This week, as a challenge to myself, I am going to be positive, upbeat and optimistic.

It's easy to be negative. It's certainly much easier to write that way. And it's not like there isn't plenty of material. If I were to tell you that Garth Ennis and Alex Ross had signed on to do a comic book version of JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS for DC, which was expected to be a top ten seller for Christmas, then you might well have a nagging doubt that it could really happen. Maybe you have that feeling now. Depressing, isn't it?

It's especially easy to be negative if you're hoping for some kind of revolution in the comics industry which is going to sweep everything aside and replace it with a new, shinier and just plain neater version. That makes it far too easy to focus exclusively on all the things that haven't happened yet, and lose sight of the things that have got better.

Besides which, if you ask me, holding out for a revolution is a recipe for disappointment. Comics are starting off from such a minuscule base that any progress it makes in finding a market outside the existing audience is inevitably going to be slow and painful. There isn't going to be a revolution, just a gradual shift. That makes for boring rhetoric, admittedly, but there you go.

So, in that spirit, let's talk about some things which you really ought to be happy about. Because at least they show things moving in the right direction. Slower than you might like, I grant you. But moving, at least.

The most common, and vehement, complaint about the comics industry: it's dominated by superheroes. Personally, I don't see the problem as being too many superheroes so much as too little of anything else. In a healthy, sensibly sized market, I'd say there was room for a thriving superhero genre market. But that's another column. The basic point is fair enough. However, the superhero domination of the charts isn't what it once was. Cracks are emerging, even within the direct market.

Holding out for a revolution is a recipe for disappointment. Look at this month's chart. Roughly sixteen out of the top 100 titles are not superhero books (depending on where exactly you draw the genre boundaries). Admittedly, superheroes having 84% or thereabouts of the Top 100 is a touch excessive. But it's not a total whitewash. It's more than I was expecting, to be honest.

Happy news, huh? Smile!

I know what you're saying. You're going to point out that my sixteen non-superhero books include two TRANSFORMERS books; GI JOE; BATTLE OF THE PLANETS #1 twice because it also has a listing for a variant "holofoil" cover; two STAR WARS books; and TOMB RAIDER. And you're going to say that this is really not very good news at all. Well, I can sort of see your point there. Then again, those two STAR WARS books have as good a chance as anything of selling outside the existing audience. And you're asking for too much too soon. Sure, it's not good enough. But it's a move in the right direction. They aren't superhero books. They are diversity. Of a sort.

And maybe you'll be happier with the other ones on the list. LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN II, two CALL OF DUTY books, POWERS, FILTH, SOJOURN, HELLBOY and Marvel's western miniseries APACHE SKIES. Not such a bad collection. Before you e-mail me to quibble over whether POWERS, in particular, is really a superhero book: I could equally argue that I ought to have CAGE, KISS, THE PRO and SOLDIER X on my list, given what they actually contain. So be quiet.

If you go down to the Top 150, my non-superhero list gets up to forty-five - roughly a third non-superhero. Go down to 200, and it reaches eighty-one. (Maybe eighty-two, depending on what the hell CAT WITH REALLY BIG HEAD #1 is. Even higher if you count books like LADY DEATH, which come to think of it, I really should.) Still more than half superheroes. But 40% non-superhero.

If you look at the Top 150 titles on the sales chart, roughly a third is non-superhero. Sure, it could be improved. But it could be, and has been, a hell of a lot worse, and it looks to be drifting the right way. So smile. This is a good thing.

Plus, the general quality level at the top end of the charts is better than it's been for years. Which is probably because quality is the principal selling point these days, with the hangovers of the speculator mentality largely extinguished. Although the retro books seem uncomfortably pleased to revive them, variant covers have faded away. (Yes, Marvel is doing one in the autumn, but as a joke.)

Instead, there's a much greater willingness to sell comics based on the creative team rather than the character. Of course, artists have been used as the selling point on books for over a decade, but it's relatively new to see writers who are able to catapult books upwards in sales in the way that Kevin Smith has done with GREEN ARROW. Reader loyalty seems increasingly to attach to creators and creative teams, not to the characters themselves. Which, of course, is perfectly logical - and opens the door to a more open-minded approach to comics as a whole.

Of course, it's easier for the publishers if audience loyalty attaches to the characters (which they own) rather than to the creators. And there's still considerable loyalty invested in those characters, which is one reason why AVENGERS readers didn't all follow Kurt Busiek to ASTRO CITY, and so forth. But the signs point to a slow movement in the right direction. And this too is a good thing.

Some people do complain that they would rather see top creators working on their own material than on corporate-owned properties, and point out quite rightly that the current trends don't seem to be going in their favour on that one. Understandable, to an extent, although I've never quite understood how people can acclaim LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN on the one hand, and yet at the same time claim to be bemused that any "true" creator would ever want to work on another person's characters. The LEAGUE characters are all out of copyright, of course, but the economic attractiveness of writing another person's characters is a wholly separate question from whether you find the prospect creatively inspiring.

There's greater willingness to sell comics based on creators rather than characters. The more pressing question is whether creators have a reasonable opportunity to produce the stories they want to make. Of course, the closer you get to pure self-publishing, inevitably the greater the personal risk involved, which is always going to push some people in the direction of work-for-hire, for perfectly good and sensible reasons.

But DC does publish a decent range of creator-owned material; Image and CrossGen both offer packages that give many of the benefits of self-publishing without the go-it-alone risk; and smaller publishers like Oni provide a venue for a wide range of work. All of these, admittedly, do rest on the publisher being willing to take the book. Still, for those with talent, the options are growing.

What else? Well, the trade paperback market is growing, and has some prospects of getting a wider range of material into mainstream bookstores - although the torrent of superhero trade paperbacks may still drown that out. Even the direct market appears to have bottomed out, in fact, when you look at year-on-year total orders. I could go on.

The point is: you could look at each and every one of these and say, well, it's not enough. Largely, I agree. But just because it would be nice if things had moved further and faster doesn't mean I can't be pleased that it's got this far. And more to the point, be pleased that it's heading in the right general direction for the future. Perhaps not the immediate future, admittedly. But in the end, it's getting there.

So there you go. Upbeat and positive, or at least my best attempt. Sure, there's a ton of things wrong with the comics industry. And it's much, much easier to focus on that side of things. But be sure to look on the bright side, oh, once a year or so. It does wonders for the blood pressure, believe me.

Paul O'Brien is the author of the weekly X-AXIS comics review.

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