Western Comics

I'm aware that a large share of Japanese manga lovers have some sort of beef with American comics and would never pick one up. But I would say that they are missing out.

I'm not a huge fan of the classic costumed superhero, and pretty much the only franchise I like is X-Men, but there are other things out there beside Batman, Superman, the Fantastic Four, and all the other big-name series.

I recently went to a local comic book store with my friend (It was my first time going into such an establishment)and discovered limited series. For people who don't want to catch up on an on-going story line that have say spanned two decades, limited series are for you. They're like any other comic book except they have a set number of installments, so you know how much you're buying or will buy. I picked up one limited series (5 issues in total) called Immortal Weapons from Marvel. It's a separate story for each issue, (save for an ending bit where it's a totally separate story that's stretched between all five issues) and each contains contributions from multiple artists. I initially bought them as reference art, but when I began to look at them though I thought to myself, these stories are actually pretty good. Needless to say I was happy with my purchase.

So I suppose this post has turned into a defense of American comics from the crazy rabid Japanophiles who care for nothing except manga and possibly a few Korean manwha. If you can't find any western comic that you like then perhaps you are not looking hard enough. I would say that their is some variety to choose from, the store I went to had Archie, Halo, Stephen King adaptations, and freakin' X-Babies; and there's always some abstruse little book out there that won't follow the comic format as strictly (Shaun Tan's The Arrival for instance). Western comics can be just as varied in plot, art, length, and format as Japanese comics; it's just probably harder to dig through the big-names to find the obscure gem.