Would you read a comic book series about ordinary people?

[Joe Washington]

No superheroes. No aliens. No gory, over-the-top violence. Just ordinary people going through the trials and tribulations of everyday life like relationship problems, issues with work, and dealing with the dysfunctionality of one's family. Imagine Strangers in Paradise without the noir thriller element.

 

[C.E. Evans]

People who read romantic or dramatic manga do it all the time. I've done it quite a lot myself.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Wasn't Harvey Pekar's American Splendor that type of comic?

 

[Harvey]

I was going to say: American Splendor?

 

[14thDoctor]

Also, Box Office Poison.

 

[Mr Light]

No, I wouldn't. I read comic books for colorful action. I wanna see superhumans in brightly colored spandex shooting **** at each other dammit

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Blankets, too.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I was going to say: American Splendor?

I was going to say that!

The New Yorker has been running cartoons by R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky, as well as another artist whose name I can't recall right now - all just about "real life."

 

[RoJoHen]

That's what the comic strips in the newspaper are for.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

That's what the comic strips in the newspaper are for.

Yeah, like Mary Worth!

Not a new concept, huh?

 

[Pilot Ace]

Blankets, too.

 

[Hermiod]

I watch a TV show about ordinary people that likes to think it's a comic book. Does that count ?

 

[Kibbin]

Sounds to me like you'd just end up with a soap opera in comic book form, seen as I don't watch them I'm not going to read them either.

 

[Sephiroth]

if there arent aliens in tiger-stripe bikini's , or ace attorneys, or little detectives, I don't read it

 

[Jono]

I have read such comics but I prefer my comics to be of the "giant transforming robot" or "dudes in bathrobes playing with energy swords and magic" variety.

 

[23skidoo]

The idea of comics about normal people is nothing new. As noted, manga does this all the time. Pekar is a master. So are the Hernandez brothers (though they mix it up a little with some fantasy occasionally). And for more than 30 years romance comics held their own against Superman and Batman.

If the story and the art are good and appealing, there's no reason why I wouldn't read a comic about ordinary people. There was a great graphic novel (I forget the title) that DC put out some years ago about a bunch of 30somethings who used to dress up like Wonder Woman and Superman as kids getting together to do it again. It was sort of the way Watchmen could have been had it not had any of the Dr. Manhattan/end of the world material.

Alex

 

[Theodore Jay Miller]

If it was humorous, I guess so; I liked Azumanga Daioh. But a straight daily-life drama, with no genre elements, wouldn't appeal to me.

 

[payndz201]

So are the Hernandez brothers (though they mix it up a little with some fantasy occasionally).

I was about to say "So, nobody here ever read Love & Rockets?" until I saw your post.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I read lots of comics, and I rarely read comics that are not about ordinary people.

 

[Myasishchev]

Jason Lutes' Berlin books have been reasonably successful afaik. I like 'em, anyway. Interwar Germans may not count as normal people however.