>BRONZE AGE (1970 to the mid 80s. usually clarified as 85 or 86)
>(also none of these are in any particular order)
>House Of Mystery (DC) >House Of Secrets (DC) >Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, etc. are all very good throughout this time period. >Power Man & Iron Fist (Marvel) >Marvel Team-Up (Marvel) >Tomb Of Dracula (Marvel) >Werewolf By Night (Marvel) >the original Swamp Thing run by Bernie Wrightson (DC) >Green Arrow/Green Lantern (DC) >Batman, especially the stuff Dennis O'Neil Did.(DC) >Conan The Barbarian (Marvel) >Man Of Steel by John Byrne (DC) >Adventure Into Fear (especially the stuff featuring Man-Thing) (Marvel) >Master Of Kung-Fu (Marvel) >Scream, Psycho, and Nightmare (all by Skywald) >Ghost Rider (Marvel)
For me, it was that whole 80s decade: >Miracleman >V for Vendetta >Moore Captain Britain >Moore Swamp Thing >Superman Annual #11 >Watchmen >Miller Daredevil (including Born Again) >Elektra: Assassin >The Dark Knight Returns >Batman: Year One >Zenith >The One >Concrete
Green Lantern has no cape, none of the X-Men have capes. Who is that M guy? Miracle Man? he has no cape. Only 2 prominent Super heroes have capes, and thats Batman and Superman.
Post crisis DC was the best DC (but muh haekman and LOSH) who gives a frick that some fruity stories got fricked. We got Best Superman (until death of), best bats (bruce wayne, Dickbats best bats), best wonder women, best flash, best lanterns, best justice league, introduction of stuff that would later go vertigo (hellblazer, sandman, animal man).
Post crisis best run.
As for marvel and nom big two capes. Dont know, dont frick with that shit outside of America's Best, but that was eaten by dc.
Yep, Tom DeFalco was Marvel's last good EiC (with Shooter being the last great one), Mike Carlin was DC's last good Executive Editor (with Dick Giordano being their last great one).
The 90s were better as a whole than the 2000s. You can find great and terrible comics in any decade, but in terms of overall quality there’s been a decline every decade since the 80s.
Uhh I didn't like most of the 90s stuff I read, it just seemed like a lot of really stupid premises taking themselves overly seriously. At least I can see artistic value in some of the grimdark grittiness of the 2000s.
Get rid of the multiverse and don't write a fricking crossover event to explain it, just do it
Stop the YA novel shit
Tell new stories instead of sequels to forty year old story arcs
>Get rid of the multiverse and don't write a fricking crossover event to explain it, just do it
Brainlet take
All you need to do is to stop doing constant Big Crossover Events with the multiverse. Elseworlds was around in the 90s and it didn't have whiners complaining about how there were so many different Batmen, because they were self-contained
Most people in entertainment nowadays can barely flesh out one world before they jump into multiversal crossovers
I wish the writing in this era held up better. Unfortunately most of it does not.
The best from the 80s hold up.
The problem is that OP is confusing the 70s with the 80s. The writing standards in the 70s really DON'T hold up (with a few exceptions). The 80s on the other hand was the decade with the highest writing quality in American comics history.
The 70s stable of writers includes Jack Kirby, Denny O'Neil, Chris Claremont, Steve Gerber, Len Wein, Don McGregor, Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, Doug Moench, Cary Bates, Elliot S Maggin, Michael Fleisher, Martin Pasko, Paul Levitz, Bob Haney, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, and Roy Thomas. That's a lot of good comics.
Some of those people really aren't that great, dude.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Some of their issues were clunkers, but they were all producing good work in the 70s. Fourth World, Batman, X-Men, Defenders, Howard the Duck, Black Panther in Jungle Action, Spider-Man, Avengers, Dr. Strange, Shang Chi, Superman, Jonah Hex, LoSH, The Brave and the Bold, Tomb of Dracula, Conan, and so on.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>they were all producing good work in the 70s
Debatable. A few of those writers are pretty mediocre.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Mediocre isn't bad.
[...]
There really hasn't been stories like TDKR and Watchmen that are so prominent that they drag the entire medium into a particular direction. The medium as a whole is the least culturally relevant it's been so there's less interest in bothering with this.
We can definitely talk about smaller scale movements in the past few decades like, for example, the "reconstruction", for the lack of a better word, of the mid-late 90s spearheaded by writers like Waid.
The entire medium got really political and re-doubled its efforts on diversity and inclusion in the mid-10s though.
This is largely revisionism that ignores reality. Anyone who thinks comics were changed overnight by Watchmen (or changed much AT ALL by TDKR) is clearly too young to have actually been there.
DC publishes Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and then a year later Marvel publishes a Spider-Man book where a goofy silver age villain loses his mind, shoots Spider-Man, buries him alive, saves his new wife from a pack of would-be rapists, and then blows his own brains out because he achieved everything he wanted out of life. And this happened almost right after a one-shot where Spider-Man goes to Europe, accidentally manslaughters a suicidal woman, then comes back to his hotel to find one of his oldest friends assassinated. Stern and DeFalco were making some ifne Spider-Man comics in the early-mid 80s, but they were not doing Spider-Man comics remotely like that before then.
TDKR isn't DARK though. Sandman IS. So your examples don't make any sense.
>TDKR isn't DARK though.
It has a happy ending, but it was definitely a dark comic depicting a crazy Batman who brutalizes criminals and a Joker who mass murdered on a scale never seen before.
3 months ago
Anonymous
More historical revisionism.
3 months ago
Anonymous
You keep saying that while providing no further context. Add to the discussion when you disagree.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>arvel publishes a Spider-Man book where a goofy silver age villain loses his mind, shoots Spider-Man, buries him alive, saves his new wife from a pack of would-be rapists, and then blows his own brains out because he achieved everything he wanted out of life. And this happened almost right after a one-shot where Spider-Man goes to Europe, accidentally manslaughters a suicidal woman, then comes back to his hotel to find one of his oldest friends assassinated.
Both of those are just DeMatteis. Though maybe these kinds of stories would've been looked at with more scrutiny by the publisher if Watchmen didn't exist.
3 months ago
Anonymous
The second one was written by Priest. And the follow-up to story to Kraven's Last Hunt was Nocenti's Life in the Mad Dog Ward, a dark story about mental illness and forced confinement in an asylum that also not typical for Spider-Man.
And hell, look at Miller pre-and post-DKR. His original run on DD had a bit of bronze age darkness with Elektra getting killed by Bullseye, Bullseye falling and breaking his spine, and DD forcing him to participate in a game of Russian Roulette in the hospital. Born Again ramped up the darkness and edginess significantly by having sweet Karen Page from the 60s become a heroin addicted prostitute who sold out Daredevil's secret identity for a hit of smack.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>And the follow-up to story to Kraven's Last Hunt was Nocenti's Life in the Mad Dog Ward, a dark story about mental illness and forced confinement in an asylum that also not typical for Spider-Man.
It's not really that dark. It's a little unusual but the covers are the darkest thing about it, if anything it's still fairly lighthearted.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Mediocre isn't bad.
It's pretty bad.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>arvel publishes a Spider-Man book where a goofy silver age villain loses his mind, shoots Spider-Man, buries him alive, saves his new wife from a pack of would-be rapists, and then blows his own brains out because he achieved everything he wanted out of life. And this happened almost right after a one-shot where Spider-Man goes to Europe, accidentally manslaughters a suicidal woman, then comes back to his hotel to find one of his oldest friends assassinated.
Both of those are just DeMatteis. Though maybe these kinds of stories would've been looked at with more scrutiny by the publisher if Watchmen didn't exist.
