I think even Alan Moore has raised concerns about the "darkening of comics" in the late 80's. In his more recent work, he tried to get away from the tone of Watchmen and Miracleman. If one looks at his more recent work (Supreme, Tom Strong, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), there is a deliberate attempt to get back to the heroes of his youth.

Of course, Miller has done the exact opposite of Moore, becoming even grimmer with Sin City, All Star Batman, and 300.

(This post is concerned only with American comics. Please read with that in mind. Thank you )

There's no doubt that Watchmen is amongst the most influential comics ever written, and that it and DKR are widely regarded as the main cause of the 'realist movement' in comics.

Moore himself has often stated he deeply regrets that other writers read his work and then copied him rather than being original themselves in their own approach.

There's also no doubt whatsoever that most writers who have followed have entirely missed the point of what Moore did - which is to say, if you want 'realistic' you have to make some really serious changes to the world to reflect the presence of all that super-science and all those ultra-powerful beings. Trying to pretend a world so very nearly our own is 'realistic' because you add a thin veneer of Grim N Gritty is embarassingly absurd.

Truth is, you either write 'realistic' - with all the consequences that that implies - or you don't. There's no half way house.

The traditional approach to superheroes is the nod and the wink to the readers. We all know these larger than life people who never have a bad hair day let alone give up against insurmountable odds or - horror of horrors! - actually lose are totally unrealistic on any level you care to name, but that's never been the point of them. Superheroes are meant to be fantastic, aspirational figures who are far larger than life and whose deeds are the stuff of legend.

If powers really went to 'ordinary people', most of them would be used to impress their friends and interest members of the opposite sex, and that would be it. That's 'realistic'. Almost no-one would go out to save or conquer the world, and both 'heroes' and 'villains' would probably be certifiable. That may work as satire, but it's nothing I'd want to read taken seriously, and certainly not in any of the adventures of my favourite superhero characters.

Superheroes are unrealistic. They are, their world is. That's how the genre works, and that's how we like 'em.

Is Watchmen truly to blame though? I think not. The problem is that a lot of lesser writers jumped on a bandwagon that Moore never wanted to start in the first place, and that's hardly his fault.

On the other hand, without the darkening of comics we'd not have gotten an awful lot of good stories, including most of the stuff written by Garth Ennis, to name but one. I'd consider that a huge loss, and I'm sure others would, too.

Truth is, comics should not ever return to being written solely for small children and only allowing for light and happy stories. The medium is capable of so much more, as the Vertigo line has so often proved. What is needed is for a rebalancing of the scales: a recognition that comics are as much a valid medium for storytelling as novels or films. And that there is nothing wrong with writing superheroes as superheroes, and within the classic tropes of the genre.

Yup. He HAS to be jealous. JB has accomplished so little & contributed nothing of significance to the buisness. That, plus JB's contempt for comic books is undeniable.
So along comes this upstart who manages to help instigate the downfall of the comic book business & I can certainly see why JB would harbor such negative feelings.
The cad!

It's good to know certain priorities are kept straight.

I'm not surprised. The original notion seems to me to be wishing away the "downfall" of the comic book business based upon the belief that this "downfall" was "helped" by a certain project (Watchmen).
Yup. It sure is wrong to have wanted the business to retain it's HUGE fanbase prior to the "downfall".

Um, that's apparently what he's been attempting to do, but the PTB in the "majors" are seemingly too busy catering to the flavors of the month.

If by NOT being published the industry was saved from it's obvious downfall?
Ah...What If scenarios. To dream...etc....etc.

How dare they publish the comics that the consumers wish to buy!

Seriously, though, I'd like to see Byrne on a monthly again. I continue to cling to my desperate doomed love for the Generations series.

The consumers that no longer purchase comic books were shunted away by things such as Watchmen. If they weren't shunted away, the industry wouldn't be in the state it is even now, IMO.

DC needs to get rid of those that allowed things as Infinite Crisis & the "new" Superman before JB will be allowed to return to such projects.

I thought the industry was killed by catering so much to collectors in the 90s that they drove out most of the actual fans by churning out endless rubbish just to put a #1 on the cover; by the distribution wars that left Diamond with a complete monopoly; and (most importantly) by the fact that comics are no longer easily available in most places in the US outside of the direct market, meaning that they can't get casual buyers interested.

The fact that Manga does so well in the US proves there is a strong market for comics. Whether US comic companies can successfully tap into that market any more is something else.