I'm not being difficult, I'm pointing out the indisputable fact that what we like to read is not the topic of this thread. Fandom, how differing fans perceive one another and one another's taste, and how those fans discuss their tastes is.

I really shouldn't have to explain this to you, since you started the thread and all.

So by all means, join in on the discussion you started if you're so inclined.

I repeat the request.

Anyhoo... What is "advancing the medium" anyway? That just seems to be jargon for writing about slightly more mature subject matter.

Hahahah HAh Ahahha AH aHA ha Ahah a HAh aHa!!
Ummmmm … not simply doing comics in the same way day after day and year after year by repeating formulas establishes decades ago? Trying new ways to tell stories or present images or work within the confines of the page? Exploring the artistic possibilities of the medium and seeing if there are new ways to use the comic page? Attempting to create work that moves beyond mere escapism and trying to tackle themes and issues more weighty themes than fights?
I'm sure that's exactly how it seems to you.

I'll ignore the trolling for now.

But aren't they really just substituting one set of formulas for another in some cases? When I look at indie/alt/self-published comics, I see a lot of stuff kind of like American Splendour, a lot of stuff kind of like Andi Watson's work, stuff that looks like comic strips from the early twentieth century, a lot of stuff that looks like it was drawn by Mahfood, a lot of artwork influenced by old Hanna-Barbera cartoons (Ragmop, Pants Ant, etc.)...

There is a lot of slice of life and autobio stuff out there and other "literary fiction"-type stories seem to make up a substantial chunk of what's available.

Formulas abound in the writing, and some of the art. Heck, even MAUS bears similarities to novels that have been written about the holocaust. They're just more "general audience" ones.

I can see what you're saying about things like design elements and page layouts... but some of the stuff that "advances the medium" must be doing it in really subtle ways. Enough indie creators are influenced by the same things to result in a set of conventions whether people want to admit it or not.

You just failed.
Naturally. Trying to push the boundaries of what can be done in comics can entail both trying to create new formulas as well as attempting to use established formulas in ways that haven’t seen used before. All progress in creativity uses past progress as a stepping stone; these things don’t happen in a void, so of course you’re going to recognize previous influences, formulas, ideas, themes, styles and so on.
Well, yeah. Again, these things don’t happen in a void. They don’t spring from some netherworld, they’re made up of pieces snatched from here and there, influences obvious and obscure.

The sum total of a work is not the individual pieces from which it is made, but rather what those disparate pieces are turned into.

And sometimes, it’s not even about doing something no one else has done before, but simply making more “acceptable” a technique or style or tone previously “unavailable” to comic creators.

Even if some indie creators are simply doing straight retreads of stuff others have done before – and certainly many are – none of that stuff is visible in the mainstream consciousness, both within comics and beyond. They’re doing it, but no one is seeing it. If and when some obscure thing catches, even it’s been done before by others it is (arguably) “advancing” the form by being new to a majority of readers and creators. Suddenly that obscure thing is changing tastes and influence from that point forward, even if only in a small way many wouldn’t notice.

Sometimes the steps are small. Sometimes large. But anything that broadens the palette with which creators feel they can work is to me an advancement of the genre. I like the idea that a creator might feel he or she can do damn near anything they can dream on the page.

The painted comics of Bill Sienkiewicz and others in the 1980s were not, to the best of my knowledge, the first painted comics to ever appear. They weren’t even necessarily widely popular at the time. What they were, however, is influential. They said, “you can do this, too.” They put another tool in the mainstream tool box.

That’s a positive in my book.

Yes, in the end what you have is a different set of formulas … but so what? More choices for creators, whether in presentation or simply in being able to tell the kinds of stories they want to tell, can hardly be a bad thing.

I thought the topic was "what's the best way people who like to read X convince others to like X as well?"

Pekar did give reasons for not reading superhero/fantasy books. Just like Joe Zabel did here a couple years ago. They're not reasons that I agree with, but they're reasons.

Gosh there seemed like some progress was going to be made but we keep getting hung up around "not interested in the artform as an artform, preferring it solely for escapist entertainment"

Sad really that we can agree that an art form doesn't has to be wrapped up in more and more exercises of displeasure and rarified knowledge.

I'm concerned with comics as a popular art form not tests in who gets what I'm doing or numbing my brain with 'escapist entertainment'.

I really do get what you are saying Shoe but putting down other works of art is not the way to advance thinking widely about comics or art.

What comics as an art form needs to be on guard toward is the same narrow thinking that has made other media so rigid and exclusionary.

You'd be doing me a favor if you could point out where I put down other works of art, because I certainly have no recollection of doing so.

I put escapist in quotes the first time around, which I consider a putdown in the same way that one finds it movie reviews as material to be dismissed were it not for box office sales.