Does 50 Cent sings the same lyrics than Marvin Gaye ?

If I hook you up with a few good modern soul singers who do it old-school, would you hook me with up the names of a few modern super-hero books that do it the way Stan Lee used to?

The companies have forgotten that an excellent comic doesn't have to be "Art""

"All comics are art by definition. Even Rob Liefeld comics.

"and it doesn't have to be made of paper that could survive a nuclear blast.""

When I spend $50 on a hardcover edition I like to have nice paper. =P

Anyway, I truly believe that the comics available today (including reprints and collected editions) easily trump the comics that were available decades ago.

The only exceptions are the recent Marvel and DC super hero comics. But contrary to popular belief the whole medium does not revolve around Marvel and DC super heroes. "

I'm not talking about hardcover editions. The regular comic looks like it's made of rubber or a synthetic. Newsprint is good enough. Was forever, and you can buy the trades for the slick stuff.

"Art" in its most pretentious meaning is a pox on superhero comics.  Really, superhero comics should adhere to some basic fundamental visual storytelling. The art of comics could encompass anything, any kind of story, but that's not what we're talking about. SUPERHERO comics, and the icons we speak of, need to forget that WATCHMEN ever happened.

Actually the comics industry revolves around DC and Marvel, and I grew up reading their comics. So I'd say the bulk of my interest is concerned with the superhero comics and not the medium, which will never be used to its full potential.

Matt: re: Marvel's bankrupsy -- i was under the impression that was compleatly caused by their buying up companies with huge debts already existing: ie. Fleer, Skybox, that sticker company, etc . . while they remained profitable in their Publishing Division.  Marvel's came back from that by unloading some of those properties and getting some movie deals -- no?

Re: Health of the industry in terms of Diversity:  I would agree that there is more diversity being made now than ever, it's just not available unless you want to order it from a specialty shop 3 months in advance of it (maybe) being put out.  quite possibly, there are TOO MANY books for the weak state of retailers to risk much on shelf-copies when they have no reason to expect that walk in customers will come in to see the books. 

re: Nothing-But-Super-Heroes: I honestly have a hard time finding ANY Super-HEROES, beyond books by JB, Johns and Simone, maybe a couple others, i dont' think ANY Super-HERO books are out there. Certainly nothing from M*****.

re: Ethan's cheerfull look at quality today -- i would say Art is as good as ever -- writing by and large is decline, mostly due to an all time low in the state of Editorial.  But all in all, i do agree that the industry dose seem to be getting marginally better, as long as the industry doesn't shot itself in the foot again any time soon.

Comics being used to tell every kind of story imaginable, but restricted by the marketplace, is a loss of potential. Potential such as Scott McCloud talks about in his books on the subject.

And we're talking about superhero comics and not manga.

re: Super-Hero comics not Manga: I thought we were talking about The Industry -- since DC's dipped into publishing manga, and Dark Horse - one of the top 5 companies, has long had it's fingers into the Manga field, i think it's a fair point of discussion.

re: F* the Industry, Lets Art -- is exactally HOW and WHY the industry will die -- Arrogant Selfish people who want to do stuff for themselves and a narrow clique of people instead any thoughts towards making sure there Is an industry to ART in years from now.