Boom and Bust, Mainstream and Alternative: The 1990s

Chapter 6 outlines the erratic 1990s, which began with comics selling in their multimillions. These huge sales were inflated by speculation: consumers buying comics in the hope they would increase in value. By mid-decade the mainstream industry was crashing and Marvel declared bankruptcy, but during the boom there were signs of institutional change that would underpin graphic novel production in years to come. Popular writers and artists parlayed their reputational capital into personal projects, which might be released by imprints at the Big Two, by independent publishers, or by presses set up by creators (such as the company Image). One of the longest comics narratives in the period was The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman, published by DC’s Vertigo imprint between 1989 and 1996 and reprinted in book editions after each chapter was completed in serialisation. Given the marketing hype at the start of the decade, the sense of an alternative comics movement defined against a superhero-oriented mainstream hardened, and alternative creators sought common ground with fanzine-makers; comics creator Daniel Clowes had particular affinities with the world of fanzines, or ‘zines’, and he depicted zinesters in his graphic novel Ghost World. Zines and minicomics were thriving in the 1990s thanks to DTP software and cheap and easy access to photocopying, and comics writers and artists frequently depicted alternative comics holding out against the mass-produced commodities of multinational corporations.