Pull up a chair. This isn't the trendiest bar in town, but it's no dive either. You get a good crowd on nights like this. We've got a pitcher of margaritas on the way, so if you want something else, now's the time to say.

On your right is Laurenn McCubbin, artist of the illustrated novel RENT GIRL. Next to her is Tristan Crane, writer of the acclaimed HOW LOATHSOME, and longtime veteran of working in comic book shops. And over here with me is Lea Hernandez, multiple Eisner-nominated and Lulu award-winning founder of the Girlamatic comics website and creator of the Texas Steampunk graphic novels and the RUMBLE GIRLS series. Mind if we smoke? No? Good. Let's get started.

LEA HERNANDEZ: Me, I got into comics because of the Disney comics we were bought for long car trips. I remember lying in the floor of the car, amazed at how a good DONALD DUCK passed a boring drive from Dallas to Oklahoma.

TRISTAN CRANE: I read comics pretty early on, too. I was way into the old Marvel STAR WARS books, for better or worse. From there it was onto X-MEN, but early on a friend got me onto indie books, and the early Vertigo stuff that still stands out as some of the most daring work ever published by a 'mainstream' company. We used to spend a not-insignificant amount of time in comic book stores, would skip high school and drive into Berkeley to buy mini-comics and zines at Comic Relief. The good old days...

ALEX DE CAMPI: I got hooked on X-MEN, about age 10, basically because they carried it in my small-town Pennsylvania pharmacy.

LAURENN McCUBBIN: I shoplifted the occasional X-MEN, but I wasn't a big comics fan - I read LOVE & ROCKETS, and I got into SANDMAN because, well... I was a spooky little goth girl and that's what you do when you're spooky. L&R was always my book, however. I recognized these characters. Isn't that one of the things about comics that draws people in? That you see yourself in the characters, that you can picture yourself in the story. I was Hopey. Sometimes, I still am. Sometimes I'm Maggie, too.

ALEX: Yeah, that's actually the reason I stopped reading comics for a long time. At 10 I was fascinated by the strength and independence of the female X-MEN characters - Storm's Mohawk rocked my world; by 12, I had outgrown them. They - or at least the ones available in small-town pharmacies and mall bookstores - stopped saying anything to me about my life. I only got back into comics about five years ago when a friend who was moving gave me a massive stack of old Vertigo and WildStorm books, and 2000ADs. I was like, ooh, comics can be like this? Why weren't they in my mall's bookstore?

TRISTAN: That's the advantage kids have now; the bookstore phenomenon.

''I shoplifted the occasional X-MEN, but I wasn't a big comics fan.'' ALEX: And the manga phenomenon. If only I'd had them then...

LEA: See, those books I read as a kid in the car are the reason I'm in comics now. I wanted to make books that thrilled me the way the stuff I read thrilled me. And I can sum up in four words what made me fall I love with them: queer for the line. I loved cartooning. Good cartooning. And there are still comics for kids out there that are just as good.

TRISTAN: Sadly, I don't think there are, in terms of the comics I fell in love with when I was younger. There doesn't seem to be much support from mainstream comics for work that's truly weird and pushed the boundaries. They hire 'indie' creators, but have them work on more marketable stuff. There's plenty of small-press and indie stuff out at the moment, but that can be harder for people to find. I do think there are some great comics out there to get kids interested, but as always, it's difficult to reach the audience.

LEA: You're talking about older kids, though.

TRISTAN: Yes.

LAURENN: No. There are no comics for kids today - at least, not in the mainstream. Yeah, I know, it's a tired old argument, but really, what is there? Outside the mainstream, sure there's stuff - Alternative Comics' PEANUTBUTTER & JEREMY is my favourite - but inside the mainstream, there's not really anything. And, from all the stuff that's been going around after Chabon's Eisner speech at San Diego, they don't really want to do anything, do they?

ALEX: Yeah, San Diego... it was my first year, and it was... humbling.

LAURENN: It was the same shit, over and over! I mean, I barely know anything about comics, and even I can see it. Everyone is talking about the X-Men getting their old costumes back, like that is an important plot point, somehow. I have gotten to the point where if I even see the words 'Green Lantern', I just tune out. My eyes glaze over. There is so nothing for me there.

