Did indie comics save comics?

Welcome back fellow web travellers. It's been a while, but don't fret. I'm not here to bore you with broken promises of writing to you more or staying a bit current with my blog that was supposed to be weekly but now is whenever i feel like it. Currently I'm writing to you during my morning constitutional from the toilet at work.
Isn't that a pretty picture.
Today I'm going to talk to you about comics, and not Garfield or Charlie Brown or whatever it is they rin in newspapers these days. No I'm talking about comic books. Stories about larger than life characters and stories of the fantastic. Of course if you're a fellow web rider you already know of them and probably follow several yourself.
I've noticed throughout my long and arduous love affair with these picture books that they have had slumps in interest. Now many would argue that today they are going strong. What with the many movies coming out based off of our favorite heroes from these books. That I think is only partly true.
Yes the new Avengers movie or upcoming BatmanvSuperman movie will drive the average joe or jill back into their local comic shop and get them to capture a liece of their nostalgia from their youth or even sate the appetites of their own young ones who are now infatuated with these beings of enormous power, but these movies haven't always been around.
Sure growing up we had Nicholas Hammond as Spider-man or Dolph Lungren as the Punisher, but that clearly was not enough. To us fans of comics at the time we craved more from our funny books. It did help at the time that we had pioneers like Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, and Epic comics or even Heavy Metal magazine to grow our comics up a little, give us somethimg more than just smiling heroes punching frowning villians, the same recycled stories over and over. It really makes one lose the dream of a man can fly.
Now there were pioneers of independant comics such as the Freak Brothers or American Splendor, but those could usually only be found in smoke shops and not readily available for most of us. These great works shpuld be credited though because without them I'm sure some creators would never think I can do this. I don't need approval of the large publishers.
What I'm talking about though at least for my generation, if I'm allowed to call it that, was the great walk out. The day when Todd Mcfarlane, Jim Lee, and Rob Lifield walked away from Marvel to start their own publisher, and create their own titles. Now if course it was huge news and they sold lots of books. Even if some of them weren't really the best or happened to be clones of other more popular titles. The point is they did it. They made their own properties and inspired a whole new generation of creators. Letting them now it was possible.
I'm sure some of you are reading this and thinking of much earlier indy pioneers. Probably cursing me for my lack of knowledge and what have you. Believe me though they are just as important. I can only relate to you what I personally experienced.
After working in a comic shop for ten plus years and frequenting the same shop eve after I've quit. I noticed something. The independant rack that used to only be one small four foot by four foot shelf is now more then half the size of the big publishers shelf. Another thing i noticed while working there is people who were once big followers of the big two stayed with comics because they were reading crwator owned titles and returned to the big two after their books got better. I've seen people drop popular books they used to love to get lesser known titles that are self published because they enjoy them so much better.
Did indy comics save comics? Maybe but i think more importantly it showed people who thought they would never have their voices heard realize that it could be done. 
Thats all I'm off my soap box. I hope you enjoyed my rambling thoughts.