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Ask every comic book reader what the state of comics is right now, and you're likely to get varying answers. While sales are certainly up and there has been a swell in critical appreciation for certain books, one thing that most fans of the medium will agree upon is that there are problems with the industry. For one self-professed lover of the medium, those problems are pretty clear, and it might behoove those of us who have more trouble pinpointing them to listen to them.

He is, after all, Alan Moore.

The man behind such milestone entries into the medium's history such as V for Vendetta or Watchmen recently sat down with the cultural connoisseurs over at RetroFuturista, a discussion which eventually got onto the topic of what was wrong with comics today. Before that, though, Moore too the time to clarify that, at one point, the comics industry was very much on the right path.

"What first attracted me to the comics field," the Jerusalem author began, "Was that it was ignored by culture and regarded as a trash medium suitable only for children or the working classes. It was cheaply mass produced, with tens or hundreds of thousands of copies distributed each month or week, and it seemed to me that in the right hands, comics could become a field where useful, powerful, potentially liberating ideas, represented in an attractive and engaging form, could be transmitted to young or poor people throughout society, quickly and captivatingly, to the people in society who most need those ideas."

A quick aside here. Though Moore is often considered to be a kind of comics crank, with an eternally and purposefully dour view of the art form, this line of thinking shows - to this writer, anyway - that that characterization is not exactly fair. Which is not to say that the Tom Strong creator doesn't have a lot of negative things to say, as he goes on to voice.

"That was what I’d hoped the comics industry might become," Moore continued, "Rather than, predominately, a medium that has priced itself beyond the reach of children or the poor, and which seems to be, even in its more worthy examples, a field that is generating product largely by, for and about middle-class people. Nothing against middle-class people, of course. It’s simply that the comic strip form was originally conceived as by, for and about the working classes, who were its audience and, for my money, its very best creators. That is the comics field I’d like to see, brimming with new ideas and available to everyone, but, realistically, I don’t imagine that is ever going to happen, so I’ve chosen to put my remaining energies elsewhere."

It's a pretty grim prognosis and, I'll admit, not exactly the kind of fun comics coverage I'm used to writing for this site. But in the interest of full transparency, reader, I should point out: in the same hour that I wrote about this diagnosis from Moore, I also did a quick piece regarding a new edition of his much-lauded Batman story, The Killing Joke. Check out the link to learn about Batman: The Killing Joke Avant Garde edition, but do know this before going in - only 47 copies will ever be made, and those ultra-rare products don't even have prices listed on the site yet.

I'm just saying - the working class folks Moore is talking about here probably won't be getting their hands on a copy. 

Get ready for what's next with our list to upcoming comics and how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to all the free comics you can get with this year's Free Comic Book Day 2026 and Comics Giveaway Day 2026.