If someone from the US cares to join in, are there counterexamples to this, as in, widely known American comics that do not revolve around superheroes?
Calvin&Hobbes comes to mind, for example. Any others?
Calvin&Hobbes comes to mind, for example. Any others?
Also Picsou Magazine > Journal de Mickey. There I said it.
Then there are the natively web comics, for example, xkcd, oglaf (NSFW), and a zillion others. (Special shout out to Dr Fun from the late 1990s, a very early example of hacker culture meets the Far Side.) Perhaps only xkcd has crossed into the general consciousness of the non comic reader, but I'm sure HN will correct me.
Then there are graphic novels that sometimes are created as magazine-sized editions and then collated, and sometimes just put out as books. The Sandman, American Born Chinese, Boxers and Saints, Persepolis, Alcoholic. These are well known to the book buying regular public.
Intermission: theres a stream of educational comics as well. For example my Indian friends in the US diaspora all talk about Amar Chitra Katha comics from their childhood that had editions for major cultural or religious figures (eg stories about Krishna).
Then there are the graphicalizations (thats a word I just made up) of other works. For example, there's a graphical novel version of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. Probably not as well known to the average reader.
But, yeah, comics == superhero (for me as well) cause the others examples are more "strips" first published in newspapers than comics.