Everyone knows DC and Marvel but what about Alternative Comics?

The rise of comic book speciality stores in the late 1970s created a dedicated market for "independent" or "alternative comics" in the United States. Two of the first were the anthology series Star Reach, published by comic book writer Mike Friedrich from 1974 to 1979, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, which continued sporadic publication into the 21st century and was adapted into a film in 2005. Some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics, though their content was generally less explicit, and others resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned companies or by single artists. A few (notably RAW) were experimental attempts to bring comics closer to the status of fine art.
During the 1970s the "small press" culture grew and diversified. By the 1980s, several such independent publishers as Pacific, Eclipse, First, Comico and Fantagraphics were releasing a wide range of styles and formats from color superhero, detective and science fiction comic books to black-and-white magazine-format stories of Latin American magical realism.
A number of small publishers in the 1990s changed the format and distribution of their comics to more closely resemble non-comics publishing. The "minicomics" form, an extremely informal version of self-publishing, arose in the 1980s and became increasingly popular among artists in the 1990s, despite reaching an even more limited audience than the small press.
Small publishers regularly releasing titles today include Avatar Comics, Raytoons, and Terminal Press, buoyed by such advances in printing technology as digital print on demand. This blog brought to you by http://www.thecollectorsbay.com/Comic-Books,category,1889,parent_id,categories