Priest (who wrote that Spider-Man/Wolverine comic) was editor of the Spider-Man line during the 80s and already moving Spider-Man more toward darker stories in Spectacular Spider-Man and having PAD write them. He said the following in his essay:
"I had alienated just about everybody but Shooter, who encouraged me to move Spidey towards excellence. To which end I put Peter David and Rich Buckler on SPECTACULAR, focusing on stories with a serious, "grown-up" tone and more complex themes that happened primarily at night and wherein Spider-Man wore, primarily, his BLACK uniform. One of my comics writing idols, David Michelinie, came onboard WEB along with artists Marc Silvestri and Kyle Baker, and I left the DeFalco/Frenz team undisturbed on AMAZING, other than to emphasize that they were the head team: that we took our cues from them and followed their lead."
PAD's first issue of Spectacular was released in March 1985
The Death of Jean DeWolff started in July 1985
DKR and Watchmen didn't launch until 1986.
Priest still would've written the Spider-Man/Wolverine one-shot the way he did since he was already leaning more toward that kind of story.
Even though Priest was gone by the time Kraven's Last Hunt was published, he was the one who commissioned JMD to do it. So I think that even if Watchmen didn't exist, you would still get Kraven's Last Hunt.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It was all part of the same zeitgeist. The industry as a whole moved towards content that was darker and edgier than what came before. Characters like Venom and Carnage would have looked and felt completely out of place in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. Hobgoblin literally became a demon in 1988.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It is, which is why I think there's too many people that don't understand what DKR and Watchmen actually influenced, people wrongly think DKR and Watchmen made everything dark when there was already a move to darker stories before them.
People within the industry were also reading Moore's Miracleman, Swamp Thing, and Captain Britain. A lot of people forget how influential those also were.
3 months ago
Anonymous
From what I heard, Swamp Thing made Gayman get into writing comics, and Captain Britain and Marvelman inspired Morrison to do capes (he was already doing comics).
3 months ago
Anonymous
Man, every time it turns out Jim Shooter did the right thing and b***hes still b***h about him
3 months ago
Anonymous
Probably because he fricking sucked to work for. We got a better era at the cost of alienating the majority of the industry's talent. Seriously, the only people that stuck up for Shooter were the sycophants that didn't mind putting out half-assed work bi-weekly. Pic related.
>The writing standards in the 70s really DON'T hold up
I feel like this is one of those generalisations I hear over and over again. I feel like this is just a comment people make about older books because some people find their styles to be impenetrable, which is fair enough to each their own. No good book came out of a vaccuum and the good books of the 80s were on the backs of what came before. The 1970s had a bunch of good experimentation and titles building to become even greater later on. Sure there is some dated stuff but that never changes.
It's more like the SUPERHERO comics of the 70s aren't very good. That was arguably the best decade for non-superhero comics in America. Conan, Marvel's horror titles, Creepy/Eerie/Vampirella from Warren, etc.
The 80s were also better in that regard: >American Flagg! >Grimjack >Cerebus: High Society and Church & State >Jim >Love & Rockets >Mister X >The Puma Blues >Ronin >Scout >Yummy Fur
etc.
A lot of what people praise from the 70s in particular didn't age very well. >The Night Gwen Stacy Died
Not the worst, but done more for shock value than anything. The first issue in particular is pretty weak and weirdly paced, though the second one is much better. Hogs all the glory for "the first time a cape hero's girlfriend died" when that's not even true. Also Spider-Man caught people this exact way before and it was fine then. >Demon In A Bottle
A 70s anti-alcohol PSA with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer because no one knew how to be subtle back then. While it established a solid character flaw for Tony that got expanded on in better ways later on, the issue itself is a "very special episode" that would get made fun of for being so corny if it was a cartoon, but since comic writing is filled with pretentious fart-huffers it got worshipped instead. >Green Lantern and Green Arrow
Do I even need to say anything on this one, this was quite possibly the granddaddy of all the preachy moralizing liberal stuff you see in comics today. I'm sure you'll find lots of corny soapbox mouthpiece monologues by Green Arrow if you read it nowadays. While it's more admirable here due to the climate at the time, in hindsight it's still really, really ridiculous. Why does it even need to feature Green Lantern? He's not the kind of character that deals with this kind of shit in the first place. I
>>The Night Gwen Stacy Died
This is actually not half bad.
In A Bottle
This is pretty good, especially if you read the issues leading up to it.
Lantern and Green Arrow
No one ever really liked this though. I think there's a misconception about that. The main reason THAT page always gets posted is because of how stupid it is.
>No one ever really liked this though. I think there's a misconception about that. The main reason THAT page always gets posted is because of how stupid it is.
Growing up I saw comic pros and journalists talk a lot about how influential and amazing this run was. The truth is that lefties/libs love it when comics reflect their values back at them, which also explains all the praise for the last decade.
And like everyone else, they hate it when comics don't reflect their values. The particular issue brought up in this letter is a funny case because Stan Lee was just echoing the values of the Democratic party at the time (Kennedy was the guy who started the draft for the Vietnam War).
3 months ago
Anonymous
This is a reasonable response without getting into any shit. But it could only be given back then, at a time when one could say "I'm just reiterating what our fine government says, do you not trust our government?" and not expect the answer to be "Well... No, I don't"
It feels incredible how different and much more naive people's general perception of politics at the time seemed to be.
>The Bronze Age of Comic Books is an informal name for a period in the history of American superhero comic books usually said to run from 1970 to 1985. It follows the Silver Age of Comic Books and is followed by the Modern Age of Comic Books. >There is no one single event that can be said to herald the beginning of the Bronze Age. Instead, a number of events at the beginning of the 1970s, taken together, can be seen as a shift away from the tone of comics in the previous decade. >One commonly used ending point for the Bronze Age is the 1985–1986 time frame. As with the Silver Age, the end of the Bronze Age relates to a number of trends and events that happened at around the same time. DC Comics published Crisis on Infinite Earths, which overhauled the history of the DC Universe and several of the company's major characters, and revitalized sales for the company, again making it a serious market contender against Marvel. >After the Bronze Age came the Modern Age of Comic Books. According to Shawn O'Rourke of PopMatters, the shift from the previous ages involved a "deconstructive and dystopian re-envisioning of iconic characters and the worlds that they live in",[5] as typified by Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen (1986–1987). .
>The Bronze Age of Comic Books
Fine here is ASU
https://libguides.asu.edu/c.php?g=613607&p=4263347#:~:text=Golden%20Age%3A%201938%20(first%20appearance,Modern%20Age%3A1986%20until%20today
The development of the modern American comic book happened in stages. American historians generally divide 20th-century American comics history chronologically into ages:
Golden Age: 1938 (first appearance of Superman) to 1954 (introduction of the Comics Code)
Silver Age: 1956 to early 1970s
Bronze Age: 1970s to 1986
Modern Age:1986 until today
Note: Not all scholars and fans apply this same periodization scheme. Furthermore, the dates selected may vary depending on the authors (there are at least four dates to mark the end of the Bronze Age). This is intended to be a basic guideline for cultural and social shifts in the production and consumption of comics. In this guide, the Modern Age is broken up into the Dark Age, and Present Day, in order to highlight important collections and themes.
3 months ago
Anonymous
This is utter absurdity. Every detail of that is absolute nonsense made by people who clearly were going off of wikipedia pages written by 14 year olds.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Most of that information is based off of:
A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades
ISBN: 1433101106
Super-history: comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present by Jeffrey K. Johnson
ISBN: 9780786465644
Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
ISBN: 9781604732672
Since you know better, anon, care to enlighten us with some better sources? I'll wait.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades >Super-history: comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present by Jeffrey K. Johnson >Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
lol
3 months ago
Anonymous
Still waiting for some other sources or something on when you think the Bronze Age is.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Wiki is bad? ASU is bad? What is good for you? You've offered no alternative dates or sources? When is the bronze age for you then?
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Wiki is bad? ASU is bad?
Are you seriously suggesting it isn't?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Anon don't be obtuse, if you think those ages are wrong and bad then offer some alternatives. If you say "that's not the Bronze Age!" and then refuse to elaborate then what is one else to do?
