What are your favorite titles for older, "sophisticated" readers and why? Do you feel there's still a viable market for comics for those of us who are prematurely gray?

Elaboration is required, I believe, Andrew. What titles can you start us off with? IMHO, there will always be some fairly sophisticated fare out there to choose from.
Were you aiming somewhere in specific? What brought on the idea? Do you feel the market is lacking?

I plan on making a comic with adult themes [sexuality and violence] but not in a "hollywood we'll make anything and they'll buy it" way. It'll be for myself, I write and draw it for my own entertainment, then let people decide if they hate it or not.

Most publishers conform to demographics which I don't agree with cause everyone has degree's of taste, so writing a story for all ages is never really stimulating for me.

I think adult comics will always be in the background but never in the spotlight simply because it's considered a medium for children. Who by the way are buying alot less comics today than 15 years ago, mostly adults buy comics these days.

Sorry to be so vague in posting my question, guys! My reason for asking this question was simply that two of my favorite titles, Wildcats 3.0 and Stormwatch: Team Achilles, have been cancelled for dismal sales. By "adult" I don't mean mean adult in that arch-eyebrow kind of way (sex, violence) but premises that address the post-drinking age, college-educated, semi-corporate yuppie rabble that buys Wildstorm and Vertigo books, for example. Not books about anal sex or sex toys, or senseless brutality and mindless violence, but thinking persons' comics that address politics, sociology, "mature" themes, and which are generally at the opposite demographic as the slugfests embodied by the recent JLA/Avengers crossover. Supreme Power and Y: The Last Man, though I haven't been reading either yet, would probably fall into that demographic as well, as would Bill Willingham's Elementals series from the 1980s. I agree that the superhero genre should belong to the largest demographic possible, but books like Ex Machina or Powers, and their West Wing audiences, have esthetics that differ from, and are often diametrically opposed to mainstream superhero titles. Is there a market for this highbrow, literate stuff? How does the future look for such titles, as Wildcats 3.0 in particular, with its premise of a global corporation using superheroes to take over the world (in this case, for its own good), have so recently been cancelled?

Yes.

Sandman: Endless Night took no 1 on the NY Bestseller list, selling well over 100,000 copies.

Jimmy Corrigan won the Guardian First Book Award.

From Blankets to Palestine to From Hell to Persepolis to In The Shadow Of No Towers, these seem to do quite well.

"Adult" comics seems misleading. (I guess unless you're talking about ADULT comics.)

Maybe "Intelligent" comics? "Mature" comics?

Here's why I think Adult comics will never sell: They're too slow. The pace of a sophisticated, mature story just doesn't fit a monthly 22 pages. Goes alright in a trade, but if it's something you can read in under ten minutes (and now that we're all adults, we do it in five, don't we?) you want some bang.

How many of us complain about Azzarello's Superman grabbing a cup of coffee. That's what adults do. Have you ever seen French cinema? Inordinately slow and intense, and will often spend two hours considering how a splash of water from a passing car has dampened someone's day.

I came to this epiphany because my answer to your question would have been Rex Mundi - a book which draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags on (although the art is pretty).

Picking up on that, Melissa, all my monthlies are juvenile - anything remotely thought-provoking is in trades.

Azzarello's Superman is the best selling direct market comic book. Okay, admittedly, there may be another factor.

But yes, adult comics make better Big Comics. And, with Tokyo Pop, Viz, Marvel and DC looking to bookstores for their markets, there's more of an opportunity to take advantage of.

Again, Sandman: Endless Nights sold over 100,000 in hardcover in a couple of weeks. Very few hardcover books do that, let alone fantasy novels.

Hey, I said "I think", I didn't necessarily claim to be right!!!

I don't buy Superman for the coffee scenes (or apple, even) I buy it for Jim's art. As you hint above, many others might be the same.

We're on the same page with the Sandman thing - big sales but in a big hit, not a monthly (or did it also do well monthly?)

Melissa, I thought you were *always* right.

I think Sandman's monthly numbers were respectable. I know Neil Gaiman was being touted for the work well before the first trade collection came out.

Nah, sometimes I'm left, sometimes I'm centre. Sometimes I'm upside-down.

Actually, according to one local colloquialism, my orientation can be referred to as 'batting left-handed'

At least you've got spunk. With that, you can go a long way.

So, did anyone here read Wildcats 3.0 and find it an absolutely kickass book? If you haven't read it, why the heck not? A total reinvention of the spy and superhero genres, seasoned with social corporate satire, and one of the most optimistic and uplifting comics I can ever remember reading, despite all the deep shadows contained therein. Check the damn thing out!

Dangerous word, that. Means different things in different countries. In some of those countries, you might say that I'm the least likely person here to encounter spunk, if you know what I mean (and I think you do)

I forgot about that. Darn cross-continental language barriers!

How about pizzaz?
Gusto?

Work with me here, people. I barely have a grasp on the English language in this country.

And we haven't even considered how our respective accents would sound to one another. Even if we all used "proper English," we might have a problem understanding each other in person!

This was a very good adult comic:


as awas this:

You read Astro City, then? I'd say thats right up yer alley.

We can't all use proper English. I'm the only Australian here...

>pow!<

AHEM. I think you got to the ROOT of the problem....

You know, there's a saying:

"He's just like a wombat - eats roots and leaves"

I'm half-convinced that our use of the word 'root' arose so that someone could coin that expression!