Megabuck$

I went to the comic shop Saturday. I hadn't been in a while. Thought I'd spend a little of my tips on a book, just one book. Of course I found several books that wanted and need for my collection. However, I found myself feeling guilty about the choices I was making. Was I really supporting the expansion of the medium and the elevation of the market out of the genre rut by purchasing Tom Strong or Top 10 or even Planetary? Weren't these still "merely" action stories building on an adolescent imagination? Isn't the medium better exemplified by radical innovators like Gary Panter, Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, and Tony Millionaire? Shouldn't I buy these more "literate" or rather more "artistic" books, both to confirm to myself that I have "outgrown" the "mere thrills" of my latent adolescence?
AAARRRGGHHH!! I know it's one book, but we do vote with out dollars. The industry goes where the money is and if I add fuel to the capitalist fire, then I have done little to change the face of the comic market.
Of course, at question here is whether or not these books are "mere genre" stories built upon an "adolescent imagination". Greater voices than mine have debated that question and the answer will most likely always be subjective anyway. In the end I went with what I like, what thrilled me the most, and which artist/title had the biggest hole in my collection.
But it did get me thinking about the "politicized" nature of the medium. Hell, this same issue could apply to any type of art. I could just as easily be talking about movies or novels or even sculpture or painting. The truth is as much as I love Panter and Crumb and a great many other artists and writers who do some truly incredible things with out beloved art form, as I said before on this very blog I love the action stories best. I love the thrills, the chills, the heroism, the tragedy, the humor, and the sheer imaginative grandeur.
That I knew already. What I hadn't thought about in a while (since I hadn't bought a book in a while) was the question about where my money went. What aspect of the market gets my support the most? What messages do I send with my purchasing power? Such things should drive my decisions (I should buy books I don't want just to make a political or aesthetic point) nor should they trouble me to the point of neurosis, but I do think they are valid questions to consider. I do think we should examine our spending habits and attempt to make those habits into conscious choices.
I continued the buy the same mainstream genre books fro years after I had fallen out of love with them. I just couldn't seem to break my old cycles. I wanted to see where the plot was going to end up (answer: Nowhere good) or what happened to the latest love triangle (answer: it's the same old triangle it always was).