Typically people consider the bronze age stuff like Green Lanter/Green Arrow book, death of Gwen Stacey etc. Death of the Silver Age innocence. Until COIE (DC reboot), TDKR, Watchmen etc.
If you think the Bronze age is something different then just elaborate.
This is also nonsense.
It is nonsense. But you still haven't said what you think isn't nonsense. Come on anon. Share.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Typically people consider the bronze age stuff like Green Lanter/Green Arrow book, death of Gwen Stacey etc. Death of the Silver Age innocence. Until COIE (DC reboot), TDKR, Watchmen etc.
No, they don't.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yes, they do.
3 months ago
Anonymous
That's a Cinemaphile thing. And Cinemaphile gets it from youtube/reddit. No one who knows anything about comics history would ever say that.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Post some alternatives then.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Then what? What do you think it is? Come on, answer.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yes, they do.
It is just bait at this point.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>This is utter absurdity.
Those are just the general categories that people have created. Of course, considering this is all a debate, plenty of people have offered alternatives. Such as: >https://web.archive.org/web/20150905115607/http://www.comicartville.com/newages.htm
It is hard to pin point specific dates because we are talking about a whole industry and people have a different view of what is or isn't important.
I don't see why you're getting so mad about it though?
3 months ago
Anonymous
This is also nonsense.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Look at comics over a long period of time and you'll notice the vibe shifts. The formation of the Comics Code Authority created a vibe shift. The loosening of those restrictions that happened around 1968-1970 (in addition to new artists entering the industry turning in pages with less compressed art) created another vibe shift. The direct market books of the mid-80s that didn't bother with the code at all (DKR, Watchmen) created yet another vibe shift. There was also a vibe shift in the early 10s but for some reason no one wants to admit it.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>There was also a vibe shift in the early 10s but for some reason no one wants to admit it.
People have admitted it and some people talked about a post-modern era, or a dark age era or even a "woke" era.
3 months ago
Anonymous
No one actually bothers to read about any of that stuff or those discussions around it. I swear every thread that mentions comic book ages descends into the same shit because no one here actually wants to engage with academic debates around the subject.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>no one here actually wants to engage with academic debates around the subject
Least of all you.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Projection.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>vibe shifts
GTFO of here. You sound like a fricking redditor.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>There was also a vibe shift in the early 10s but for some reason no one wants to admit it.
People have admitted it and some people talked about a post-modern era, or a dark age era or even a "woke" era.
There really hasn't been stories like TDKR and Watchmen that are so prominent that they drag the entire medium into a particular direction. The medium as a whole is the least culturally relevant it's been so there's less interest in bothering with this.
We can definitely talk about smaller scale movements in the past few decades like, for example, the "reconstruction", for the lack of a better word, of the mid-late 90s spearheaded by writers like Waid.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>that are so prominent that they drag the entire medium into a particular direction
Can ages only shift when there is monumental change? See the shift from Silver to Bronze isn't defined by one book but rather a series of books moving in a certain way.
Sometimes an age change is like, death by a thousand cuts. Many smaller things building up to something bigger. With the 10s it is much harder to define but I definitely feel like there has been a shift. Comics have declined while other comic industries, such as manga, have flourished more. That could be argument enough for an age change.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah; they hired a bunch of shitters to write the books because only a fool would go write for DC/Marvel for 30k a year, own nothing, and get little to no royalties. And it's not like the minor 3 produce quality, either; they have flash in the pan type dealings.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Manga has been declining for decades.
3 months ago
Anonymous
It's the opposite. Their sales have been flourishing and there is almost always something to push it into one direction or another. Even in one of the more ignored demographics like Josei, they change and not stay the same.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Manga has few truly long running franchises so many of their ideas are fresh. Marvel and DC Superheroes have been around since the 1930's, they have storylines that date back longer than TV soap operas. Batman should be 100 years old by now if it were not for the crisis reboots and retconning . TDKR stables Batman because at least he received an end story
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Batman should be 100 years old by now if it were not for the crisis reboots and retconning .
GTFO of here with that. Fictional characters should NEVER age.
3 months ago
Anonymous
They should ALWAYS age.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Son Goku grew up, so did the first Robin(Dick Grayson) who became Nightwing. Captain America is old, he just remained young because he was frozen.
3 months ago
Anonymous
You don't know anything about the manga market.
3 months ago
Anonymous
The market as a whole? Yeah I don't. Specific genres and demographics? I do since I've been reading different entries from them dating back to the 70s. Same with american comics. I am not a master of the medium as a whole.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Manga is noticeably more popular by seeing it at brick and mortar stores like Target, Walmart, and at Barnes and Nobles Bookstores. Also at comic book stores there's a good section dedicated to Manga instead of regular comics. Girlls also temd to buy more manga When I go to a used book store, the Manga section usually has girls browsing thru the manga. ...and have you been to a pure Anime /Manga Convention??? Massive crowds without the need for American Comics to attract attention. Manga is not declining.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Speaking of manga, Kodansha is finally publishing Ashita no Joe in English this year, how about that?
3 months ago
Anonymous
Nice.
No lies there. 80s were the best decade for comics, no contest.
2000s were better than 90s because I grew up on them.
90s are better than the 00s, and I grew up on the 00s comics.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Good news.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>When I go to a used book store, the Manga section usually has girls browsing thru the manga
I know.
Speaking of manga, Kodansha is finally publishing Ashita no Joe in English this year, how about that?
It was a pleasant surprise to learn about this last night.
3 months ago
Anonymous
We're getting Joe and Legend of Kamuy this year, amazing
3 months ago
Anonymous
the top ten Manga titles sold over 60 Million books in 2023.
https://gamerant.com/best-selling-manga-2023/#spy-x-family
2/3 of all comics sold in US are Manga
https://www.cbr.com/japanese-manga-vs-american-comics-why-more-popular/
3 months ago
Anonymous
>2/3 of all comics sold in US are Manga
No, they aren't. You're going by TPB sales alone and ONLY from select retailers.
3 months ago
Anonymous
This is largely revisionism that ignores reality. Anyone who thinks comics were changed overnight by Watchmen (or changed much AT ALL by TDKR) is clearly too young to have actually been there.
3 months ago
Anonymous
When talking about historical ages we naturally have to be revisionist though? No one is saying things changed overnight but they are looking back and saying there is a culture shift they were part of.
3 months ago
Anonymous
Not really. Again, you're too young to have been there and you clearly haven't done any real research of records from the time period.
3 months ago
Anonymous
And again you offer no further explanation. It honestly feels like bait or trolling. All you're doing is saying "heh sorry kid". It is rather pathetic.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>Golden Age: 1938 (first appearance of Superman) to 1954 (introduction of the Comics Code) >Silver Age: 1956 to early 1970s >Bronze Age: 1970s to 1986 >Modern Age:1986 until today
You can't put in the same age these things: (british invasion, exxtreme 90s, descompressive TPB six issues stuff, disney fatigue and multiverse fatigue)
Is this way: >Victorian Age (1842–1897) >Platinum Age (1897–1938) >Golden Age (1938–1956) >Silver Age (1956–1970) >Bronze Age (1970–1986) >Dark Age (1986–1991) >Extreme age (1991-1997) >Event (decompressive) age (1997-2011) >Synergy age (2011-2019) >Multiverse fatigue age(2020-2027)
3 months ago
Anonymous
>You can't put in the same age these things: >british invasion
The British Invasion went from the 80s all the way onwards. So it goes between Bronze, Dark, Extreme, Event ages in your list. And this is the problem with categorisation, eventually you break down into smaller and smaller groups and even those don't quite work.
>Platinum Age (1897–1938) >Golden Age (1938–1956)
People in the early 30s were already referring to the newspaper strips at the time as Golden Age. So should Golden Age be as early as '32?
The Golden Age and Silver Ages are the only real "ages" defined at the time by contempories. The other stuff really more feels like comic book shop retail categories.
Barring the odd Sinestro story (of which there were 7 or something), that's pretty much all Hal did in the 60s. The vast majority of 60's GL comics were set on Earth and involved villains like Goldface, Shark or Sonar. Few involved the corps in a major way.
