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How manga freed American comics from being so focused strictly on superheroes to be successful
The rising popularity of manga has allowed American comic companies like Marvel, DC, and Image to experiment with non-superhero books
NewsbyJoshua Lapin-Bertone, Contributing writer
Published on Thu Jul 16 2026
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For a long time comic books were synonymous with superhero stories, but in recent years that’s changed. Non-superhero stories have always been published by indie creators, but these types of comics have become more mainstream in the past decade. Comics like Something is Killing the Children, Ice Cream Man, and Paper Girls don’t involve capes, tights, or secret identities.
According to James Tynion IV, the Eisner Award-winning writer behind Something is Killing the Children, none of this would’ve happened without the rise of manga.
“The interesting thing to me is the fact that moving from that niche audience to a wider audience that was sort of happening in the early 2000s, which set the stage for the industry that I entered,” James Tynion IV says during a 2024 Library Con panel. “More people were reading and absorbing this material, and a huge part of that was manga coming into the scene, and all of a sudden there being a much wider breadth of types of storytelling.”
“To sell a book in the direct market, even if you were something really mature, you kind of had to make it a little superhero-y to sell a copy. And suddenly there was a huge breadth of material and different ways to do it, and different places you could see yourself in, and really connect to the characters on the page, and the different stories you could tell.”
The next time you read a compelling comic book like Kill Your Darlings or The Department of Truth, remember that it never would’ve happened without manga.
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Joshua Lapin-Bertone: Joshua is a pop culture writer specializing in comic book media. His work has appeared on the official DC Comics website, the DC Universe subscription service, HBO Max promotional videos, the Batman Universe fansite, and more. In between traveling around the country to cover various comic conventions, Joshua resides in Florida where he binges superhero television and reads obscure comics from yesteryear.
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