry there are clear connections:

Superheros = Superheroes, creator or corporate owned.
Graphic Novels (of the Will Eisner definition) = Blankets, Daniel Clowes stuff.
Comix = Chester Brown, IIRC, stuff.

I forgot to mention Zines, which fit in there somewhere as well.

There's a bit of convergence between the traditional definition of Graphic Novel and Comix with some of this stuff.

Sadly the graphic novel has become a catch-all for darned near anything these days. Part bastardization, part clever marketing since "comic book" is still something of a dirty word in North America.

This isn't accounting for digital. There's a lot of very popular webcomics that skew closer to "Comix" in terms of crude content and crude illustrations.

It all boils down to knowing your audience. If I was doing an autobiographical / slice of life comic for instance, I would find shops that cater to that crowd and ask if they could drop my book into the pull box of those customers.

My buddy works at Kenmore Komics near Akron and tells me the humorous stories of the aggressive facial piercing college kids who come in and skitter past the superhero comics to get to the indie stuff, like vampires dodging sunlight.

I will try most anything, especially if it's free, but my general preference is to avoid the autobiographical stuff. Unless it's something pivotal, in most cases I find it narcissistic navel gazing. Evan Dorkin did it right in the few issues of Dork where he went against his aversion toward autobiographical stuff and completely destroys himself in an entertaining fashion.

Knowing your audience is definitely the right move for us as creators, but its even more important for our audience to adequately know us! We get lumped into categories all the time based on this common definitions that don't always work. Take my recent book, The Trouble w/Love -- it features a Superman archetype so that Superhero/or Superman specific bias is warranted, BUT, it also centers around a love triangle that one could arguably liken to Twilight's first two or three books. Now, if I market it one way, I snub the other, but that's because there's not a clear way to define my work that really draws in both. Or is there...?

[Greg G.]

Knowing your audience is definitely the right move for us as creators, but its even more important for our audience to adequately know us! We get lumped into categories all the time based on this common definitions that don't always work. Take my recent book, The Trouble w/Love -- it features a Superman archetype so that Superhero/or Superman specific bias is warranted, BUT, it also centers around a love triangle that one could arguably liken to Twilight's first two or three books. Now, if I market it one way, I snub the other, but that's because there's not a clear way to define my work that really draws in both. Or is there...?

It's a book about a girl with a crush on a sparkly superhero?

It's all on you the creator.

Tim Truman, IIRC, recently published a Western comic that he was having difficulty getting out there. Instead of pleading with Diamond and comic shops, he marketed it through Western related magazines and the book found an audience.

[wwi3313]

After penning this question in a few different outlets and getting the wide response from my fellow creators, I've decided that from here on out, I'll be referring to Vantage:Inhouse Productions as a "Short-run Mainstream" publisher. My books DO carry qualities that are inherently mainstream, whether that's my predilection for superheroes or the aimed for commercial viability of my stories, either way, it's what's at the root of my creative thinking and I want to embrace that, unapologetically. So, when you see the Vantage Point, know that you're getting the best, new Mainstream work that a little guy like me has ever produced. A sincere thank you to everyone who shared their points of view and ideas -- it's peers like you that help encourage innovation and forward thinking!

[MasonEasley]

Interesting discussion. Here's my two cents;

I don't think the difference between indie/indy is as stark as some are making it out to be. I think it comes down to genre. Like Brant, my comic was largely snubbed at SPACE, and its a prime reason I no longer attend get a table at that convention. The audience isn't looking for a super-hero book, they're looking for something outside the super-hero genre.

I think that is an important distinction we need to make. It's not about production values or art or anything else. It's about the GENRE. A huge problem (if you wish to call it that) with what a lot of us do is that we've almost entirely been weaned on Marvel and DC comics. Because of this, we tend to gravitate towards super heroes in one form or another, and because of that, we get snubbed at indie shows. Indie comic readers aren't snubbing you because your comic looks great. They're snubbing you because you have a guy or gal in tights with super powers doing super things, and they don't want to read that.

If you have kids or younger relatives, this shouldn't surprise you. Sure they like Spiderman and Batman, but they REALLY like Legend of Korra, Pokemon, Harry Potter, and Adventure Time. Furthermore, the generation before them were into Avatar, Full Metal Alchemist, The Clone Wars, Halo, and Ben 10. In other words, the people actually wanting super hero books is shrinking rapidly, and Marvel and DC have done a poor job getting the next generation of readers interested in their comics.

Want a great example of this? Compare a standard Anime/Manga convention like Ouhyacon to a standard Comic convention like Mid-Ohio Con. The age range of the former is younger, more dynamic, and far more rabid than the latter. There's also far more of them. As a person who is fortunate enough to be able to be successful in both environments, I can tell you that the anime con goers hardly buy anything from Marvel or DC unless it's from a videogame or they absolutely love the character.

Which brings me back to the point; The Indy crowd is born from that anime/manga crowd; A younger, tech-savy group who views super hero comics as old-fashioned and generic. They've been weaned on videogames, Japanese cartoons, and non-American comics, which tend have a lot more genres, and attracts a much more diverse crowd (at anime shows, the females can outnumber the males by 2-1).

If we want to attract a more diverse crowd, we need to diversify our offerings.

[Greg G.]

Another important thing to consider with the younger anime/manga demographic = Less disposable income, if any.

Anybody paying attention in the late 90's and early 00's saw the meteoric rise of anime and manga distribution. Borders and Best Buy would have massive anime and manga sections.

And within a decade that market crashed, leaving only the Japanese backed publishers who existed prior to the expansion (Viz) and boutique publishers like Vertical.

Yep. Anime and manga fans are younger and more vibrant.

They're also less inclined to have disposable to buy a product, or just aren't willing to pay for the hobby they enjoy.

[MasonEasley]

Another important thing to consider with the younger anime/manga demographic = Less disposable income, if any.

Anybody paying attention in the late 90's and early 00's saw the meteoric rise of anime and manga distribution. Borders and Best Buy would have massive anime and manga sections.

And within a decade that market crashed, leaving only the Japanese backed publishers who existed prior to the expansion (Viz) and boutique publishers like Vertical.

Yep. Anime and manga fans are younger and more vibrant.

They're also less inclined to have disposable to buy a product, or just aren't willing to pay for the hobby they enjoy.

Eh, I can't agree with that.

Part of the reason a lot of Anime and Manga "crashed" was because younger people started pirating the material from the internet. Again, they're a very tech-savy group of people. It wasn't that they weren't willing to pay for the hobby (just look at the sales of Manga and Anime before the mid-2000s), its just that if you can get something for free, you're going to go that route instead of pay for it. Also it didn't help that there just wasn't a lot of quality Manga and Anime coming out of Japan following the big wave of amazing manga like One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist, Bleach, and Naruto.

Despite that, anime/manga conventions are still massively popular, and those kids drop insane amounts of money on the properties they love. There's an entire industry built around Anime cosplay for example, and I see far more people dressed up at those conventions than at standard comic conventions filled with older crowds. That shows a very high level of dedication to your favorite cartoon or comic. If a creator-owned property can break into that crowd, it will be massively popular, and make lots of money. See Avatar/Legend of Korra and/or Adventure Time.

BTW, I also wanted to say that this indie/indy situation leaves creator-owned superhero comics in a precarious place. Either you attempt to get a crowd not into superheroes to buy your comic, or you have to actively compete with Marvel/DC for an ever shrinking audience. Either way you go, it's going to be a tough climb.