My local comic shop has to be one of the best in the world. Now, I'm not stating this biased opinion because it's my local, but because I believe it really is. The manager is friendly and the members of staff are genuinely interested in what they are doing. Furthermore, Colchester's Planet Ace (formerly a Forbidden Planet), has the largest comic back-issue collection in Europe, and sells all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

It's a real life Aladdin's cave that offers exquisite delights for the comic book connoisseur, but for a token few, this abundance of choice presents a problem.

You see, in real life there aren't many connoisseurs of the actual comic book medium. What you usually get are people who only read one genre, who will only talk to others with similar tastes, and who like their comics to be segregated on the stands so that they won't be forced to mix with the general hoi polloi.

Before anyone points their fingers at me and screams, "J'accuse", this is not going to be a snobby article bemoaning the fact that some people, myself included, actually enjoy superhero comics. Nor is this going to be a diatribe espousing the view that one type of comic is better than the other.

No, what I'm talking about is elitism and fear of the unfamiliar.

'There aren't many connoisseurs of the actual comic book medium.' Talk to any comic book fan and you'll soon find that, aside from many different types of genre, comics are generally divided into two categories - mainstream and independent. And that's all.

There are some comics that seem to straddle this divide, but sadly these are few and far between. And if you talk to this average fan at any length, you'll discover something really strange - hardcore supporters of each "type" look down on each other, and hardly anyone has tried to reconcile the two. Elitism comes in many different forms and from both sides of the divide. Just as you have people being condescending about the 'silly antics' in superhero comics, you also see people being equally disdainful about what they see as independent rubbish.

For example, the other day in Planet Ace, the following scene occurred:

Customer: What's this crap? Why've you got Japanese comics in here for?
Worker: Some people like to read those comics.
Customer: Yeah, but you can't understand what's being said, 'cause it's not in English and they look funny.
Worker: Some people can read Japanese. They enjoy those comics.
Customer: Yeah right. (He turns to the shop and gets everyone's attention.) Anyone here read this rubbish?
Two skateboarder kids: Yeah, we do.
Customer: Yeah right. You're just having me on.
Skateboarder kids: No, we do read those comics.

The customer then turned around and ignored them, because everyone in the shop was now sniggering at him.

On the flipside, it seems that for every issue of a superhero comic that is produced, there is a dissenter who will whine about superhero comics flooding the market, and say that there aren't enough long-lasting independent comics. Yet it doesn't seem that the audience exists to support these comics.

For example, when a recent issue of monthly comics catalogue Previews came out, it had two different covers on the front and reverse, as it does every month. One was from the bad girl comic WITCHBLADE, and the other was taken from the two-volume September 11 benefit comic 9-11, from DC, Dark Horse, Chaos, Image, et al.

'Comic shop regulars have to learn how to appreciate other aspects of the medium.' Now, even though the main feature article in this issue of Previews was on the 9-11 books, and that cover was the actual front cover of the magazine, guess which cover version actually helped sell the most copies at Planet Ace?

That's right; WITCHBLADE.

In an experiment conducted by bored shop workers, an equal number of Previews with each of the two covers facing out was placed on the shelves. Now, even though both covers were on the front and the back of each magazine, for some unfathomable reason it was only when the WITCHBLADE cover was on top that people bought it.

I have to admit that it was quite amusing to watch when the shop kept running out of the "WITCHBLADE version", and the staff would amble along when none of the customers were looking and simply turn over a few copies. But do you want to know what the most revealing element of this little exercise was? It wasn't only mainstream fans that favoured the WITCHBLADE version. It was the independent contingent as well.

This type of behaviour is the reason why I'm becoming more and more disillusioned with other comic fans and the industry.

Even when others try to bridge the gap between the mainstream and the experimental, we're still not satisfied, because these innovative comics aren't typical of their respective classes. Alan Moore's PROMETHEA is not linear enough, J.M DeMatteis' SPECTRE has hardly any fights for an iconic superhero, and Jamie Delano didn't write OUTLAW NATION in a standard story-arc format. The list goes on. We are divided, bickering and whining.

Last week on Comic Shop Confidential:
Ben Wooller on the trials of isolation.
Next week: Brent Keane on comic shop horrors. This problem isn't going to disappear overnight. It's not going to change until people become a bit more willing to venture into the unknown and stare the 'other' square in the eye. This means that comic shop regulars, like a certain bloke at my local store who spends a few hundred pounds a month on nothing but Bad Girl comics, are just going to have to learn how to appreciate other aspects of the medium.

I mean, lets face it, whether we like it or not, the core of the comic industry will always be made up of these two divergent forces.

The superhero genre will never die out, because it's as old as sin. The whole mythos of powered beings was first conceived when our ancestors crawled out from their dark caves many a millennia ago and tried to explain why they were alive. If you can do without any form of religion, hobbits, Jedi knights, wizards and anything else based on the supernatural, then, and only then, will you have a case for abolishing superheroes.

As for the independents, there will always be those who aren't a part of the crowd, and who will always push things just that little step further. These are the people who will redefine artistic barriers and gladly experiment with new ways of thinking.

If the fragmented aspects of comics could somehow be glued together - if the two sides of the comic store could be united - it would end the insider pettiness, help the industry to change outside perceptions, and make it easier for newcomers to walk through those doors.

Until then, however, I'm going to take everything with a pinch of salt until someone can make me believe that there is such thing as a true comic book fan.

Roxane Grant is a Literature Masters student at Essex University.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.