#Tad martin series#

#Tad martin series#

If you don’t recognize the name, don’t worry - his five-issue black-and-white series The Adventures Of Tad Martin, published by the short-lived Caliber Press’ even shorter-lived Iconografix imprint, only lasted a sum total of five issues between 19, but it certainly left an impression on those of us who read it, even if our numbers were few.

And while I’m honestly happy that folks like Dan Clowes, Seth, Chester Brown, Peter Bagge, and the like are seeing their work getting the recognition it deserves, what about some of the genuinely idiosyncratic and “out there” cartoonists from their era that were producing challenging and highly unconventional fare before seemingly dropping off the map altogether? I know, I know - the just-mentioned wave of web comics has given rise to a new generation of storytellers, many of whom are definitely carrying the ethos, if not the format, of old-school undergrounds into a new digital era, while most of the top creators from the last big underground wave of about 20 years ago have graduated to doing “respectable” efforts that are presented in high-quality hardback volumes and discussed in the New York Times book review section. One thing constantly gnaws at the back of my mind though - whatever happened to honest-to-goodness underground comix? There’s a lot for fans to be thankful for - apart from ridiculously high cover prices across the board - in the current comic book landscape. Creator-owned books are “where it’s at” these days, and the burgeoning web comics “scene” is providing an outlet (even if it is, in almost all cases, a non-paying one) for up-and-coming cartoonists to get their material out there to the public without having to pound the pavement looking for a publisher willing to stick their neck out and take a big financial risk on unknown and untested talent.

Sure, “The Big Two” suck, by and large - but they’ve always sucked, by and large, and there are more independent titles out there than at any point since the pre-implosion days of the early 1990s to satisfy the discerning reader’s need for something well-done, intelligent, and different than the capes-and-tights fare being peddled to an ever-dwindling audience at ever-increasing prices by Marvel and DC. Hey, look - as a longtime (nearly lifelong, sad truth be told) comics reader, I’m not complaining (much) about the current state of the medium.