Well, the whole concept of comic shops existed to curate issues starting in the 70's, so naturally that's when issues start to end up being better preserved on average. Before then, books would have to survive in people's homes or storage and hope they wouldn't get tossed out or damaged.
Sadly true, which is a bummer because this is an interesting topic. Unfortunately people want to “get their shit in” rather than discuss the topic. Makes me wish there were consequences for derailment dipshits.
I always thought the Bronze Age was just the 70s, and that those comics were generally darker and generally more drab creatively. Then the 80s a separate age, brighter and more optimistic, while also being the most refined and balanced comics. The 90s are a very different thing entirely, so I have trouble wrapping my head around grouping them with the mid-to-late 80s.
>Then the 80s a separate age, brighter and more optimistic
And yet the 80s brought us Watchmen and TDKR. I think the problem is we generalise all these eras. People will say shit like "the 90s is just utility belts and Image artist eXtreme shit" but then forget that something like the Sandman was published from 89 to 96.
Sometimes I think the problem with comic book fans is people forget a lot of history. People will post the same recommended comics images and those comics will be bought and then reprinted and a smaller and smaller amount of comics will be experienced. Then those people will recommend those same books. People will read Batman Year One or TDKR but not an older series.
>Sometimes I think the problem with comic book fans is people forget a lot of history. People will post the same recommended comics images and those comics will be bought and then reprinted and a smaller and smaller amount of comics will be experienced. Then those people will recommend those same books. People will read Batman Year One or TDKR but not an older series.
I came to that conclusion years ago. And I think there was a lot of reasons that happened-->DC wanting to avoid most of its past during the 90s >Quesada-era Marvel not giving a shit about Marvel stuff before Quesada unless it suited their needs or they can force an interpretation on it. This carried on to now >Wizard barely wanting to cover things that take place before Bronze Age unless it was Marvel >Wizard (and other comic publications) going into decline and then gone during the 2010s, so now it's in an even worse spot >Comics news sites getting increasingly worse since the last decade for a variety of reasons >most Marvel and DC works either never staying in print or still have yet to be collected, to say nothing of a lot of other non-Marvel/DC work from the past that still haven't been collected
barely wanting to cover things that take place before Bronze Age unless it was Marvel
(and other comic publications) going into decline and then gone during the 2010s, so now it's in an even worse spot
It's not. Put it this way, back in the 90s Wizard barely covered anything before Bronze Age, but at least they talked about things from the 80s that wasn't just Watchmen and DKR.
Nowadays there's too many people with even less of a frame of reference than 90s Wizard had, and that's somehow even worse.
Wizard was explicitly a modern comics magazine. They barely acknowledged anything from before the 90s because that was the concept of their magazine. Thinking they somehow caused any problems by not publishing articles about older comics is absurd.
3 months ago
Anonymous
the purpose for Wizard was to sell comics, get people to watch super hero cartoons. and get kids to invest in new comics in hopes they become valuable enough to brag about or sell for a profit. Of course they're not going to cover Silver and Golden Age, because 90's kids don't have that kind of money to spend $500 on some Golden age regular issue of Superman. Their price guides dated back within the range of 25 years and when younger readers still understood when Wolverine 1st appeared.
I don't think you really see the problem here
3 months ago
Anonymous
I'm not defending Wizard Magazine , but I do miss getting comic news in Magazine format.
the purpose for Wizard was to sell comics, get people to watch super hero cartoons. and get kids to invest in new comics in hopes they become valuable enough to brag about or sell for a profit. Of course they're not going to cover Silver and Golden Age, because 90's kids don't have that kind of money to spend $500 on some Golden age regular issue of Superman. Their price guides dated back within the range of 25 years and when younger readers still understood when Wolverine 1st appeared.
3 months ago
Anonymous
>the purpose for Wizard was to sell comics,
Wizard only cared about their own sales. >get people to watch super hero cartoons
They didn't even cover cartoons. What are you even talking about? >and get kids to invest in new comics in hopes they become valuable enough to brag about or sell for a profit.
False. Wizard was probably the ONLY publication in the early 90s that spoke out AGAINST speculation. It seems to me like you haven't read the actual magazine and are just going by what you saw someone else say about it online.
i get all my conic news from Cinemaphile, twitter, and youtube. Youtube is the worst place to get comics news because they mostly have no motivation to sell comics or get you to actually enjoy comics as a hobby
>I think the problem is we generalise all these eras
Guy who made that post, and I agree that's the case, but people just love categorizing things. Especially when deciding what to read from such a vast quantity of stories out there, people often need a way to narrow down the choices. And realistically, even the Golden and Silver Ages had stuff like EC Comics and Warren Publishing within them, which had comics that fell far outside the typical definition and expectation of comics attributed to those "Ages". So such categorization really is only a superficial definition, but I think it's worthwhile to group that way both for ease of finding similar stories, and for helping those outliers stand out that much more. >Sometimes I think the problem with comic book fans is people forget a lot of history
Big agree on this. I've been deep diving the Cinemaphile archives lately looking for lesser-appreciated runs of comics, and it's insane how much cool stuff doesn't really get brought up. As someone who is largely a greenhorn as far as reading comics goes, it's daunting to get into the medium, so I can see how a lot of people just settle for the most popularly recommended things.
The 70s was THE best decade for comics art. You had to be better than 99% of modern artists to get a job in comics then. The standards were astronomically high.
It's a shame that the writing standards of the decade were usually not as high. Occasionally you got a miraculous marriage of the two (Conan being a prime example), but that was the exception unfortunately.
I love comics from the 70s but sadly it was the beginning of a downturn in the quality of comics art. When rumors of unionization started floating around DC brought on the (very talented but occasionally dull) Filipino scabs. At the same time Marvel relied heavily on a mix of productive workhorses like Sal Buscema and outright hacks like Don Heck. Sadly scheduling problems pre-Shooter meant that even good pencils were marred by the "many hands" inking approach. This all coincides with a mass exodus of the most talented artists in the industry (Adams, Wrightson, Steranko, Smith, Ploog). By the late 70s things looked kind of bleak for creative new visual directions, especially at DC. Honestly, it was a miracle that the next gen guys like Miller, Byrne, etc were so talented and committed to staying within the medium. I imagine the new pay structure that coincided with the rise of direct sales was a factor. I'll also note that Simonson and Pérez had been around for years before the 80s started but it took a while to figure out how their work should be inked.
I think Heck was a good romance/horror artist, but he was never comfortable doing superheroes or adventure. He could occasionally be elevated by a strong inker but that was no mean feat in the 70s.
Except in this case it was union busting by DC's management that directly lead to major talents leaving the American comic book industry. This move, combined with rising paper costs and shrinking newstand space, directly lead to the DC Implosion. If DC didn't have Warner's backing they'd have likely gone out of business. Late 70s and early 80s DC books are filled with misspelled words and sloppily pasted up artwork and this is a direct outcome of union busting.
Holy fricking autism, this thread: >People list the conventional ages dates which are used in-general by shops, some basic academia or wiki. >People say these are wrong when these are literally just debated on anyway and are just generalized categories. >You'll never come up with a perfect system that doesn't leave something out. >People that criticise the general system offer no alternatives or further explanation.
Attention, OP is based.
>BRONZE AGE (1970 to the mid 80s. usually clarified as 85 or 86)
>(also none of these are in any particular order)
>House Of Mystery (DC)
>House Of Secrets (DC)
>Fantastic Four, Thor, Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, etc. are all very good throughout this time period.
