When Do You Think The Atomic Age Of Comics Began And Why?

[adamstrange]

How about Incredible Science Fiction #33 for the end? Last EC comic and just barely post code. Last story in that issue was "Judgement Day" what a great story to end with. What do you think?

The advent of the Code caused an immediate and significant change in the comic book content. Many titles were cancelled, others re-worked to be tamer and the stories of all were impacted by the censorship of the CCA. This happened before ISF 33 so I think the imposition of the Code is a better event on which to base the end date.

[MrBedrock]

How about Incredible Science Fiction #33 for the end? Last EC comic and just barely post code. Last story in that issue was "Judgement Day" what a great story to end with. What do you think?

The advent of the Code caused an immediate and significant change in the comic book content. Many titles were cancelled, others re-worked to be tamer and the stories of all were impacted by the censorship of the CCA. This happened before ISF 33 so I think the imposition of the Code is a better event on which to base the end date.

Yes, but to Bob's point, and I think most collector's would agree, the end of the main EC titles really marked the end of the Atomic Age. I know I include all of the Incredible Sci Fi issues in my pre-code sorting process. I don't do that with Piracy or Aces High or any of the other New Trend. I generally use the code as a marker when sorting Atlas titles, or ACGs. But I definitely agree with Bob that ISF 33 would be the last book of that prime period for me. I guess technically the code is the end, but those issues of ISF still sorta feel like pre-code books to me.

[adamstrange]

How about Incredible Science Fiction #33 for the end? Last EC comic and just barely post code. Last story in that issue was "Judgement Day" what a great story to end with. What do you think?

The advent of the Code caused an immediate and significant change in the comic book content. Many titles were cancelled, others re-worked to be tamer and the stories of all were impacted by the censorship of the CCA. This happened before ISF 33 so I think the imposition of the Code is a better event on which to base the end date.

Yes, but to Bob's point, and I think most collector's would agree, the end of the main EC titles really marked the end of the Atomic Age. I know I include all of the Incredible Sci Fi issues in my pre-code sorting process. I don't do that with Piracy or Aces High or any of the other New Trend. I generally use the code as a marker when sorting Atlas titles, or ACGs. But I definitely agree with Bob that ISF 33 would be the last book of that prime period for me. I guess technically the code is the end, but those issues of ISF still sorta feel like pre-code books to me.

I think the hobby is a little too "EC-centric"

 

I love ECs and I have some of the ISFs but EC dramatically altered their line with the advent of the code. I don't see Psychoanalysis or Aces High or Impact as pre-code books. They are all part of the taming that occurred because of the CCA and, content-wise, all of the EC pre-codey goodness was squeezed out.

 

In practice, the end of the Atomic Age is generally listed as Aug 1956 since Showcase 4 came out the month after that and it's the start of the Silver Age. People seem to like their ages nestled right up against each other, though I'm a proponent of the gap because of the shift caused by the Code.

[buttock]

How about Incredible Science Fiction #33 for the end? Last EC comic and just barely post code. Last story in that issue was "Judgement Day" what a great story to end with. What do you think?

The advent of the Code caused an immediate and significant change in the comic book content. Many titles were cancelled, others re-worked to be tamer and the stories of all were impacted by the censorship of the CCA. This happened before ISF 33 so I think the imposition of the Code is a better event on which to base the end date.

Yes, but to Bob's point, and I think most collector's would agree, the end of the main EC titles really marked the end of the Atomic Age. I know I include all of the Incredible Sci Fi issues in my pre-code sorting process. I don't do that with Piracy or Aces High or any of the other New Trend. I generally use the code as a marker when sorting Atlas titles, or ACGs. But I definitely agree with Bob that ISF 33 would be the last book of that prime period for me. I guess technically the code is the end, but those issues of ISF still sorta feel like pre-code books to me.

I think the hobby is a little too "EC-centric"

 

I love ECs and I have some of the ISFs but EC dramatically altered their line with the advent of the code. I don't see Psychoanalysis or Aces High or Impact as pre-code books. They are all part of the taming that occurred because of the CCA and, content-wise, all of the EC pre-codey goodness was squeezed out.

 

In practice, the end of the Atomic Age is generally listed as Aug 1956 since Showcase 4 came out the month after that and it's the start of the Silver Age. People seem to like their ages nestled right up against each other, though I'm a proponent of the gap because of the shift caused by the Code.

 

You guys are arguing the same point. The CCA was the most visible and striking effect of the comic witch-hunt, but the taming of EC was another major event in the same spectrum. Because the CCA was the most far-reaching and final I would tend to agree with adamstrange, but they're two stages in the same event.

