I am at work now and don't have itme for a lengthy response but after years of reading Slate this is actually the first article that compelled me to join The Fray. The author of this article clearly does not know what has been going on in the comic world for the last 15 or so years outside the "legacy" comics (Batman, Spiderman, Superman, etal.) For starters ... has this author even heard of Neil Gaiman? Gaiman and McKean took the mantle that Moore and Gibbons gave to them and ran with it. And now there are many thoughtful, well writen, visually interesting comics out there to be read and it all started with Alan Moore. I guess this is just my opinion but it seems to me that a lot of what has been going on in the comic world for the last 15 years or so has been willfully ignored by the author. anyone agree? disagree?

Lots of indy comics out there about regular folks. Moore's From Hell for one; Persepolis by what's her name. Of course, there was Maus. American Splendor. The list goes on and on.

Maus, American Splendor... yes, yes, how could i forget. Let's even through Fables in there ... it's about storybook characters in the real world. Let's even take the "real people" thing out of it. I think the author was off mark when he/she posited that that was what made Watchmen revolutionary. The thing that Alan Moore did that was so spectacular and original was create intelligent, visual, novels for adults. An idea that has since taken off - Alan Moore revolutionized comic books by making them a respected and innovative art form. That is what he really did, in my opinion, not just make super hero's more "human".

I agree with everything said here. Although I am not a big comic-reader, I am at least more informed than the author. I have been visiting Slate for a while and there are good articles mixed in with this amateurish crap.

Even though he hates superhero comics with a passion, Dan Clowes owes a debt to Moore et al. for giving geeks a bridge from the superheroic to the alt./underground.