Re: What was the Best Decade Overall for Comics in the Last Century?

by **tony ingram** Mon Aug 04, 2014 7:02 am

Well, it does, but as with COIE, it's only really significant from the POV of the American superhero audience. It's significant in terms of characters if you're a superhero fan, but as far as the wider medium of comics in general are concerned, all that stuff (at least as far as DC is concerned, which is what the images you posted reflect) was still basically variations on a theme created twenty years earlier. Marvel introduced a new way of telling those kinds of stories with more depth and humanity in 1961, but the 50s, in terms of the development of comics overall, aren't really significant as far as the development of comics goes except in the negative sense, with the rise of censorship and the CCA . The reason I cited the Eagle was because it was a totally new type of comic, a massive leap forward in terms of production standards. Nothing like it had been seen before.

by MajorHoy Mon Aug 04, 2014 2:20 pm

tony ingram wrote:Well, it does, but as with COIE, it's only really significant from the POV of the American superhero audience. It's significant in terms of characters if you're a superhero fan, but as far as the wider medium of comics in general are concerned, all that stuff (at least as far as DC is concerned, which is what the images you posted reflect) was still basically variations on a theme created twenty years earlier. Marvel introduced a new way of telling those kinds of stories with more depth and humanity in 1961, but the 50s, in terms of the development of comics overall, aren't really significant as far as the development of comics goes except in the negative sense, with the rise of censorship and the CCA.

Even though you may question the overall effect of DC's Silver Age rebirth in the 1950s, if DC hadn't done that, would American comic books have thrived at all much beyond the 1960s? Marvel's first title in their start up was Fantastic Four, a direct reaction to DC's Justice League of America. (The first issue of Brave and the Bold featuring the JLA was cover dated February-March 1960, which meant it was issued at the end of 1959, and it was definitely conceived and developed during the end of the 1950s.)

So, if DC had just tried to survive with all their Western and other mostly non-superhero titles, and Marvel hadn't started their own superhero line and stayed with one-shot monster stories and other non-superhero fare, what would the British comic book industry have been like?

by **tony ingram** Mon Aug 04, 2014 4:09 pm

MajorHoy wrote:
tony ingram wrote:Well, it does, but as with COIE, it's only really significant from the POV of the American superhero audience. It's significant in terms of characters if you're a superhero fan, but as far as the wider medium of comics in general are concerned, all that stuff (at least as far as DC is concerned, which is what the images you posted reflect) was still basically variations on a theme created twenty years earlier. Marvel introduced a new way of telling those kinds of stories with more depth and humanity in 1961, but the 50s, in terms of the development of comics overall, aren't really significant as far as the development of comics goes except in the negative sense, with the rise of censorship and the CCA.
Even though you may question the overall effect of DC's Silver Age rebirth in the 1950s, if DC hadn't done that, would American comic books have thrived at all much beyond the 1960s?

Hmm, I guess that's debatable...

Marvel's first title in their start up was Fantastic Four, a direct reaction to DC's Justice League of America. (The first issue of Brave and the Bold featuring the JLA was cover dated February-March 1960, which meant it was issued at the end of 1959, and it was definitely conceived and developed during the end of the 1950s.)

So, if DC had just tried to survive with all their Western and other mostly non-superhero titles, and Marvel hadn't started their own superhero line and stayed with one-shot monster stories and other non-superhero fare, what would the British comic book industry have been like?

Pretty much like it was anyway, I'd have thought. The American comics industry has never really influenced the British comics industry that strongly, aside from Marvel UK. And Marvel UK (as a creator of original material) only lasted from 1979 to about 1995. In fact, the most significant difference would probably have been that the British creators who "defected" to American comics in the eighties would simply have continued to work exclusively in Britain. We'd have likely been better off.

by Silogramsam Mon Aug 04, 2014 9:06 pm

major, give it up. don't you know that if it's American-made, its no big thing (unless there's a British hand involved) but it's British-made, that's all that needs to be said? The sun used to not set on the British Empire at one time, too. Even Superman and Batman, really, are only rifs off of some British character if one digs deep enough. Don't you know that Steve Rogers is really supposed to be known as Captain Formerly-13-British-Colonies and, if he had, he'd really be popular?

by **tony ingram** Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:14 pm

Silogramsam wrote:major, give it up. don't you know that if it's American-made, its no big thing (unless there's a British hand involved) but it's British-made, that's all that needs to be said? The sun used to not set on the British Empire at one time, too. Even Superman and Batman, really, are only rifs off of some British character if one digs deep enough. Don't you know that Steve Rogers is really supposed to be known as Captain Formerly-13-British-Colonies and, if he had, he'd really be popular?

That wasn't what I was saying. But the Major's comment seemed to indicate a belief that the British comics industry would somehow have been fundamentally changed by the collapse of the US comics industry, whereas in fact the two industries basically developed independantly of each other and have had comparatively little influence on each other. For about 70 years, the best selling comics in Britain were published by two companies-DC Thomson and the outfit that became IPC-which most Americans have never heard of, and which produced material most Americans would probably be a bit baffled by. We really didn't (and don't) do superheroes or non anthology books here, generally. Even when American comics began to be widely distributed (in the 1970s) they were a supplement to an already existing domestic market, which not every reader bought.

by MajorHoy Tue Aug 05, 2014 12:32 am

Silogramsam wrote:major, give it up. don't you know that if it's American-made, its no big thing (unless there's a British hand involved) but it's British-made, that's all that needs to be said? The sun used to not set on the British Empire at one time, too. Even Superman and Batman, really, are only rifs off of some British character if one digs deep enough. Don't you know that Steve Rogers is really supposed to be known as Captain Formerly-13-British-Colonies and, if he had, he'd really be popular?

What was the Best Decade Overall for Comics in the Last Century? - Page 2 3865f345106cdcd930b6dd6816162824

What was the Best Decade Overall for Comics in the Last Century? - Page 2 Rogers

by Silogramsam Tue Aug 05, 2014 5:07 pm

What was the Best Decade Overall for Comics in the Last Century? - Page 2 Miss_Liberty_01

costume looks somewhat familiar

by PhantomRambler Tue Jun 02, 2015 3:18 pm

Got to be 1960-1970 - so much creativity and originality

by **tony ingram** Tue Jun 02, 2015 3:28 pm

I would still say the eighties, but I'd put the sixties a close second.

by Sponsored content

What Was the Best Decade of the 20th Century for Comics?