>Power Man & Iron Fist (Marvel)
>Marvel Team-Up (Marvel)
>Tomb Of Dracula (Marvel)
>Werewolf By Night (Marvel)
>the original Swamp Thing run by Bernie Wrightson (DC)
>Green Arrow/Green Lantern (DC)
>Batman, especially the stuff Dennis O'Neil Did.(DC)
>Conan The Barbarian (Marvel)
>Man Of Steel by John Byrne (DC)
>Adventure Into Fear (especially the stuff featuring Man-Thing) (Marvel)
>Master Of Kung-Fu (Marvel)
>Scream, Psycho, and Nightmare (all by Skywald)
>Ghost Rider (Marvel)
AGE (1970 to the mid 80s. usually clarified as 85 or 86)
lol
>are all very good throughout this time period.
Dear God, WHY did it have to end?
Because.
Half of these or less are actual Bronze Age.
thanks for these collages.
Yeah, the dark age (aside from Vertigo) was a mistake.
For me, it was that whole 80s decade:
>Miracleman
>V for Vendetta
>Moore Captain Britain
>Moore Swamp Thing
>Superman Annual #11
>Watchmen
>Miller Daredevil (including Born Again)
>Elektra: Assassin
>The Dark Knight Returns
>Batman: Year One
>Zenith
>The One
>Concrete
I forgot
>Marshal Law
Green Lantern has no cape, none of the X-Men have capes. Who is that M guy? Miracle Man? he has no cape. Only 2 prominent Super heroes have capes, and thats Batman and Superman.
storm has a cape
those cloth things that attach to her arms is not a cape.
THAT'S LITERAL
>none of the X-Men have capes.
Magneto still wore a cape as Headmaster for Xavier's School. It's a pity your autism is this extreme.
I certainly like the art from Bronze age.
American comics in general did.
Post crisis DC was the best DC (but muh haekman and LOSH) who gives a frick that some fruity stories got fricked. We got Best Superman (until death of), best bats (bruce wayne, Dickbats best bats), best wonder women, best flash, best lanterns, best justice league, introduction of stuff that would later go vertigo (hellblazer, sandman, animal man).
Post crisis best run.
As for marvel and nom big two capes. Dont know, dont frick with that shit outside of America's Best, but that was eaten by dc.
I too mostly enjoyed post-crisis. They did a fine job of establishing most of their starts and how they grew
There was no real reason to frick LoSH. it was just a stupid move that could easily been avoided with comic book frickery.
LoSH is built on the foundation of Clark Kent Superboy being there, he's the main character
they couldve said it was superman
Comic book frickery can fix anything.
That didn't need to change at all. LoSH is set 1000 years away from anything else.
If Superman works without the Legion, but the Legion doesn't work without Superman, then get rid of the Legion.
Correct. Every era after the eighties has been on a gradual decline.
Meaning this: 80s > 90s > 2000s > 2010s > 2020s (so far)
This pattern has yet to be broken.
Yep, Tom DeFalco was Marvel's last good EiC (with Shooter being the last great one), Mike Carlin was DC's last good Executive Editor (with Dick Giordano being their last great one).
>with Shooter being the last great one
I miss him like you wouldn't believe
No lies there. 80s were the best decade for comics, no contest.
2000s were better than 90s because I grew up on them.
The 90s were better as a whole than the 2000s. You can find great and terrible comics in any decade, but in terms of overall quality there’s been a decline every decade since the 80s.
Uhh I didn't like most of the 90s stuff I read, it just seemed like a lot of really stupid premises taking themselves overly seriously. At least I can see artistic value in some of the grimdark grittiness of the 2000s.
Get rid of the multiverse and don't write a fricking crossover event to explain it, just do it
Stop the YA novel shit
Tell new stories instead of sequels to forty year old story arcs
>Get rid of the multiverse and don't write a fricking crossover event to explain it, just do it
Brainlet take
All you need to do is to stop doing constant Big Crossover Events with the multiverse. Elseworlds was around in the 90s and it didn't have whiners complaining about how there were so many different Batmen, because they were self-contained
Most people in entertainment nowadays can barely flesh out one world before they jump into multiversal crossovers
Elseworlds blow wiener, too, casual. Self-contained or not. It drags everything down with it in the long run
I wish the writing in this era held up better. Unfortunately most of it does not.
The best from the 80s hold up.
True generally, but there are even better singular comics in the 90's and oughts.
What was better in the 2000s?
The problem is that OP is confusing the 70s with the 80s. The writing standards in the 70s really DON'T hold up (with a few exceptions). The 80s on the other hand was the decade with the highest writing quality in American comics history.
I'd rather endlessly read 70s comics than anything from the last ten years.
Obviously 70s comics are better than modern comics. ANYTHING is better than modern comics.
The 70s stable of writers includes Jack Kirby, Denny O'Neil, Chris Claremont, Steve Gerber, Len Wein, Don McGregor, Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, Doug Moench, Cary Bates, Elliot S Maggin, Michael Fleisher, Martin Pasko, Paul Levitz, Bob Haney, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, and Roy Thomas. That's a lot of good comics.
Some of those people really aren't that great, dude.
Some of their issues were clunkers, but they were all producing good work in the 70s. Fourth World, Batman, X-Men, Defenders, Howard the Duck, Black Panther in Jungle Action, Spider-Man, Avengers, Dr. Strange, Shang Chi, Superman, Jonah Hex, LoSH, The Brave and the Bold, Tomb of Dracula, Conan, and so on.
>they were all producing good work in the 70s
Debatable. A few of those writers are pretty mediocre.
Mediocre isn't bad.
The entire medium got really political and re-doubled its efforts on diversity and inclusion in the mid-10s though.
DC publishes Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and then a year later Marvel publishes a Spider-Man book where a goofy silver age villain loses his mind, shoots Spider-Man, buries him alive, saves his new wife from a pack of would-be rapists, and then blows his own brains out because he achieved everything he wanted out of life. And this happened almost right after a one-shot where Spider-Man goes to Europe, accidentally manslaughters a suicidal woman, then comes back to his hotel to find one of his oldest friends assassinated. Stern and DeFalco were making some ifne Spider-Man comics in the early-mid 80s, but they were not doing Spider-Man comics remotely like that before then.
>TDKR isn't DARK though.
It has a happy ending, but it was definitely a dark comic depicting a crazy Batman who brutalizes criminals and a Joker who mass murdered on a scale never seen before.
More historical revisionism.
You keep saying that while providing no further context. Add to the discussion when you disagree.
>arvel publishes a Spider-Man book where a goofy silver age villain loses his mind, shoots Spider-Man, buries him alive, saves his new wife from a pack of would-be rapists, and then blows his own brains out because he achieved everything he wanted out of life. And this happened almost right after a one-shot where Spider-Man goes to Europe, accidentally manslaughters a suicidal woman, then comes back to his hotel to find one of his oldest friends assassinated.
Both of those are just DeMatteis. Though maybe these kinds of stories would've been looked at with more scrutiny by the publisher if Watchmen didn't exist.
The second one was written by Priest. And the follow-up to story to Kraven's Last Hunt was Nocenti's Life in the Mad Dog Ward, a dark story about mental illness and forced confinement in an asylum that also not typical for Spider-Man.
And hell, look at Miller pre-and post-DKR. His original run on DD had a bit of bronze age darkness with Elektra getting killed by Bullseye, Bullseye falling and breaking his spine, and DD forcing him to participate in a game of Russian Roulette in the hospital. Born Again ramped up the darkness and edginess significantly by having sweet Karen Page from the 60s become a heroin addicted prostitute who sold out Daredevil's secret identity for a hit of smack.
>And the follow-up to story to Kraven's Last Hunt was Nocenti's Life in the Mad Dog Ward, a dark story about mental illness and forced confinement in an asylum that also not typical for Spider-Man.
It's not really that dark. It's a little unusual but the covers are the darkest thing about it, if anything it's still fairly lighthearted.
>Mediocre isn't bad.
It's pretty bad.
