I really don’t know. I really don’t have a lot in common with a lot of the people who attend the Comic Con. It's just like assuming that all people who write prose are the same. My stuff is very different, even though I use comic book form, it’s very different in content from what most comic books are like. I've been at comic conventions before and I’ve been at the San Diego Comic Con a couple of times, primarily just dragging my work across the country to get a booth and set up and try and sell the stuff. Just to try and make a few hundred extra bucks. I never felt real comfortable [at the Comic Con] because I never felt like I had that much in common with the typical superhero fan that comes to these things. Although I think comics have far more potential than I think a lot of people realize, still there’s not a whole lot more being done with them than was done back in the 60s. I would feel much better if the alternative comic book movement was much stronger than it is now.
Do you think your main audience has changed over the years?
I think it's the same type of people. People who are maybe readers of good fiction, who aren't particularly interested in comic books - in most comic books. [They’re interested in] maybe alternative comic books but not “Superman,” “Batman,” Mickey Mouse-kind of stuff.
Is the movie going to be written into the next series of comics?
Yes. I'm already doing stuff about it that’s getting published in different magazines and books. They just haven’t been collected into anything. I don’t know what direction to go as far as a publisher’s concerned right now. Publications like “Entertainment Weekly,” “New York Times,” “Time Out” - it seems like these kinds of publications are more interested in my work than straight comic book publications.
Has it always been that way?
Yes. I thought that if I was around doing comics since 1972 and I figured I would actually be - and comics would actually be - a little bit farther ahead by this time than they've gotten. Things improved a little bit in the 80s; there was kind of a revival of alternative comics but then they went downhill again in the 90s and they haven't pulled out of it since then. In general, I think comic book industry has been hurt since about 1990. Some of the wounds have been self-inflicted.
What hurt the industry so badly? Is there one particular event you can point to?
The one thing that was the start was when – see, I could be completely wrong about this - one of the major companies, I think Marvel, got an exclusive distributorship with one distributor. So other comic book companies responded in kind, trying to get exclusive distributorships. From that point on, it just seemed like things sort of really deteriorated. At that point, I know that sales started to plummet. At one point Marvel Comics was just about bankrupt. These problems have been with comics for quite some time. Business as well as aesthetic problems, I think. They haven't figured a way out yet. They are certainly as viable an art form as I’d want. I think you can do anything with comics that you could do in just about any art form. I just continue to be kind of disappointed that people don’t realize that and try and diversify the kind of work they are doing in comics. Maybe comics aren’t as glamorous as some of these other forms.
I always thought I had a great opportunity when I started doing my comic book in 1972. I thought there was so much territory to work in, and so many different ways you could use comics. I didn’t use all of them but I was hoping that I would be an inspiration to some other guys to experiment, too. I didn’t put the whole thing on my shoulders but I’d hope I’d have some impact. There hasn’t been enough change in comics to suit me. It seems clear now that all kinds of things can be done in comics and people just aren’t doing them. I don’t know why exactly.