Sometimes, comics are so embarrassing. Rampant misogyny and homophobia aside - far, far aside, please - the short-sightedness of the industry is just stunning. Comics is ten years behind all other media, and it's starting to show. Everything about comics is so behind the times; the stories, the politics, even the way most of y'all dress. Get some new clothes, people!

LEA: The tits and ass factor's still there at San Diego, and popped up in some surprising places this year - like the cheerleaders at the AD Visions booth. Cheerleaders in a setting other than a school are about fetish. Considering that ADV's grown into a company that puts out a broad range of anime and TV show collections, and a lot of that product is for kids and women, the addition of adult women dressed as cheerleaders was bizarre and disappointing.

''I can sum up in four words what made me love comics: queer for the line.'' ALEX: And the Bimbo-In-A-Box. Ugh. Even my straight male friends went "ugh".

TRISTAN: San Diego is a show that caters highly successfully to a huge segment of one audience, somewhat successfully to another, and reasonably well to a bunch more. In that way it's always a success. I saw some ugly actions, but that's how it is whenever you combine huge groups of people and a lot of booze.

ALEX: Let's get back to the happy. There was a lot of things to be happy about at San Diego.

LEA: One thing that made me happy about San Diego? Seeing and working at the 'We Want Your Autograph' booth. Us comics creators using our sexy comics-creatin' wiles to get people to register to vote! But what really sums up the whole experience is those SKY CAPTAIN robots. 2004 is The Year The Con Oozed Out of the Center in a Big Way. It's been splatted here and there for a long time: bus placards, street banners, the HELLBOY truck last year. But when someone rents two parking lots across from a convention center for four days, and smacks a couple big balloons that freakin' light up at night in 'em - comics are big. And I see a place in all the big for little old me.

Winning Lulu of the Year was pretty damn cool, too. And everyone doing manga instead of Marvel putting out AKIRA once a year. An event that used to be contained in two largish ballrooms suddenly becomes a landing site for extravagant marketing.

ALEX: Half that con hall - which, by the way, is about the same size as the Island of Manhattan - was devoted to anime and manga. That was awesome.

LAURENN: You know why manga is taking over? Two words - teenage girls. Three more words - crazy disposable income. Two more words - obsessive fangirls.

Manga is so here to stay. I think we are just starting to see the ripples of what manga is going to bring to American comics. I have two friends who teach comics at college level in NYC, and they say that, because of manga, they have seen the amount of girls who enrol in their classes triple in the last year.

These are all girls who grew up watching and reading manga, and who are now going to art school and they want to draw manga, and write manga stories. I think it is going to be the biggest influence on comics' next generation, and that it is going to provide a huge influx of female artists and writers.

LEA: Heh. I'm in the "I told you so" camp. I've been saying for years manga and manga-influenced work would find a place, given a chance, especially a change outside of the comics speciality store. (Before any retailer that carries a good diverse range of comics blows a gasket: I don't mean you.)

TRISTAN: For years now I've sat behind the counter in comic book stores and listened to guys trash-talk manga, then go onto another GREEN LANTERN conversation. That's the same old story, but it doesn't change the fact that manga reaches audiences that mainstream books can only dream of grabbing.

That's Buying Audience; all those teenagers, girls and boys familiar with Japanese cartoons, have no problem with the art or even with sometimes reading the book 'backwards'. What's backwards is the almost racist attitudes towards Manga over the years. It's just a comic book from another country. If it doesn't look like the thing you're familiar with, that's art. It changes and evolves. And apparently, outsells.

LEA: Exactly. We have a group of readers who are now teens and twenties who grew up with anime on Cartoon Network. The companies selling to them were started by people who grew up on KIMBA and 8th MAN, then SPEED RACER, then STARBLAZERS and ROBOTECH and AKIRA and TOTORO.

ALEX: I think it's very sharply a generational thing, too. I know 30-year-old artists - and editors - who have never read any manga, and 20-year-old artists who learned to draw by copying manga and anime.