[Flex Mentallo]

The more I think about this the more paradoxical the term becomes.

 

Does anyone know who coined the term as applied to comic books? In trying to find out I gleaned the following from Wikipedia:

 

The phrase "Atomic Age" was coined by William L. Laurence, a New York Times journalist who became the official journalist for the Manhattan Project which developed the first nuclear weapons.He witnessed both the Trinity test and the bombing of Nagasaki and went on to write a series of articles extolling the virtues of the new weapon. His reporting before and after the bombings helped to spur public awareness of the potential of nuclear technology and in part motivated development of the technology in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union would go on to test its first nuclear weapon in 1949.

 

The phrase gained popularity as a feeling of nuclear optimism emerged in the 1950s in which it was believed that all power generators in the future would be atomic in nature. The atomic bomb would render all conventional explosives obsolete and nuclear power plants would do the same for power sources such as coal and oil. There was a general feeling that everything would use a nuclear power source of some sort, in a positive and productive way, from irradiating food to preserve it, to the development of nuclear medicine. There would be an age of peace and plenty in which atomic energy would "provide the power needed to desalinate water for the thirsty, irrigate the deserts for the hungry, and fuel interstellar travel deep into outer space".This use would render the Atomic Age as significant a step in technological progress as the first smelting of Bronze, of Iron, or the commencement of the Industrial Revolution.

 

So at the time it was coined the term was utopian.

 

And while using the same term, we are apparently referencing a later perspective on the era, as one rife with fear, naivete and paranoia, hence it is pseudo-historical [if you see what I mean.].

 

I don't have a problem with this as such. [Who would care if I did?] But it does seem that when we try to pin down the beginning and end of an age, it has nothing to do with the age as experienced by those living through it, only our need to place things in boxes. We can then stick labels on boxes, and stick comics in them. We literally collect history, which obviously is an interpretation of the past, and not - just to hammer this point into the ground - not the past itself, and not the past as present to those who experienced it.

 

I do it too.

 

Fukushima is the Three Mile Island of our time, and this just indicates to me that our greatest difficulty is in getting a handle on the present. It isn't history yet.

 

Somehow I think our categorizations will matter less to future generations than to us, living through it.

 

This is still the atomic age. It just isn't really what we are talking about.

[MrBedrock]

How about Incredible Science Fiction #33 for the end? Last EC comic and just barely post code. Last story in that issue was "Judgement Day" what a great story to end with. What do you think?

The advent of the Code caused an immediate and significant change in the comic book content. Many titles were cancelled, others re-worked to be tamer and the stories of all were impacted by the censorship of the CCA. This happened before ISF 33 so I think the imposition of the Code is a better event on which to base the end date.

Yes, but to Bob's point, and I think most collector's would agree, the end of the main EC titles really marked the end of the Atomic Age. I know I include all of the Incredible Sci Fi issues in my pre-code sorting process. I don't do that with Piracy or Aces High or any of the other New Trend. I generally use the code as a marker when sorting Atlas titles, or ACGs. But I definitely agree with Bob that ISF 33 would be the last book of that prime period for me. I guess technically the code is the end, but those issues of ISF still sorta feel like pre-code books to me.

I think the hobby is a little too "EC-centric"

 

I love ECs and I have some of the ISFs but EC dramatically altered their line with the advent of the code. I don't see Psychoanalysis or Aces High or Impact as pre-code books. They are all part of the taming that occurred because of the CCA and, content-wise, all of the EC pre-codey goodness was squeezed out.

 

In practice, the end of the Atomic Age is generally listed as Aug 1956 since Showcase 4 came out the month after that and it's the start of the Silver Age. People seem to like their ages nestled right up against each other, though I'm a proponent of the gap because of the shift caused by the Code.

 

You guys are arguing the same point. The CCA was the most visible and striking effect of the comic witch-hunt, but the taming of EC was another major event in the same spectrum. Because the CCA was the most far-reaching and final I would tend to agree with adamstrange, but they're two stages in the same event.

Absolutely agree. Like I said, those four issues of ISF are the only post code books I include in my pre-code sorting, simply because I associate the terms "Sci-Fi" and "Atomic Age" so closely.

[Cat-Man_America]

The more I think about this the more paradoxical the term becomes.

 

Does anyone know who coined the term as applied to comic books? In trying to find out I gleaned the following from Wikipedia:

 

The phrase "Atomic Age" was coined by William L. Laurence, a New York Times journalist who became the official journalist for the Manhattan Project which developed the first nuclear weapons.He witnessed both the Trinity test and the bombing of Nagasaki and went on to write a series of articles extolling the virtues of the new weapon. His reporting before and after the bombings helped to spur public awareness of the potential of nuclear technology and in part motivated development of the technology in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union would go on to test its first nuclear weapon in 1949.

