Why is it fantasy took off in role playing but superhero role playing games aren't as popular?

Why is it fantasy took off in role playing but superhero role playing games aren't as popular?
Capeshit is a billion dollar industry, meanwhile fantasy struggles to get even a television show.
D&D is basically faux-medieval superheros as it is anyways. Is it literally because nerds are obsessed with the fantasy aesthetic even though what they are playing is closer to capes than Tolkien anyways?

Fantasy roleplaying got its start in the 70s. Capeshit roleplaying COULD have started then as well, but have you seen older comics? People that were established comic book fans in the 70s would have grown up on Silver Age goofy power fantasies where logic and internal consistency are foreign concepts. Adding to that is the explosion of cheap internal INNER DARKNESS DRAMA that characterized 70’s Bronze Age comics. People mock anime freeform roleplayers today, but that’s exactly what roleplaying based on comic books would have been like back in the day: constant asspulls, power trips, and nuh-uh/yeah-huh arguments with a big dollop of angst from the younger crowd for good measure.

Today it’s simply inertia. The big name is Fantasy/D&D, so people tend to hear about/get invested in that before anything else, ensuring that Fantasy/D&D stays the big name.

>D&D is basically faux-medieval superheros as it is anyway
Wrong for several reasons. D&D is closer to late renaissance, post apocalyptic shit than anything medieval.
>even though what they are playing is closer to capes than Tolkien anyways?
D&D shares nothing with Tolkien's work beyond the superficial shit of Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs. It has a lot more Conan, Vance, and Elric in it's blood than Tolkien. And it's still not close to cape stuff anyway, even with it's "high" power level.

>And it's still not close to cape stuff anyway, even with it's "high" power level.
Really?
>group special snowflakes with special powers that complement each other save the world because ...?
There is no reason the world shouldn't be filled with people as powerful as the player characters other than that npcs don't get experience points when they kill each other.

>with children

>There is no reason the world shouldn't be filled with people as powerful as the player characters other than that npcs don't get experience points when they kill each other.
Except there is though, and anyone saying otherwise is a fucking liar or doesn't understand the game. PC's are special in that they're protagonists and they're skill set is kinda rare but not unique or snowflake rare. There are NPC fighters and wizards/equivalent all over the fucking place in most settings.

Shit Dark Sun even states that most people will have 3 levels in a PC class by nature of living to adult hood because shit is so fucked.

But until a PC breaks out into the mid to late teens, theres going to be loads of people around there power level walking around.

In my experience superheroes are just harder to balance

I remember my child comics, penis, tits, inocent sexual jokes (in than there is curiosity be the kids, while not really understanding it) wheren't uncommon (Titef for example had a girl with heavy acne selling showing her tits for penies for example, stuff more or less than I did as a kid). In teens literature the same, first sexual experience and the like, not that rare. Probably what started my panties fetish, along with Bulma from DB...

European Graphic Novels included stuff that would be instantly banned here, like the 9 year old prostitute and her cyborg henchman. Yes, there was graphic sex, rape, mind control, and bloody violence.

Pretty much this. Although I feel that with current popularity of cape movies good superhero role-playing could potentially kick off, as those tend to be more grounded and have better character depth. Although it can already be a bit too late for that, the trend is starting to pass out already

Yeah there is a way to talk about sex that isn't necessarily creepy.
Not sure if Titeuf does it, not really my childhood.

This has to be Ranxerox, correct?

You are indeed correct.

I was a messed up little girl. Then again, my introduction to art was Frazetta, Metal Hurlant, and I was reading novels at the age of 6, so it's really not a surprise.

When I was a kid, my home city's main library had only one comics section, no separation between the kids and adult stuff. There were long rows of Marsupilami, Tintin, Asterix, Lucky Luke etc. and then you could find stuff like Ranxerox, Valerian & Laureline (with all those instances of Laureline taking her kit off) and El Mercenario (pretty much non-stop tits and blood) next to them. Made for exciting trips to the comics section, to say the least.

I prefer Euro comic for that, great variety and you can find anything if you know where to search, Manga and Euro comic have more in comon than the USA big two at that, in the more indie scene there are better comics tough, Hellboy for example is a top tier comic.

Dunno, Jokes like this one, than have something to do with sex and innocent where kinda of common, depending of the comic. More for early teens and a bit younger. Dunno, I seen the same in manga, and probably in all ibero america is the same, having the same cultural roots. Not sure how is it in the USA, they are a world apart.

>tintin
>communist

Sounds like someone hasn't read Land of the Soviets or Ottokar's Sceptre?

El Mercenario is great, very Pulp tale, Oleo made comic, very interesting concepts and very down to earth MC. Probably one of my prefered comics if only because it reminds me to the old Movie posters.

Ottokar's Sceptre was more about not-Nazis (if you're talking about the Müsstler coup). But The Calculus Affair (complete with Kurwi-Tasch's Stalinesque moustache) was set in commieish Borduria, and in Tintin and the Picaros Sponsz is sent as an advisor to General Tapioca like Combloc advisors went round to various Latin American commielands.

>tfw someone reposts your OC

It's Eurocomics in general, not just Tintin, I was rather thinking of things like the Smurfs

(Sorry for derailing the thread)

What are you prefered kind of comics anons? I'm starting to search for Swords and sorcery comics from my country and the quality is pretty good.

Same reason why any other genre isn't as popular as fantasy: because D&D is fantasy and all other games combined have a minuscule portion of the market. For most people outside the hobby D&D is the only tabletop roleplaying game, it's the first one everyone learns and most don't want to bother learning anything else.