And, as I never get tired of saying, I think DC was at their absolute peak quality-wise during the '90s. Vertigo and Paradox took cues from Archie Godwin's Epic line, but they published more books, were more professionally run and at the same both more daring and experimental. There were editors at DC - Berger especially - who would publish comics just because they were good which would be an unthinkable proposition at DC in 1982 or, hell, today.

So DC ended up publishing a bunch of personal works by idiosyncratic creators that weren't designed to appeal to traditional comic book geek interests. Y'got 7 MILES A SECOND, VEILS, STUCK RUBBER BABY, a HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, ENIGMA reprinting GON, ... and Sandman which remains (IMO) the best long form factory system comic ever produced. Not everything Vertigo published was gold (VAMPS?!?! And it got a sequel?!?!?!) but the greatness-to-crap ratio was much better than any other mainstream publisher in the history of American comics.

And most of the superhero stuff was fair to decent, especially after the market crashed and the spandex herd was culled circa 1994. There was a buncha stuff like Kessel and Grummet's SUPERBOY; unspectacular but reliable, solid, monthly entertainment.

Beanworld is the greatest comic ever.  Dead serious.  

Has anyone mentioned Usagi Yojimbo as being part of the awfulness to come out of the 90s?

I mean, it started in the 80's but I'd argue it really reached it's peak in the 90's so your point stands counselor.  

I'm not saying the "Throw a foil cover on it, add more pouches, guns, boobs and gore" mentality didn't exist, it certainly did, but despite being the unofficial mascot of the decade I don't think it was nearly as prevalent as folks seem to think. There are all kinds of books that were absolutely fantastic in the 90's, even coming from the big two, certainly no less so than any other period.

Out side of the vertigo and independents named already you had books like Ron Marz' run on Green Lantern starring Kyle Rayner, James Robinson's Starman, Chuck Dixon's run on Robin, Peter David on The Incredible Hulk(and Young Justice), Howard Mackie's Ghost Rider, Grant Morison's DC One Million, Doug Moench's second turn at Moon Knight in Resurection Wars and High Strangeness, X-Men Unlimited featured some really fantastic stand alone stories and Kevin Smith's Daredevil which were all great super hero books.

I must've had some of the first of Usagi in the backs of Albedo, before Critters and his own title, before the action figure. I also had the first couple of Savage Dragons in an early '80s comic titled 'Graphic Fantasy', this was before Megaton. I'm not sure what people know about, I was getting various comics from the Seattle scene and Vancouver not in any price guides... Fog City Comics with George Metzger and Marv Newland (he of Bambi vs. Godzilla fame)... does that exist 'officially' to supposed comics collectors/fans? Morty the Dog by Steve Willis? Various Colin Upton publications? Steve Lafler? Chester Brown? Or only if Fantagraphics published it or Overstreet/Diamond Distributors said it existed? I was never fully fixated on super characters, but what had been an exciting overall scene in comic books generally seemed to be going downhill circa 1987-88.

Supposedly there are acres of storage spaces filled with late '80s and early '90s comics that are destined to be recycled if they haven't been already. I have never heard that about early '80s while late '90s are often hard to find as back issues.

I can't say for McFarlane but I was familiar with Erik Larsen and actually liked his work (as originally it was so heavily influenced by Byrne and that whole style), and a lot of his and other of that same time were people who learned to draw comics from other comics more than earlier generations who got some art school or even great art school (the Joe Kubert students are sort of the last strand of the rigorous training in fundamentals)... these people like Rob Liefeld never got the fundamentals. The bunch before them got some of it, and if you go back before that there are people who got the absolute best instruction from some of the great illustrators and artists personally. Now where you see someone from the class of learning from comic books and how-to stuff on their own mostly trying to teach others they are often not aware of what they never learned. This is a huge over-simplification and nothing divides up as neatly as this but maybe the gist of it will sound true. It's been the same in Japan where you have a lot of comics and cartoons being very derivative and lacking in art skills at the point where you have people who studied and read and obsessed over other comics and cartoons. It's like a copy of a copy of a copy. You had the last great originals start in the '70s and early '80s and then it's been more shallow and stylization covering for shortcomings since, or as Philip K. Dick put it, skim milk masquerading as cream.

I remember various older underground cartoonists in the middle '80s expressing thoughts about the Dark Knight/Watchmen type of superheroes who weren't heroes much anymore as the kids need saving from the so-called adults trying to mature the mainstream characters. If someone who would support Spain Rodriguez' Trashman found Frank Miller's Batman fascistic that says something. A lot of the fans turned pro found the very idea of doing comics for younger kids demeaning or embarrassing or something, as though having Scooby-Doo, Dennis The Menace or Smurfs under the same Marvel imprint as their serious mature Wolverine or whoever else 'dealing' with death, AIDS or rape and whatnot was inherently wrong (thus the Star imprint perhaps?) or like Fred Hembeck worried about an attractive woman seeing him with a Godzilla comic. This kind of ties into the more pretentious Sequential Narrative and Graphic Novel names for comics the '60s undergrounders seemed to go the other way with by calling theirs Comix. If you felt there could be Spider-Man Graphic Novels dealing with mature themes to me you were part of the problem. Spider-Man was created for and popular with (for decades anyway) twelve year olds and there was never anything wrong with that. But it's like twelve year olds were no longer worthy of good or artistic comics? Or maybe they felt the truth that they were too old for these characters though for some reason determined to bring them with them to the land of superior gritty explicit maturity?

Fantagraphics reprinted Dare as a 3-issue mini, which is how I read it. Hughes art reminds me, a bit, of Daniel torres and Rocco Vargas, though he is even more stylized.