Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Go, Dog Man, go!



Comics is a vast and sprawling medium, and even though I like to delude myself that I'm keeping on top of things, I know I've only scratched the surface of the world's great comics. There are tonnes and tonnes of non-English comics I know nothing about, art collectives that leave me baffled in the best possible way, and even a lot of mainstream superheroics just pass me by these days.

Which is just a huge caveat to say that while I have no idea what is going on with the Cat Kid and Dog Man books, I am absolutely delighted that they are clearly the most popular comics in western publishing.

Go look at the charts Brian Hibbs has been doing for decades, and you'll see the a clear winner, with Dav Pilkey's books racking up millions in sales every year. Kids can't get enough of them and gobble them up on an industrial scale.

I've seen some of those Dog Man books. I don't get it. I really don't get it.

Which is good, I'd actually be worried for the entire future of humanity if the kids liked the same shit that I liked as a child, and it's heartwarming to see them latch onto something I just don't understand. That's the way life works.

There's always going to be something immortal that appeals to everybody at every age, like the Road Runner cartoons, or the Asterix albums, but I am so glad that the kids have their own thing that is incomprehensible to me.

It's comics, but not as I know it. Thank goodness.

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