Priest (who wrote that Spider-Man/Wolverine comic) was editor of the Spider-Man line during the 80s and already moving Spider-Man more toward darker stories in Spectacular Spider-Man and having PAD write them. He said the following in his essay:
"I had alienated just about everybody but Shooter, who encouraged me to move Spidey towards excellence. To which end I put Peter David and Rich Buckler on SPECTACULAR, focusing on stories with a serious, "grown-up" tone and more complex themes that happened primarily at night and wherein Spider-Man wore, primarily, his BLACK uniform. One of my comics writing idols, David Michelinie, came onboard WEB along with artists Marc Silvestri and Kyle Baker, and I left the DeFalco/Frenz team undisturbed on AMAZING, other than to emphasize that they were the head team: that we took our cues from them and followed their lead."
PAD's first issue of Spectacular was released in March 1985
The Death of Jean DeWolff started in July 1985
DKR and Watchmen didn't launch until 1986.
Priest still would've written the Spider-Man/Wolverine one-shot the way he did since he was already leaning more toward that kind of story.
Even though Priest was gone by the time Kraven's Last Hunt was published, he was the one who commissioned JMD to do it. So I think that even if Watchmen didn't exist, you would still get Kraven's Last Hunt.
It was all part of the same zeitgeist. The industry as a whole moved towards content that was darker and edgier than what came before. Characters like Venom and Carnage would have looked and felt completely out of place in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. Hobgoblin literally became a demon in 1988.
It is, which is why I think there's too many people that don't understand what DKR and Watchmen actually influenced, people wrongly think DKR and Watchmen made everything dark when there was already a move to darker stories before them.
People within the industry were also reading Moore's Miracleman, Swamp Thing, and Captain Britain. A lot of people forget how influential those also were.
From what I heard, Swamp Thing made Gayman get into writing comics, and Captain Britain and Marvelman inspired Morrison to do capes (he was already doing comics).
Man, every time it turns out Jim Shooter did the right thing and b***hes still b***h about him
Probably because he fricking sucked to work for. We got a better era at the cost of alienating the majority of the industry's talent. Seriously, the only people that stuck up for Shooter were the sycophants that didn't mind putting out half-assed work bi-weekly. Pic related.
>The writing standards in the 70s really DON'T hold up
I feel like this is one of those generalisations I hear over and over again. I feel like this is just a comment people make about older books because some people find their styles to be impenetrable, which is fair enough to each their own. No good book came out of a vaccuum and the good books of the 80s were on the backs of what came before. The 1970s had a bunch of good experimentation and titles building to become even greater later on. Sure there is some dated stuff but that never changes.
It's more like the SUPERHERO comics of the 70s aren't very good. That was arguably the best decade for non-superhero comics in America. Conan, Marvel's horror titles, Creepy/Eerie/Vampirella from Warren, etc.
The 80s were also better in that regard:
>American Flagg!
>Grimjack
>Cerebus: High Society and Church & State
>Jim
>Love & Rockets
>Mister X
>The Puma Blues
>Ronin
>Scout
>Yummy Fur
etc.
A lot of what people praise from the 70s in particular didn't age very well.
>The Night Gwen Stacy Died
Not the worst, but done more for shock value than anything. The first issue in particular is pretty weak and weirdly paced, though the second one is much better. Hogs all the glory for "the first time a cape hero's girlfriend died" when that's not even true. Also Spider-Man caught people this exact way before and it was fine then.
>Demon In A Bottle
A 70s anti-alcohol PSA with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer because no one knew how to be subtle back then. While it established a solid character flaw for Tony that got expanded on in better ways later on, the issue itself is a "very special episode" that would get made fun of for being so corny if it was a cartoon, but since comic writing is filled with pretentious fart-huffers it got worshipped instead.
>Green Lantern and Green Arrow
Do I even need to say anything on this one, this was quite possibly the granddaddy of all the preachy moralizing liberal stuff you see in comics today. I'm sure you'll find lots of corny soapbox mouthpiece monologues by Green Arrow if you read it nowadays. While it's more admirable here due to the climate at the time, in hindsight it's still really, really ridiculous. Why does it even need to feature Green Lantern? He's not the kind of character that deals with this kind of shit in the first place. I
>>The Night Gwen Stacy Died
This is actually not half bad.
In A Bottle
This is pretty good, especially if you read the issues leading up to it.
Lantern and Green Arrow
No one ever really liked this though. I think there's a misconception about that. The main reason THAT page always gets posted is because of how stupid it is.
>No one ever really liked this though. I think there's a misconception about that. The main reason THAT page always gets posted is because of how stupid it is.
Growing up I saw comic pros and journalists talk a lot about how influential and amazing this run was. The truth is that lefties/libs love it when comics reflect their values back at them, which also explains all the praise for the last decade.
And like everyone else, they hate it when comics don't reflect their values. The particular issue brought up in this letter is a funny case because Stan Lee was just echoing the values of the Democratic party at the time (Kennedy was the guy who started the draft for the Vietnam War).
This is a reasonable response without getting into any shit. But it could only be given back then, at a time when one could say "I'm just reiterating what our fine government says, do you not trust our government?" and not expect the answer to be "Well... No, I don't"
It feels incredible how different and much more naive people's general perception of politics at the time seemed to be.
Too bad half of those aren't Bronze Age
They were all released in 1970-1985
Too bad that's not the Bronze Age.
source?
>The Bronze Age of Comic Books is an informal name for a period in the history of American superhero comic books usually said to run from 1970 to 1985. It follows the Silver Age of Comic Books and is followed by the Modern Age of Comic Books.
>There is no one single event that can be said to herald the beginning of the Bronze Age. Instead, a number of events at the beginning of the 1970s, taken together, can be seen as a shift away from the tone of comics in the previous decade.
>One commonly used ending point for the Bronze Age is the 1985–1986 time frame. As with the Silver Age, the end of the Bronze Age relates to a number of trends and events that happened at around the same time. DC Comics published Crisis on Infinite Earths, which overhauled the history of the DC Universe and several of the company's major characters, and revitalized sales for the company, again making it a serious market contender against Marvel.
>After the Bronze Age came the Modern Age of Comic Books. According to Shawn O'Rourke of PopMatters, the shift from the previous ages involved a "deconstructive and dystopian re-envisioning of iconic characters and the worlds that they live in",[5] as typified by Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen (1986–1987). .
>wikipedia
>The Bronze Age of Comic Books
Fine here is ASU
https://libguides.asu.edu/c.php?g=613607&p=4263347#:~:text=Golden%20Age%3A%201938%20(first%20appearance,Modern%20Age%3A1986%20until%20today
The development of the modern American comic book happened in stages. American historians generally divide 20th-century American comics history chronologically into ages:
Golden Age: 1938 (first appearance of Superman) to 1954 (introduction of the Comics Code)
Silver Age: 1956 to early 1970s
Bronze Age: 1970s to 1986
Modern Age:1986 until today
Note: Not all scholars and fans apply this same periodization scheme. Furthermore, the dates selected may vary depending on the authors (there are at least four dates to mark the end of the Bronze Age). This is intended to be a basic guideline for cultural and social shifts in the production and consumption of comics. In this guide, the Modern Age is broken up into the Dark Age, and Present Day, in order to highlight important collections and themes.
This is utter absurdity. Every detail of that is absolute nonsense made by people who clearly were going off of wikipedia pages written by 14 year olds.
Most of that information is based off of:
A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades
ISBN: 1433101106
Super-history: comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present by Jeffrey K. Johnson
ISBN: 9780786465644
Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
ISBN: 9781604732672
Since you know better, anon, care to enlighten us with some better sources? I'll wait.
>A Complete History of American Comic Books by Shirrel Rhoades
>Super-history: comic book superheroes and American society, 1938 to the present by Jeffrey K. Johnson
>Of Comics and Men by Jean-Paul Gabilliet
lol
Still waiting for some other sources or something on when you think the Bronze Age is.
Wiki is bad? ASU is bad? What is good for you? You've offered no alternative dates or sources? When is the bronze age for you then?
>Wiki is bad? ASU is bad?
Are you seriously suggesting it isn't?
Anon don't be obtuse, if you think those ages are wrong and bad then offer some alternatives. If you say "that's not the Bronze Age!" and then refuse to elaborate then what is one else to do?
