Sometimes, I think this is what comics should be. Simple but well-constructed art that can be pumped out quickly, allowing the artist and writer to create a hefty volume of work.
Sometimes I wonder if spending days on a page which will be read in minutes - and worse, forgotten nearly as quickly if the story is poor - is somehow missing the point
I
adore the meticulous line work of Fabry and Bolland, and the painted era of
2000ad was my golden age, but I basically agree.
The page rates most artists receive no longer justify the level of detail to which we've become accustomed and the cover price of floppy comics deters the new (young) readers those titles need.
Pat Mills shared a great
Forbes piece that pointed out more than half of US comic sales are in book stores or downloads and only 10% of those are Big Two cape titles.
Teens are buying YA original graphic novels and big, fat Manga, and very young kids are into stuff like
Dog Man, which I'm not sure I can remember even being mentioned in these august halls.
Outside the shrinking bubble of the direct market and publishers determined to colour inside lines Jack Kirby and Alan Moore laid down last century, reasonably priced books of simple drawings by
writer/artists* are selling in their millions.
* Similar to the way the music industry has adapted to the new economic reality by pivoting away from bands comprised of 5 or 6 gangly teens with ruinous narcotic dependencies to Ed Sheeran or Calvin Harris alone on stage, playing to arenas