 

The phrase gained popularity as a feeling of nuclear optimism emerged in the 1950s in which it was believed that all power generators in the future would be atomic in nature. The atomic bomb would render all conventional explosives obsolete and nuclear power plants would do the same for power sources such as coal and oil. There was a general feeling that everything would use a nuclear power source of some sort, in a positive and productive way, from irradiating food to preserve it, to the development of nuclear medicine. There would be an age of peace and plenty in which atomic energy would "provide the power needed to desalinate water for the thirsty, irrigate the deserts for the hungry, and fuel interstellar travel deep into outer space".This use would render the Atomic Age as significant a step in technological progress as the first smelting of Bronze, of Iron, or the commencement of the Industrial Revolution.

 

So at the time it was coined the term was utopian.

 

And while using the same term, we are apparently referencing a later perspective on the era, as one rife with fear, naivete and paranoia, hence it is pseudo-historical [if you see what I mean.].

 

I don't have a problem with this as such. [Who would care if I did?] But it does seem that when we try to pin down the beginning and end of an age, it has nothing to do with the age as experienced by those living through it, only our need to place things in boxes. We can then stick labels on boxes, and stick comics in them. We literally collect history, which obviously is an interpretation of the past, and not - just to hammer this point into the ground - not the past itself, and not the past as present to those who experienced it.

 

I do it too.

 

But Fukushima is the Three Mile Island of our time, and this just indicates to me that our greatest difficulty is in getting a handle on the present. It isn't history yet.

 

But somehow I think our categorizations will matter less to future generations than to us, living through it.

 

This is still the atomic age. It just isn't really what we are talking about.

 

Of course the term is both utopian and dystopian, but there's no paradox.

 

The bikini was invented and named after nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

 

Should that reference to fallout be considered utopian or dystopian?

 

Atomic energy is nether good nor bad, it's just a scientific exploration that requires understanding and safe implementation. In my estimation the atomic age in comics started at the end of WWII with the bomb and overlaps the SA into the early sixties, but because of the CCA's significance in comic history most folks like to draw the line there.

 

In reality, the atomic age ended in the public conscience when above ground nuclear weapons testing was banned by international treaty and the cold war replaced heated tensions between East & West. Out of sight, out of mind as the saying goes. When all the duck and cover PSA's ended and fallout shelters started becoming a joke it was over. When fear mongering started looking like paranoid weirdness, for all intent and purpose the atomic age was kaput.

 

As far as comics are concerned, atomic energy is now a cliche. Peter Parker's radioactive spider would get an eye-roll if introduced today as would any character receiving powers randomly introduced through radiation. My

[Robot Man]

The ISF issues are way more closely aligned with the pre-code ones. The sci-fi books were no where as lurid as the horror or crime but they were in the same vein as those. Piracy, Aces High ect. were clearly labeled "New Direction" books and were produced to be far less "offensive" than the pre-code titles. Picking an EC book to end the era seems appropriate since they were directly responsible for the code to come into being.

[sfcityduck]

I would definitely NOT say that EC was "responsible" for the Code coming into being. The reality is that the calls for comics censorship, by Wertham and others, really started in earnest in 1947/1948 before EC even got going. Crime comics were the first real instigator of these demands for censorship, and crime themed comics started in 1942.

 

Paging SOTIcollector!

 

The attempt to tie defining "Atomic Age" to only one genre, whether Horror or SF, or to EC, ignores that at key times the top selling genres were Crime (1948, I believe) and Romance (at least in 1949, maybe more), and I'm not sure whether SF or Horror ever were the top selling genres (Westerns or funny animals might have been). EC was never a top selling publisher.

 

I agree with Adam Strange that the imposition of the CCA was far more significant as both a historical event and to comics generally than the demise of EC. But, for me, that's just a great argument for the use of the term "pre-Code" instead of "Atomic Age." Pre-Code is a really helpful term that tells you something about the contents of certain genres (but certainly not all as a number of genres and all Dell comics were unaffected by the CCA). "Atomic Age" just confuses the issue, especially if you are commencing that "Age" three to five years after the bomb was dropped and then discontinuing the use of the term at the height of the Cold War and before the Space Race, which normally included in the "Atomic Age" as that term is used in other contexts.