''For years I've listened to guys in comic book stores trash-talk manga.'' LAURENN: Yeah, unless the Big Two get hip to the fact that their aging, greying, fanatical fanbase is not going to be enough to support them 10 years out, and that they had better start coming up with new stories for their tired old characters, well... Viz and Tokyopop will be quite happy to take over, thank you. Hollywood is gonna get tired of y'all, especially if crap like CATWOMAN keeps coming out and bombing.

ALEX: I'm actually really curious to see what happens to Marvel and DC in about five years' time once Hollywood hits the bottom of the superhero-movie barrel and moves on to its next fad.

TRISTAN: There will always be superhero books. For some readers, superheroes will remain their number one flight of fantasy, the way some people latch onto STAR TREK or vampire books or whatever. As an industry, the best thing comics can do is recognise that the superhero archetype is just that, an idea that has some relevance, but it's a bit silly to expect that to define the entire medium of comics.

LAURENN: But can they get some different artists? I mean, what the hell are they doing letting Rob Liefeld draw comics? Does no one see how crap he is?

ALEX: Any of you want to do a superhero book?

LEA: Yes. A BATGIRL miniseries, retro style, with the Barbara Gordon Batgirl. I hate the new one - actualisation through rape does nothing for me.

TRISTAN: To be honest, it's difficult to define what a 'superhero' book is these days. There have been enough post-modern takes on the subject that even the idea of people in tights and capes has remained fresh and interesting. I guess it's the other kind I despise, constant re-hashing of tired old stories kept alive by an audience too scared to go out and find a new character.

LEA: You know what I also want? I want that guys would not automatically be praised for being sensitive if they write female characters. Women would not automatically be dismissed for writing female characters. Comics with female characters with twelve-year-old bodies with Pam Anderson tits would go away. Weird character name spelling - subbing "y" for "i", adding "e's" to ends of words, adding "qu" for "k" - would go away. People would stop confusing marketing hype like "real manga" with facts and history. There'd be room in comics for both what Dylan Meconis called the "retarded donkey" industry and the smart stuff. All the smart stuff, not just the usual suspects. Or, fuck all that, I just want a market mature enough, with coverage in all bookselling chains, so that I can make a living.

TRISTAN: Hmm. While we're in Fantasyland, I think it would be fun to take over DC.

ALEX: I'd like to show Marvel that you can have a successful mainstream title that speaks to audiences which, right now, tend not to read its books - like teenage girls.

LAURENN: I would have my own publishing company, and I would design every single book. And we would be prettier than even Top Shelf, and we would do amazing, amazing work, by writers like Tristan and Michelle Tea, who I did RENT GIRL with, and we would be not only in the best comics stores, but we would be in bookstores. And we would not be limited to only distributing through Diamond - hello, can you say monopoly? - but, because we would be going with writers who have a following outside of comics, we could distribute thru, say, PGW or SCB, who can actually get graphic novels into Borders and Barnes & Noble. We would do book tours and have mad parties, and I would be fabulously rich and die in bed with a 20-year-old. Like, next week.

ALEX: Okay, forget what I said about Marvel. I'd rather work for your company.

LAURENN: Come to the dark side, Alex...

ALEX: So is the industry ahead or behind of where it was when we started reading comics?

LEA: Ahead. Way ahead, thanks to real graphic novel sections in bookstores, instead of the former appendix of dog-eared, perfect-bound DC and Marvel comics shoved in amongst the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS supplements.

LAURENN: Yeah, well... the alternative press are doing new and interesting things - not just tired old indie crap like STRANGERS IN PARADISE, but really great new books. Again, look at Top Shelf, look at Oni, look at Alternative Comics - they are really the ones putting out the best work right now. The mainstream is same old, same old.

TRISTAN: I think the industry's way better off than it was when I was a kid. Partly because technology has taken this huge step forward, and it's much easier now for anyone to create or self-publish their own work. We live in a world where one person with reasonably affordable technology can draw, tone, letter, finish their own book all with a home computer. Same with web-comics, it all expands what people are able to bring to it, and that's brilliant. More voices, more diversity, and it's much easier to find out about what's out there than ever before. Kids who aren't into the mainstream stuff on the shelves of their local store can go out on the internet and find out about stuff.

Alex de Campi is a comics writer whose projects include the Eisner-nominated SMOKE with Igor Kordey and the forthcoming KAT & MOUSE with Federica Manfredi.

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