Great post,well thought out, and I hope it spurs more discussion.

I have to say that some really great stuff has been done within the restrictions of the “guys in tights” format, Alan Moore’s astonishingly intelligent Watchmen comes to mind, but it’s just such a narrow (and, when you think about it truly bizarre) genre to make up the majority of what’s printed in the form of comics in America.

When you think of what’s available as subject matter, basically the whole of existence, as in movies, literature and other creative mediums, this tiny oddball genre (that I really love at times) can be an oppressive cage for the expressive potential of comic creators.

In Europe, comics cover as wide a spectrum of human experience as film, and in Japan there seem to be comics about almost any topic you can imagine (and some that you never would have thought of), but in America, it’s guys in tights punching each other out.

I’ve been working up a webcomic right now myself, and as I started reviewing the mainstream genre versus what I want to write, I found myself surprised by how much of the comics I grew up on, my bread and butter, were really if you boiled it down, a bunch of guys in tights punching each other.

Your site goes a long way towards promoting all the other options available to readers. Clearly, one way to go is the whole manga ecology that’s out there, but the analog in western-style artwork isn’t as easily discovered (as per your article above). In fact, without some of your posts, I wouldn’t know about some of the best stuff being created by non-Japanese sources.

What a rambling comment. My basic thoughts are that you’re doing a great job, that you’re right about the over-abundance of guys-in-tights-punching-folks, and that this site is very useful. Oh, and Flight rules!