[Robot Man]

It wasn't strictly EC's fault the code came into being but they were for sure the best at what they did. Without even looking inside, nearly every cover was shocking in itself. Every picture I've ever seen of a group of "objectonable" comics always contained more than one EC title. Wasn't Gaines the only publisher at the hearings? His CSS #22 was discussed in detail and he did a horrible job of defending it.

 

I can see now that it is pretty hard to pin down a date or what to call it. But if it is an "age" like GA, SA, BA ect. It should have a defining book to start it and one to end it. To me It would be Eerie #1 and ISF #33... The horror, crime and sci-fi books were the ones that put the nail in the coffin not western, romance or even funny animals (which were all mentioned in SOTI).

[sfcityduck]

Every picture I've ever seen of a group of "objectonable" comics always contained more than one EC title.

 

Here's the most famous of those pictures from the Senate Hearings:

 

 

I see three ECs. But I see at least 5 Atlas. Most of those are crime titles.

[adamstrange]

Does anyone know who coined the term as applied to comic books?

That's a good question. I'm pretty sure it's of more recent invention than GA/SA which were widely used when I started collecting in the mid80s.

 

And while using the same term, we are apparently referencing a later perspective on the era, as one rife with fear, naivete and paranoia, hence it is pseudo-historical [if you see what I mean.].

Some people may use it that way but as I think of it applying in both the utopian and dystopian sense. Funny animals and Romance blossomed during this time in addition to horror and sci-fi. Walt Disney Comics & Stories reach 4 million, the highest print runs of any regularly published comic at a time when the population is much smaller than it is today.

 

Somehow I think our categorizations will matter less to future generations than to us, living through it.

I think there is a definable, interesting era, approximately from the end of WWII to the advent of the Code, that is worthwhile to label. Of the candidates, I prefer Atomic Age, but I recognize it's marginally adequate. Then again, neither the Golden Age nor the Silver Age are aptly named.

 

[adamstrange]

Absolutely agree. Like I said, those four issues of ISF are the only post code books I include in my pre-code sorting,

 

Is this legal in Texas?

[adamstrange]

I would definitely NOT say that EC was "responsible" for the Code coming into being. The reality is that the calls for comics censorship, by Wertham and others, really started in earnest in 1947/1948 before EC even got going. Crime comics were the first real instigator of these demands for censorship, and crime themed comics started in 1942.

 

I just loaned out my copy of "The Ten Cent Plague" so I can't cite specifics but the crusade against comics started in 1940 or so with many different assaults over the succeeding 14 years, including various government investigations at the Local, State and Federal level. By virtue of Gaines' defiant Senate testimony he became the poster boy for the excess of the industry but that was only right before the hammer came down. Prior to that time, Gaines was one of many "offenders."

 

P.S. Excellent book: http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Cent-Plague-Comic-Book-Changed-America/dp/0312428235/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438916078&sr=8-1&keywords=the+ten+cent+plague

[adamstrange]

I agree with Adam Strange that the imposition of the CCA was far more significant as both a historical event and to comics generally than the demise of EC. But, for me, that's just a great argument for the use of the term "pre-Code" instead of "Atomic Age." Pre-Code is a really helpful term that tells you something about the contents of certain genres (but certainly not all as a number of genres and all Dell comics were unaffected by the CCA). "Atomic Age" just confuses the issue, especially if you are commencing that "Age" three to five years after the bomb was dropped and then discontinuing the use of the term at the height of the Cold War and before the Space Race, which normally included in the "Atomic Age" as that term is used in other contexts.

 

I'm not a fan of the term "Pre-Code" because it is not sufficiently specific enough. Here on the Boards usage is usually reserved for horror comics (or horror-influenced comics) but, even so, if you look at our "Pre-code" thread you will see a number of posts for typical GA books of all genre's. Technically, they are pre-code since they were published prior to May 1955 but they don't match the original intent of thread.

 

"Atomic Age," as imperfect as it is, at least implies a timeline matching the period for the books we are discussing. Perhaps we can come up with something more accurate that is also succinct and catchy?

[adamstrange]

The more I think about this the more paradoxical the term becomes.

 

Does anyone know who coined the term as applied to comic books? In trying to find out I gleaned the following from Wikipedia:

 

The phrase "Atomic Age" was coined by William L. Laurence, a New York Times journalist who became the official journalist for the Manhattan Project which developed the first nuclear weapons.He witnessed both the Trinity test and the bombing of Nagasaki and went on to write a series of articles extolling the virtues of the new weapon. His reporting before and after the bombings helped to spur public awareness of the potential of nuclear technology and in part motivated development of the technology in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union would go on to test its first nuclear weapon in 1949.

