Defining the Atom Age

[PovertyRow]

In Dale Roberts most recent Forum Only Selling a conversation developed about what the AA is. Some interesting and valid answers, and I answered there as well;. But rather than carry on the discussion in Dale's sale thread, I copied my answer and started this thread. I know its been discussed but many new folks are here, some unaware of the AA as a definition. Anyway, my post was:

 

As far as the Atom (aka Atomic) age I loosely tend to think of it from 1947 with the publication of Avon's one-shot EERIE to 1955 when the code came out. EERIE is something like Showcase 4, which many say heralded the Silver Age. Both were kind of departure book that took a while for other publishers to pick up on.

 

During the AA horror was king, although crime, sci-fi and romance were also very big. The departure of the superhero and the shift to anthology/genre-specific books is typical of AA.

[jimjum12]

In Dale Roberts most recent Forum Only Selling a conversation developed about that the AA is. Some interesting and valid answers, and I answered there as well;. But rather than carry on the discussion in Dale's sale thread, I copied my andswer and started this thread. I know its been discussed but many new folks are here, some unaware of the AA as a definition. Anyway, my post was:

 

As far as the Atom (aka Atomic) age I loosely tend to think of it from 1947 with the publication of Avon's one-shot EERIE to 1955 when the code came out. EERIE is something like Showcase 4, which many say heralded the Silver Age. Both were kind of departure book that took a while for other publishers to pick up on.

 

During the AA horror was king, although crime, sci-fi and romance were also very big. The departure of the superhero and the shift to anthology/genre-specific books is typical of AA.

 

....that about sums it up....the only thing I might add....if it looks like the type of comic that your Mom would spank you for having, it's probably Atomic Age..... GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[PovertyRow]

if it looks like the type of comic that your Mom would spank you for having, it's probably Atomic Age..... GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

I'd if it weren't so true! Nice analogy!

[jimjum12]

...that's why they're so hard to find in grade...... from being quickly stuffed under the bed or salted away out back in the treefort...... at least those that weren't burnt in Church parking lots. GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

...... and yes, Reform School Girl is an example.....

[RedFury]

The real atomic age began July 16, 1945 with the Trinity test, and I always assumed the comic book atomic age began soon after the war's end when the super-heroes stopped fighting Nazis and started fighting gangsters.

[PovertyRow]

The real atomic age began July 16, 1945 with the Trinity test, and I always assumed the comic book atomic age began soon after the war's end when the super-heroes stopped fighting Nazis and started fighting gangsters.

 

I've always considered a key point to the AA to be the absence of super-heroes (except for DC, which also only published 3 real PCH books). Yes there were a few Atlas heroes but overall they were dead. Even the mighty Cap in his last issue (75) was there in name only (Feb 1950) with an anthology book of PCH stores. (Great Gene Colan cover though!)

 

I must correct myself. Cap's last issue from the original run was #78. Not sure what I was thinking!

[Robot Man]

I agree with Pov but I might slip back one year. The war was over in 1945 and by 1946 there were "atomic bomb" & flying saucer stories starting to come around. Superheroes were now kind of boring and fighting street crime. By 1947 comics seemed to branch out into all genres on a big basis. Horror, crime, sci-fi, romance ect seemed to dominate the racks. Would have been a great time to buy comics off the racks. Probably my favorite era!

[rjpb]

No comic age can be definitively defined, but late 40s to mid 50s is a generally agreed upon time frame for "Atom Age". There may also be some argument as to what exactly constitutes an "Atom Age" book within this time frame, do Dells, Westerns, Romance and Superhero books all count?

 

I generally think of Atom Age as post-war Golden Age including the newer non-superhero genres that were catching on: certainly horror, and crime, which didn't expand beyond CDNP until 1947, and also jungle, romance and war and GGA in general, the more esoteric and oddball superhero books ( Phantom Lady), and hybrid stuff (like the Quality horror/hero books) up to about 1950, and then pretty much anything from 1950 to the code, and even some post code stuff like the pre-implosion/post code Atlas books, and many oddball promotional comics.

