You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Michael's Long Box: Warrior Nun Areala - The Anime (1997, Antarctic Press Video)
I have never heard of this one before, looks interesting. Ok, so I'm not into comics as much as I once had been. But, there was time when I would dive into the comic book store devour anything Spider-man. after spidy, I almost entirely dismissed all of the major comic titles and got interested in the smaller press ones. I found that not only was the art work better and the story lines, but the entire fan base for these smaller groups felt more devoted.
You put your finger right on one of the things I loved about the 90's indie scene. Nobody in all of comic-dom was a bigger fan (in the sense of being passionate about their interest to the point of spending absurd loads of cash on things) than the hardcore indie readers. You could subscribe to DC or Marvel fare and have it delivered to your mailbox, but if you wanted to read stuff from the smaller guys, you had to make the trip to the comic shop.
If the local comic shop didn't carry it, you had to beg them to order it. If you begged and they ignored you, then you went to the next store and tried again. Marvel picking up another reader of X-Men was a drop in the bucket when you were talking about millions of issues sold every week. Picking up another reader, for an indie book, was often a matter of life and death. That was another thirty dollars a year or so they could spend on advertising, hiring guest writers/artists, or just keep the lights on in the studio for another month.
Antarctic Press was special precisely because it didn't do anything the big boys did. They focused on manga and manga-style titles decades before 'manga' became a pop culture phenomenon in the US. Nobody expected Areala to explode the way it did, but they sure as hell used the opportunity to try a bunch of new things because they could afford to risk the money, and I respect the hell out of them for that. :)
My wife got me into a comic called "Elf Quest" it is written and drawn by a husband and wife team and only recently ended after a long long run. Elf Quest has some of the best art work I have seen. It also has a deep story line and offshoots. (makes me want to read one of the comics just thinking about it) but dispute a loyal fan base it never found a main stream popularity. and that's a good thing, because there is something special in fewer people knowing about it, like a secret that is shared between fans. Smaller is definitely better.