Typically people consider the bronze age stuff like Green Lanter/Green Arrow book, death of Gwen Stacey etc. Death of the Silver Age innocence. Until COIE (DC reboot), TDKR, Watchmen etc.
If you think the Bronze age is something different then just elaborate.
It is nonsense. But you still haven't said what you think isn't nonsense. Come on anon. Share.
>Typically people consider the bronze age stuff like Green Lanter/Green Arrow book, death of Gwen Stacey etc. Death of the Silver Age innocence. Until COIE (DC reboot), TDKR, Watchmen etc.
No, they don't.
Yes, they do.
That's a Cinemaphile thing. And Cinemaphile gets it from youtube/reddit. No one who knows anything about comics history would ever say that.
Post some alternatives then.
Then what? What do you think it is? Come on, answer.
It is just bait at this point.
>This is utter absurdity.
Those are just the general categories that people have created. Of course, considering this is all a debate, plenty of people have offered alternatives. Such as:
>https://web.archive.org/web/20150905115607/http://www.comicartville.com/newages.htm
It is hard to pin point specific dates because we are talking about a whole industry and people have a different view of what is or isn't important.
I don't see why you're getting so mad about it though?
This is also nonsense.
Look at comics over a long period of time and you'll notice the vibe shifts. The formation of the Comics Code Authority created a vibe shift. The loosening of those restrictions that happened around 1968-1970 (in addition to new artists entering the industry turning in pages with less compressed art) created another vibe shift. The direct market books of the mid-80s that didn't bother with the code at all (DKR, Watchmen) created yet another vibe shift. There was also a vibe shift in the early 10s but for some reason no one wants to admit it.
>There was also a vibe shift in the early 10s but for some reason no one wants to admit it.
People have admitted it and some people talked about a post-modern era, or a dark age era or even a "woke" era.
No one actually bothers to read about any of that stuff or those discussions around it. I swear every thread that mentions comic book ages descends into the same shit because no one here actually wants to engage with academic debates around the subject.
>no one here actually wants to engage with academic debates around the subject
Least of all you.
Projection.
>vibe shifts
GTFO of here. You sound like a fricking redditor.
There really hasn't been stories like TDKR and Watchmen that are so prominent that they drag the entire medium into a particular direction. The medium as a whole is the least culturally relevant it's been so there's less interest in bothering with this.
We can definitely talk about smaller scale movements in the past few decades like, for example, the "reconstruction", for the lack of a better word, of the mid-late 90s spearheaded by writers like Waid.
>that are so prominent that they drag the entire medium into a particular direction
Can ages only shift when there is monumental change? See the shift from Silver to Bronze isn't defined by one book but rather a series of books moving in a certain way.
Sometimes an age change is like, death by a thousand cuts. Many smaller things building up to something bigger. With the 10s it is much harder to define but I definitely feel like there has been a shift. Comics have declined while other comic industries, such as manga, have flourished more. That could be argument enough for an age change.
Yeah; they hired a bunch of shitters to write the books because only a fool would go write for DC/Marvel for 30k a year, own nothing, and get little to no royalties. And it's not like the minor 3 produce quality, either; they have flash in the pan type dealings.
Manga has been declining for decades.
It's the opposite. Their sales have been flourishing and there is almost always something to push it into one direction or another. Even in one of the more ignored demographics like Josei, they change and not stay the same.
Manga has few truly long running franchises so many of their ideas are fresh. Marvel and DC Superheroes have been around since the 1930's, they have storylines that date back longer than TV soap operas. Batman should be 100 years old by now if it were not for the crisis reboots and retconning . TDKR stables Batman because at least he received an end story
>Batman should be 100 years old by now if it were not for the crisis reboots and retconning .
GTFO of here with that. Fictional characters should NEVER age.
They should ALWAYS age.
Son Goku grew up, so did the first Robin(Dick Grayson) who became Nightwing. Captain America is old, he just remained young because he was frozen.
You don't know anything about the manga market.
The market as a whole? Yeah I don't. Specific genres and demographics? I do since I've been reading different entries from them dating back to the 70s. Same with american comics. I am not a master of the medium as a whole.
Manga is noticeably more popular by seeing it at brick and mortar stores like Target, Walmart, and at Barnes and Nobles Bookstores. Also at comic book stores there's a good section dedicated to Manga instead of regular comics. Girlls also temd to buy more manga When I go to a used book store, the Manga section usually has girls browsing thru the manga. ...and have you been to a pure Anime /Manga Convention??? Massive crowds without the need for American Comics to attract attention. Manga is not declining.
Speaking of manga, Kodansha is finally publishing Ashita no Joe in English this year, how about that?
Nice.
90s are better than the 00s, and I grew up on the 00s comics.
Good news.
>When I go to a used book store, the Manga section usually has girls browsing thru the manga
I know.
It was a pleasant surprise to learn about this last night.
We're getting Joe and Legend of Kamuy this year, amazing
the top ten Manga titles sold over 60 Million books in 2023.
https://gamerant.com/best-selling-manga-2023/#spy-x-family
2/3 of all comics sold in US are Manga
https://www.cbr.com/japanese-manga-vs-american-comics-why-more-popular/
>2/3 of all comics sold in US are Manga
No, they aren't. You're going by TPB sales alone and ONLY from select retailers.
This is largely revisionism that ignores reality. Anyone who thinks comics were changed overnight by Watchmen (or changed much AT ALL by TDKR) is clearly too young to have actually been there.
When talking about historical ages we naturally have to be revisionist though? No one is saying things changed overnight but they are looking back and saying there is a culture shift they were part of.
Not really. Again, you're too young to have been there and you clearly haven't done any real research of records from the time period.
And again you offer no further explanation. It honestly feels like bait or trolling. All you're doing is saying "heh sorry kid". It is rather pathetic.
>Golden Age: 1938 (first appearance of Superman) to 1954 (introduction of the Comics Code)
>Silver Age: 1956 to early 1970s
>Bronze Age: 1970s to 1986
>Modern Age:1986 until today
You can't put in the same age these things: (british invasion, exxtreme 90s, descompressive TPB six issues stuff, disney fatigue and multiverse fatigue)
Is this way:
>Victorian Age (1842–1897)
>Platinum Age (1897–1938)
>Golden Age (1938–1956)
>Silver Age (1956–1970)
>Bronze Age (1970–1986)
>Dark Age (1986–1991)
>Extreme age (1991-1997)
>Event (decompressive) age (1997-2011)
>Synergy age (2011-2019)
>Multiverse fatigue age(2020-2027)
>You can't put in the same age these things:
>british invasion
The British Invasion went from the 80s all the way onwards. So it goes between Bronze, Dark, Extreme, Event ages in your list. And this is the problem with categorisation, eventually you break down into smaller and smaller groups and even those don't quite work.
>Platinum Age (1897–1938)
>Golden Age (1938–1956)
People in the early 30s were already referring to the newspaper strips at the time as Golden Age. So should Golden Age be as early as '32?
The Golden Age and Silver Ages are the only real "ages" defined at the time by contempories. The other stuff really more feels like comic book shop retail categories.
>wikipedia
Green Lantern was awful during the 70s. Green Lanterns are supposed to patrol their space sectors, not bum around on one planet as Hal did with Ollie.
>not bum around on one planet as Hal did
Barring the odd Sinestro story (of which there were 7 or something), that's pretty much all Hal did in the 60s. The vast majority of 60's GL comics were set on Earth and involved villains like Goldface, Shark or Sonar. Few involved the corps in a major way.
Probably whey the following decade was much better by actually bringing in the GLC.
I don’t think you’ll get a lot of argument around these parts.
>that joker cover
Hot damn, just the thumbnail is getting me excited and I don't even like Joker. Cover artists of this era were something else.
How come there were so many comic books left from the 70s and 80s in the 90s at stores? I vividly remember seeing all of these before
Well, the whole concept of comic shops existed to curate issues starting in the 70's, so naturally that's when issues start to end up being better preserved on average. Before then, books would have to survive in people's homes or storage and hope they wouldn't get tossed out or damaged.
