structural:reformatting, linguistic:translation, quality:correction, quality:corruption, linguistic:voice_change
Alternative comics

The rise of comic book specialty stores in the late 1970s created and paralleled a dedicated market for "independent" or " alternative comics " in the US. The first such comics included 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 which Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini adapted into a 2003 film. Some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics. While their content generally remained less explicit, 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) represented 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 independent publishers – such as Pacific, Eclipse, First, Comico, and Fantagraphics – had started 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 include Avatar Press, Hyperwerks, Raytoons, and Terminal Press, buoyed by such advances in printing technology as digital print-on-demand.