7 Reasons You Should Give Up Superhero Comics In 2017

A lot of comic writers and artists work on popular titles in order to generate a fanbase and then publish original creations through independent publishers like Image Comics, which has no formal editorial structure whatsoever and offers full creative freedom. It’s where your favorite creators can spread their wings a little. So if you loved Jonathan Hickman’s work on Fantastic Four and Avengers, you can check out Manhattan Projects and East of West; if you’re a fan of Greg Rucka’s current Wonder Woman book, pick up Black Magick and Lazarus; if you like Jason Aaron read Southern Bastards. Jeff Lemire’s Descender. Rick Remender’s Black Science. Matt Fraction’s Sex Criminals. The list goes on. Practically every popular writer for Marvel and DC has a book with Image or somewhere else.

These are books with vision. The writers are not beholden to profit margins or toy sales. Independent books can avoid all of those problems. There will never be an executive who insists that Hellboy start using a Hellmobile because it would make a great toy. Even if you’re not quite THAT tired of superheroes, just superheroes from the Big Two, there are titles like Robert Kirkman’s Invincible and Kurt Busiek’s Astro City. You can actually appreciate them more if you’re familiar with the tropes of the superhero genre.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Before you make it to reading translated European comics like Blacksad and Asterix, Image comics are a nice transition from mainstream to stuff like Zippy the Pinhead - if underground comics are your final destination. Here’s just a taste of the world outside of DC and Marvel: Dark Horse, Top Cow, Dynamite, IDW, Valiant, Top Shelf, Boom Studios. King Features has a crossover with The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Mandrake the Magician, and Jungle Jim - and if that doesn’t excite you at least a little then you’ve been limiting yourself too long. It’s like insisting your hamburgers come only from McDonald’s or Burger King.