 

As much an overlay age than it's own distinct era, it basically includes anything that some would argue are neither Gold nor Silver, and was printed in the 40s and 50s.

 

[jimjum12]

No comic age can be definitively defined, but late 40s to mid 50s is a generally agreed upon time frame for "Atom Age". There may also be some argument as to what exactly constitutes an "Atom Age" book within this time frame, do Dells, Westerns, Romance and Superhero books all count?

 

I generally think of Atom Age as post-war Golden Age including the newer non-superhero genres that were catching on: certainly horror, and crime, which didn't expand beyond CDNP until 1947, and also jungle, romance and war and GGA in general, the more esoteric and oddball superhero books ( Phantom Lady), and hybrid stuff (like the Quality horror/hero books) up to about 1950, and then pretty much anything from 1950 to the code, and even some post code stuff like the pre-implosion/post code Atlas books, and many oddball promotional comics.

 

As much an overlay age than it's own distinct era, it basically includes anything that some would argue are neither Gold nor Silver, and was printed in the 40s and 50s.

 

.... I've seen a lot of Romance books that I could easily classify as Atomic Age. I'd say the only thing responsible for more out of wedlock pregnancies than them would be Drive In movies and cold beer. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

.... Atomic Age books were the ones that Frederick Wertham read so many of.....

[PovertyRow]

The line is definitely blurry. I like 1947 because that is not only the publication of EERIE but also the generally accepted start (another blurry line) of the first "cold war". The "cold war" was a major society changer. Fear, paranoia, McCarthy "hearings (starting in 1950) etc. 1947 was also the year of Roswell and the heightened UFO interest. (Jeeze, 1947 was a heck of a year!). Interestingly, though, the line further blurs in the post-code when you look at the pre-hero Marvels and especially some of the Ditko back stories about.

 

I doubt a real agreement can be made but it is one of the most fascinating aspects of comics.

[jimbo_707]

The line is definitely blurry. I like 1947 because that is not only the publication of EERIE but also the generally accepted start (another blurry line) of the first "cold war". The "cold war" was a major society changer. Fear, paranoia, McCarthy "hearings (starting in 1950) etc. 1947 was also the year of Roswell and the heightened UFO interest. (Jeeze, 1947 was a heck of a year!). Interestingly, though, the line further blurs in the post-code when you look at the pre-hero Marvels and especially some of the Ditko back stories about.

 

I doubt a real agreement can be made but it is one of the most fascinating aspects of comics.

I always thought of the Golden Age as ending when comic book sales started to taper off, which I thought happened right after the war ended. If I had to put hard and fast dates on the Atomic Age, I'd say cover dates of January 1946 (which would mean books that hit stands circa November '45) through February 1955 (which I think is the last month that most books were free of the CCA stamp).

[PovertyRow]

The line is definitely blurry. I like 1947 because that is not only the publication of EERIE but also the generally accepted start (another blurry line) of the first "cold war". The "cold war" was a major society changer. Fear, paranoia, McCarthy "hearings (starting in 1950) etc. 1947 was also the year of Roswell and the heightened UFO interest. (Jeeze, 1947 was a heck of a year!). Interestingly, though, the line further blurs in the post-code when you look at the pre-hero Marvels and especially some of the Ditko back stories about.

 

I doubt a real agreement can be made but it is one of the most fascinating aspects of comics.

I always thought of the Golden Age as ending when comic book sales started to taper off, which I thought happened right after the war ended. If I had to put hard and fast dates on the Atomic Age, I'd say cover dates of January 1946 (which would mean books that hit stands circa November '45) through February 1955 (which I think is the last month that most books were free of the CCA stamp).

 

My feeling is that content is more definitive of an age than something like tapering sales. Yes, the tapering sales would spur new content but that really didn't happen until later. do feel the significance of EERIE from Han 1947 cannot be discounted, just as the significance of Showcase 4 cannot be discounted.