 

The phrase gained popularity as a feeling of nuclear optimism emerged in the 1950s in which it was believed that all power generators in the future would be atomic in nature. The atomic bomb would render all conventional explosives obsolete and nuclear power plants would do the same for power sources such as coal and oil. There was a general feeling that everything would use a nuclear power source of some sort, in a positive and productive way, from irradiating food to preserve it, to the development of nuclear medicine. There would be an age of peace and plenty in which atomic energy would "provide the power needed to desalinate water for the thirsty, irrigate the deserts for the hungry, and fuel interstellar travel deep into outer space".This use would render the Atomic Age as significant a step in technological progress as the first smelting of Bronze, of Iron, or the commencement of the Industrial Revolution.

 

So at the time it was coined the term was utopian.

 

And while using the same term, we are apparently referencing a later perspective on the era, as one rife with fear, naivete and paranoia, hence it is pseudo-historical [if you see what I mean.].

 

I don't have a problem with this as such. [Who would care if I did?] But it does seem that when we try to pin down the beginning and end of an age, it has nothing to do with the age as experienced by those living through it, only our need to place things in boxes. We can then stick labels on boxes, and stick comics in them. We literally collect history, which obviously is an interpretation of the past, and not - just to hammer this point into the ground - not the past itself, and not the past as present to those who experienced it.

 

I do it too.

 

But Fukushima is the Three Mile Island of our time, and this just indicates to me that our greatest difficulty is in getting a handle on the present. It isn't history yet.

 

But somehow I think our categorizations will matter less to future generations than to us, living through it.

 

This is still the atomic age. It just isn't really what we are talking about.

 

Of course the term is both utopian and dystopian, but there's no paradox.

 

The bikini was invented and named after nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

 

Should that reference to fallout be considered utopian or dystopian?

 

 

I posted my "utopian and dystopian" phrase before I read your post. Great minds think alike

[fifties]

 

I don't have a problem with this as such. [Who would care if I did?] But it does seem that when we try to pin down the beginning and end of an age, it has nothing to do with the age as experienced by those living through it, only our need to place things in boxes.

Well, I would agree with your larger picture concept, but as one who did live through it, unknowingly of course, as a 10 year old, all of a sudden in early 1955 there were no more terrifying or violent comic book covers at the news stand, and in fact the overall number of titles seemed to have shrunk quite a bit. After the fact, of course, in categorizing, it was described as the end of the Golden (or Atomic) Age.

 

In late summer of '56, I bought a copy of Showcase #4, displaying a super hero on the cover. No big deal at the time, but again, after the fact, it's arrival was determined to be the beginning of the Silver Age (even though Atlas alone dropped somewhere around a dozen titles in 1957 because of declining sales).

 

So if we were to go by experience at the time, you have a gap between about December of '54 (with February '55 cover dates sans the CCA stamp) as the end of the one age, to late summer of '56, with Showcase #4, as the start of the next.

 

Not all clean and neat, but the reality.

 

[adamstrange]

(even though Atlas alone dropped somewhere around a dozen titles in 1957 because of declining sales).

This was due to a distribution problem. Martin Goodman shut down "Atlas" which was the distribution company he owned and replaced it with an arrangement with the largest distributor in the US. Shortly after, that company lost an anti-trust suit for being a monopoly and so Goodman scrambled to find a replacement. He landed with DC, which restricted the number of titles they would distribute for him and caused the cancellations and adjustments of the company's publishing schedule.

[PovertyRow]

Speaking of the end of the AA, I actually consider a real Atomic (Atom) Age running through 1961 with the Bay Of Pigs and culminating in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

Interestingly, smack between these two events Marvel introduced the Fantastic Four, starting what is, in my opinion, the Marvel Silver Age.

 

Looking at the post-code titles before FF #1, they branched away from vampires, werewolves, ghouls, decapitations, drugs etc. due to the code. But many went into sci-fi/fantasy, using plotlines involving radiation or a similar catalyst, alien invaders, giant monsters and even stories of those unnamed fictitious countries which obviously were the Cold War "enemy".

 

These books, with Atlas/Marvel now taking ECs place on the throne, in my opinion reflected the Atomic Age even more effectively than the ghoulish horror books.

 

Television and movies also reflected the same thing, with films featuring irradiated giant insects, irradiated giant humans, irradiated shrinking humans, alien invaders etc. And many of these were solidly in the post code 50s.

 

While pre-code definitely ends with the introduction of the CCA, I have no problem imagining the Atom(ic) Age extending well past CCA's inception.

[Flex Mentallo]

 

The bikini was invented and named after nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

 

Should that reference to fallout be considered utopian or dystopian?

 

Well, I think it's paradoxical.