Every thread is just the descent into autism with discussion derailed. It is so tiresome.
Sadly true, which is a bummer because this is an interesting topic. Unfortunately people want to “get their shit in” rather than discuss the topic. Makes me wish there were consequences for derailment dipshits.
I always thought the Bronze Age was just the 70s, and that those comics were generally darker and generally more drab creatively. Then the 80s a separate age, brighter and more optimistic, while also being the most refined and balanced comics. The 90s are a very different thing entirely, so I have trouble wrapping my head around grouping them with the mid-to-late 80s.
I've always gone by pic related
>thinking the Ages have anything to do with DC continuity
how is Cinemaphile this fricking moronic
I'm talking about the years discussed you fricking dolt.
>Golden Age - 1935-1956
>Silver Age - 1956-1970
>Bronze Age - 1970-1984
>Dark Age - 1984-1998
>Then the 80s a separate age, brighter and more optimistic
And yet the 80s brought us Watchmen and TDKR. I think the problem is we generalise all these eras. People will say shit like "the 90s is just utility belts and Image artist eXtreme shit" but then forget that something like the Sandman was published from 89 to 96.
Sometimes I think the problem with comic book fans is people forget a lot of history. People will post the same recommended comics images and those comics will be bought and then reprinted and a smaller and smaller amount of comics will be experienced. Then those people will recommend those same books. People will read Batman Year One or TDKR but not an older series.
TDKR isn't DARK though. Sandman IS. So your examples don't make any sense.
>Sometimes I think the problem with comic book fans is people forget a lot of history. People will post the same recommended comics images and those comics will be bought and then reprinted and a smaller and smaller amount of comics will be experienced. Then those people will recommend those same books. People will read Batman Year One or TDKR but not an older series.
I came to that conclusion years ago. And I think there was a lot of reasons that happened-->DC wanting to avoid most of its past during the 90s
>Quesada-era Marvel not giving a shit about Marvel stuff before Quesada unless it suited their needs or they can force an interpretation on it. This carried on to now
>Wizard barely wanting to cover things that take place before Bronze Age unless it was Marvel
>Wizard (and other comic publications) going into decline and then gone during the 2010s, so now it's in an even worse spot
>Comics news sites getting increasingly worse since the last decade for a variety of reasons
>most Marvel and DC works either never staying in print or still have yet to be collected, to say nothing of a lot of other non-Marvel/DC work from the past that still haven't been collected
barely wanting to cover things that take place before Bronze Age unless it was Marvel
(and other comic publications) going into decline and then gone during the 2010s, so now it's in an even worse spot
You're contradicting yourself here.
It's not. Put it this way, back in the 90s Wizard barely covered anything before Bronze Age, but at least they talked about things from the 80s that wasn't just Watchmen and DKR.
Nowadays there's too many people with even less of a frame of reference than 90s Wizard had, and that's somehow even worse.
Wizard was explicitly a modern comics magazine. They barely acknowledged anything from before the 90s because that was the concept of their magazine. Thinking they somehow caused any problems by not publishing articles about older comics is absurd.
I don't think you really see the problem here
I'm not defending Wizard Magazine , but I do miss getting comic news in Magazine format.
You're inventing problems that don't exist.
the purpose for Wizard was to sell comics, get people to watch super hero cartoons. and get kids to invest in new comics in hopes they become valuable enough to brag about or sell for a profit. Of course they're not going to cover Silver and Golden Age, because 90's kids don't have that kind of money to spend $500 on some Golden age regular issue of Superman. Their price guides dated back within the range of 25 years and when younger readers still understood when Wolverine 1st appeared.
>the purpose for Wizard was to sell comics,
Wizard only cared about their own sales.
>get people to watch super hero cartoons
They didn't even cover cartoons. What are you even talking about?
>and get kids to invest in new comics in hopes they become valuable enough to brag about or sell for a profit.
False. Wizard was probably the ONLY publication in the early 90s that spoke out AGAINST speculation. It seems to me like you haven't read the actual magazine and are just going by what you saw someone else say about it online.
i get all my conic news from Cinemaphile, twitter, and youtube. Youtube is the worst place to get comics news because they mostly have no motivation to sell comics or get you to actually enjoy comics as a hobby
>I think the problem is we generalise all these eras
Guy who made that post, and I agree that's the case, but people just love categorizing things. Especially when deciding what to read from such a vast quantity of stories out there, people often need a way to narrow down the choices. And realistically, even the Golden and Silver Ages had stuff like EC Comics and Warren Publishing within them, which had comics that fell far outside the typical definition and expectation of comics attributed to those "Ages". So such categorization really is only a superficial definition, but I think it's worthwhile to group that way both for ease of finding similar stories, and for helping those outliers stand out that much more.
>Sometimes I think the problem with comic book fans is people forget a lot of history
Big agree on this. I've been deep diving the Cinemaphile archives lately looking for lesser-appreciated runs of comics, and it's insane how much cool stuff doesn't really get brought up. As someone who is largely a greenhorn as far as reading comics goes, it's daunting to get into the medium, so I can see how a lot of people just settle for the most popularly recommended things.
So what do we call the post bronze but pre modern age? And what's this modern age gonna be called. Nothing flattering I assume.
hey quick question
why can't we say capeshit peaked in the late 80s and early 90s during alan moore swamp thing and neil gaiman sandman? not capeshit enough?
Neal Adams was wasted on so many mediocre comics.
The 70s was THE best decade for comics art. You had to be better than 99% of modern artists to get a job in comics then. The standards were astronomically high.
It's a shame that the writing standards of the decade were usually not as high. Occasionally you got a miraculous marriage of the two (Conan being a prime example), but that was the exception unfortunately.
I love comics from the 70s but sadly it was the beginning of a downturn in the quality of comics art. When rumors of unionization started floating around DC brought on the (very talented but occasionally dull) Filipino scabs. At the same time Marvel relied heavily on a mix of productive workhorses like Sal Buscema and outright hacks like Don Heck. Sadly scheduling problems pre-Shooter meant that even good pencils were marred by the "many hands" inking approach. This all coincides with a mass exodus of the most talented artists in the industry (Adams, Wrightson, Steranko, Smith, Ploog). By the late 70s things looked kind of bleak for creative new visual directions, especially at DC. Honestly, it was a miracle that the next gen guys like Miller, Byrne, etc were so talented and committed to staying within the medium. I imagine the new pay structure that coincided with the rise of direct sales was a factor. I'll also note that Simonson and Pérez had been around for years before the 80s started but it took a while to figure out how their work should be inked.
I remember liking Don Heck's angular style in some of the Silver Age stuff I read
I think Heck was a good romance/horror artist, but he was never comfortable doing superheroes or adventure. He could occasionally be elevated by a strong inker but that was no mean feat in the 70s.
Unions ruin everything.
Except in this case it was union busting by DC's management that directly lead to major talents leaving the American comic book industry. This move, combined with rising paper costs and shrinking newstand space, directly lead to the DC Implosion. If DC didn't have Warner's backing they'd have likely gone out of business. Late 70s and early 80s DC books are filled with misspelled words and sloppily pasted up artwork and this is a direct outcome of union busting.
>you got a miraculous marriage of the two (Conan being a prime example)
Conan wasn't that good. It mainly just had good art.
I hear ya
>bronze age
>the covers are not made from bronze
Extremely disappointed.
neither are silver age and golden age silver and gold.
>bronze age
What are bronze age, and how that sentiement work?
Learn English first
It was the greatest period of American comics.
Holy fricking autism, this thread:
>People list the conventional ages dates which are used in-general by shops, some basic academia or wiki.
>People say these are wrong when these are literally just debated on anyway and are just generalized categories.
>You'll never come up with a perfect system that doesn't leave something out.
>People that criticise the general system offer no alternatives or further explanation.