[adamstrange]

All comic "ages" were designated after the fact and represent reasonable attempts to categorize noticeable changes in publishing trends. There will typically be some preliminary examples that occur prior to the start of an age and some examples that occur after the official end date. The debate around ages almost always revolves around which of the early adopters and the stragglers signal the start and end of the age in question.

 

As such it can be helpful to look at the predecessor and successor ages in order to provide a context for the discussion of any particular age.

 

Golden Age represents the golden age of superheroes when they went from being 13% share of a very small market in 1938 to a 54% share of a much larger market in 1941. It's not far from the truth to say that the GA was superhero comics for kids. The end of WWII, however, resulted in such a significant reduction in the interest of superheroes that by 1950 supers were down to just a 4% share of of an extremely large comics market.

 

This was what the comics newsstand looked like when Superman was published in 1938.

(The image was created by a Boardie but I do not know who.)

 

The Atomic Age was the first time period when the industry published comics in every genre targeting every age group from young kids to adults. Comics became just as diverse a medium for telling stories for all ages as books, movies, plays, music etc.

 

While there were crime (Crime Does Not Pay) and teen (Archie) titles starting during the war, they ramped up considerably after the war. Romance (Young Love 1947), Good Girl Art (Phantom Lady 1947) and horror (Adventures into the Unknown 1948) started after the war. While sci-fi had been around since the early days of the GA, it had died down during the war until a noticeable expansion started in 1951.

 

The Atomic Age was also the time of the greatest number of titles and the greatest number of printed comics. In 1952, for example, there were 643 titles compared to 115 in 1940 or 289 in 1945. Explicit acts of violence, "good girl" art and inclusion of horror story elements were incorporated into many titles/genres that had been relatively tame. These also were the primary thematic elements that were to cause the backlash against comics in general and that were eventually stifled by the comics code.

 

The Silver Age was about the re-introduction of superheros with a science-fiction twist as a way to take advantage of Sputnik/space race era and because of the youthful interests of many of the main creators (Schwartz, Weisinger, Kirby, Lee, Kane etc were all part of the early fandom of sci-fi). This provided a way to innovate out of the restrictions imposed by Comics Code.

 

I personally think the Atomic Age is best described as starting with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb and ending with the advent of the Code. These end points are not only historically significant and easy to remember but also happen to correspond with very dramatic publishing shifts.

 

All stats were sourced from the indispensable Gerber Photojournal.

[OtherEric]

The real atomic age began July 16, 1945 with the Trinity test, and I always assumed the comic book atomic age began soon after the war's end when the super-heroes stopped fighting Nazis and started fighting gangsters.

 

I've always considered a key point to the AA to be the absence of super-heroes (except for DC, which also only published 3 real PCH books). Yes there were a few Atlas heroes but overall they were dead. Even the mighty Cap in his last issue (75) was there in name only (Feb 1950) with an anthology book of PCH stores. (Great Gene Colan cover though!)

 

I must correct myself. Cap's last issue from the original run was #78. Not sure what I was thinking!

\

 

You were thinking the three issue Atlas run, while continuing the original numbering, was meaningfully separate from the original run.

 

I think it's quite hard to define the start of the Atom Age, while agreeing that the end comes more or less with the CCA.

[fifties]

The line is definitely blurry.

I would certainly agree with that assessment, as well as with the notion that it began sometime in the late 40's, and ended either with the introduction of the CCA in March, 1955, or that of Showcase #4 in the late summer of 1956.

[rjpb]

The real atomic age began July 16, 1945 with the Trinity test, and I always assumed the comic book atomic age began soon after the war's end when the super-heroes stopped fighting Nazis and started fighting gangsters.

 

I've always considered a key point to the AA to be the absence of super-heroes (except for DC, which also only published 3 real PCH books). Yes there were a few Atlas heroes but overall they were dead. Even the mighty Cap in his last issue (75) was there in name only (Feb 1950) with an anthology book of PCH stores. (Great Gene Colan cover though!)

