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Comics have come a long way in the last few decades.
Most especially in the last two it has become respectable for adults to be seen reading the collected editions, or, as they are now more maturely titled "Graphic Novel". This change from kids stuff to art-form can seem sudden in many ways, one day you've got Superman fighting aliens while trying to gain Lois' Heart, in his milder alter ego, Spiderman fighting The Bad Men, while Peter Parker competes with whoever the most recent competition for Mary Jane's Love is.

This formula had worked or years, forever really, in the history of comics at least. But it was set to radically change in many ways. Things like Anime, Manga, and the formation of company's like Image would all see to it that the face of comics would alter radically, but these are well known, and for me, don't provide an interesting avenue to introduce comics to someone who isn't really interested.
Like many of those who've written pieces on this I would hold up Alan Moore as the archetype for what can be done with, and in, comics. "Watchmen" is a stunning piece of plotting, "V for Vendetta" a thought provoking tale in the Orwellian mode, and "The Killing Joke" possibly the single greatest Batman story ever, and certainly the one which forever removed the campier elements left from the days of Adam West and co.
However Alan Moore, is essentially an exception, certainly not your run-of-the-mill, well, anything really, maybe he's not such a good example.
Which brings me to Neil Gaiman, and The Sandman, a best seller and huge success, but again, Mr.Gaiman has given up writing comics, and moved on to purely text novels. So in spite of the sheer depth of Sandman, despite that it is often described as Real Literature... perhaps it's not the best example either.
Luckily, I didn't grow up just reading Batman, Superman, Spiderman and all.
I did read them, but, except for some Batman, they seemed, even then, too simplistic. I grew up, as I'm sure did many others, watching cartoons, which developed into an interest in comics as I grew older. I still have some Transformers.
However by the time I was old enough to buy comics on a regular enough basis to consider myself a fan, I discovered a problem.
I didn't live in America, I lived in Ireland. There was no such thing as a comic shop.
Newsagents stocked Marvel and DC titles sporadically, Transformers was actually available, but, everyone got that, why spend money on something I'd

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