 

I must correct myself. Cap's last issue from the original run was #78. Not sure what I was thinking!

\

 

You were thinking the three issue Atlas run, while continuing the original numbering, was meaningfully separate from the original run.

 

I think it's quite hard to define the start of the Atom Age, while agreeing that the end comes more or less with the CCA.

 

The Atlas revival is definitely Atom Age, and I would consider Cap 74 and 75 Atom Age as well, with their focus on "weird horror". Nowadays for convenience, the Atlas hero revival books get lumped in with Golden Age, and from the perspective of the 21st century, the late forties and mid-fifties seem like the same general era, but back in the early 70s the Atlas hero books were kind of orphaned, not really considered Golden Age, but too early for Silver, they were an afterthought to many Timely collectors, and of little interest to Marvel fans. I guess there is still a little of that, as reflected in relative prices for most of them.

 

I would also consider the Quality and Fawcett books from the early 50s to be Atom age, specifically issues that featured horror or anti-communist themed covers. Other potential hero book candidates would be the revived Fox output ( Phantom Lady, late Blue Beetle) and anything by a publisher that didn't exist prior to 1946, and even the code approved Ajax hero books.

 

On the other hand, when I see late issues of All-Star, or early 50s editions of DC hero books in general, "Atom Age" is not what comes to mind. The same for most of the diminishing Timely hero output up through 1948.

[Moondog]

All comic "ages" were designated after the fact and represent reasonable attempts to categorize noticeable changes in publishing trends. There will typically be some preliminary examples that occur prior to the start of an age and some examples that occur after the official end date. The debate around ages almost always revolves around which of the early adopters and the stragglers signal the start and end of the age in question.

 

As such it can be helpful to look at the predecessor and successor ages in order to provide a context for the discussion of any particular age.

 

Golden Age represents the golden age of superheroes when they went from being 13% share of a very small market in 1938 to a 54% share of a much larger market in 1941. It's not far from the truth to say that the GA was superhero comics for kids. The end of WWII, however, resulted in such a significant reduction in the interest of superheroes that by 1950 supers were down to just a 4% share of of an extremely large comics market.

 

This was what the comics newsstand looked like when Superman was published in 1938.

(The image was created by a Boardie but I do not know who.)

 

The Atomic Age was the first time period when the industry published comics in every genre targeting every age group from young kids to adults. Comics became just as diverse a medium for telling stories for all ages as books, movies, plays, music etc.

 

While there were crime (Crime Does Not Pay) and teen (Archie) titles starting during the war, they ramped up considerably after the war. Romance (Young Love 1947), Good Girl Art (Phantom Lady 1947) and horror (Adventures into the Unknown 1948) started after the war. While sci-fi had been around since the early days of the GA, it had died down during the war until a noticeable expansion started in 1951.

 

The Atomic Age was also the time of the greatest number of titles and the greatest number of printed comics. In 1952, for example, there were 643 titles compared to 115 in 1940 or 289 in 1945. Explicit acts of violence, "good girl" art and inclusion of horror story elements were incorporated into many titles/genres that had been relatively tame. These also were the primary thematic elements that were to cause the backlash against comics in general and that were eventually stifled by the comics code.

 

The Silver Age was about the re-introduction of superheros with a science-fiction twist as a way to take advantage of Sputnik/space race era and because of the youthful interests of many of the main creators (Schwartz, Weisinger, Kirby, Lee, Kane etc were all part of the early fandom of sci-fi). This provided a way to innovate out of the restrictions imposed by Comics Code.

 

I personally think the Atomic Age is best described as starting with the dropping of the Atomic Bomb and ending with the advent of the Code. These end points are not only historically significant and easy to remember but also happen to correspond with very dramatic publishing shifts.

 

All stats were sourced from the indispensable Gerber Photojournal.

 

Welcome back, Adam!