What genre represents the Golden Age the best in your opinion? 0

[Cat-Man_America]

Superheroes dominated the Golden Era (this is just my designation for the years 1938 through '49) as part of the longer Golden Age that ended with the CCA.  I’ve subdivided these two eras to includes the early Atomic age that followed the end of WWII.  The war actually hastened the end of the Superhero age of the Golden Era because once you've pitted your physically enhanced heroes against legions of enemy troops and the henchmen of malevolent dictators there's very little room to ratchet up excitement.  

Alas, few of the superhero publishers focused on introducing a series of super villains to match wits with their heroes.  There were some, but not enough.  Most of the superheroes went back to slugging it out with bank robbers, small gangs of ruthless felons or killers which much have seemed rather anti-climactic to the war weary public.  

Also, several new markets were developed that appealed to the prurient interests of more adult readers, the crime and horror genres which frequently exploited sexually provocative themes, as well as westerns and science fiction.  And romance themed comics arose in the late 40’s that appealed to the untapped market of young women who enjoyed reading comics which indulged their fantasies.  My 2 cents.  

Edited January 26, 2020 by Cat-Man_America
Wordsmithery. :0)

[catman76]

The ones that sold the most. Superheros only were very popular for a few years during the war, after that they died pretty much. I will never understand why superheros are what people think of when they think of comic books. They never were the most popular or best selling comics, ever. Even today there are far more non superhero comics published then superhero ones. Walt Disney's Comics and Stories alone was selling 2 or 3 million copies a month for a couple decades. If anything it's Disney/funny animal/cartoon comic books that best represent the "golden age". But most people ignore those facts and act like only superhero comics every existed pretty much.

[thunsicker]

3 hours ago, catman76 said:

The ones that sold the most. Superheros only were very popular for a few years during the war, after that they died pretty much. I will never understand why superheros are what people think of when they think of comic books. They never were the most popular or best selling comics, ever. Even today there are far more non superhero comics published then superhero ones. Walt Disney's Comics and Stories alone was selling 2 or 3 million copies a month for a couple decades. If anything it's Disney/funny animal/cartoon comic books that best represent the "golden age". But most people ignore those facts and act like only superhero comics every existed pretty much.

I imagine the reason people think of superheroes when they think of comics has less to do that comic books are only about superheroes and more that modern superheroes, as we think of them today, started in the comics.  There were Jungle/Horror/Sci Fi/Crime pulps, but other than a few heroes in the pulps (John Carter/Tarzan/Doc Savage/The Shadow) there weren’t really super-heroes.

[sfcityduck]

6 hours ago, Cat-Man_America said:

Superheroes dominated the Golden Era (this is just my designation for the years 1938 through '49) as part of the longer Golden Age that ended with the CCA.  I’ve subdivided these two eras to includes the early Atomic age that followed the end of WWII.  The war actually hastened the end of the Superhero age of the Golden Era because once you've pitted your physically enhanced heroes against legions of enemy troops and the henchmen of malevolent dictators there's very little room to ratchet up excitement.  

Alas, few of the superhero publishers focused on introducing a series of super villains to match wits with their heroes.  There were some, but not enough.  Most of the superheroes went back to slugging it out with bank robbers, small gangs of ruthless felons or killers which much have seemed rather anti-climactic to the war weary public.  

Also, several new markets were developed that appealed to the prurient interests of more adult readers, the crime and horror genres which frequently exploited sexually provocative themes, as well as westerns and science fiction.  And romance themed comics arose in the late 40’s that appealed to the untapped market of young women who enjoyed reading comics which indulged their fantasies.  My 2 cents.  

I tend to agree with you Cat, and I agree with all in this post BUT not the above bolded statement.  Horror, SF, and Western pulps pre-dated their comic counterparts.  And romance books were around forever.  Where comics made their pop culture mark was superheroes.  So I think the founding fathers of fandom got it right by originally calling it the Golden Age of Superhero Comics.  

(Which is not so say there are super-cool comics of other genres, just that they aren't the epitome of the GA.  Heck, the GA of horror and SF is the 1950s!)

[sfcityduck]

6 hours ago, catman76 said:

The ones that sold the most. Superheros only were very popular for a few years during the war, after that they died pretty much. I will never understand why superheros are what people think of when they think of comic books. They never were the most popular or best selling comics, ever. Even today there are far more non superhero comics published then superhero ones. Walt Disney's Comics and Stories alone was selling 2 or 3 million copies a month for a couple decades. If anything it's Disney/funny animal/cartoon comic books that best represent the "golden age". But most people ignore those facts and act like only superhero comics every existed pretty much.

The success of WDC&S was matched or exceeded by DC and Capt. Marvel.  But, the best of Disney was really not until the late 40s to 50s.  We all love Barks, and he's one of the pillars of the GA, but I don't think he's the epitome.

[Electricmastro]

Not going with favorites, but considering the start of comic books, the best answer would probably be the humor genre. In particular, the humor comic that was the most prominent at the time was perhaps Mutt & Jeff, which was there not only for Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies, but also for DC, who also published them quite frequently.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Electricmastro

[Cat-Man_America]

3 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

I tend to agree with you Cat, and I agree with all in this post BUT not the above bolded statement.  Horror, SF, and Western pulps pre-dated their comic counterparts.  And romance books were around forever.  Where comics made their pop culture mark was superheroes.  So I think the founding fathers of fandom got it right by originally calling it the Golden Age of Superhero Comics.  

(Which is not so say there are super-cool comics of other genres, just that they aren't the epitome of the GA.  Heck, the GA of horror and SF is the 1950s!)

We seem to agree pretty much across the board as I was just considering comic books in the earlier post.  You're absolutely right that pulps were first in respect to crime, horror and western themes, and in regards to romance I was just looking at teen romance.  BTW, many genres were described as romance of one sort or another prior to 1930.  Still, I overlooked jungle, funny animal and air combat themes in comics.  Also, air combat themes definitely appeared in stand alone pulp series before comics.  

Science fiction as a sub-genre in comics was being developed in Planet Comics in 1940.  That said, there were few other primarily science fiction themed comics until the 1950's around the time the UFO craze inspired films and television series.  Pulps have their own Golden Age.  We can probably quibble about dates, but it overlaps the comics industry's growth.  Without getting into specifics, I'd say pulps GA really took off in the Depression around 1930 and lasted 'till the end of WWII.

I'm not trying to manufacture any new terminology here by using the term "golden era" for '38-'45, ... just trying to analyze how those years fit into the bigger picture.   Technically, one could probably argue that the real golden age of superhero comics didn't start until the boom took off at the end of 1939, ending with V-E & V-J in WWII.  With the end of the war sales of superhero comics took a beating and publishers started looking to other genres.  

Note: I'll have to leave it to someone else to impeach the founding fathers, I lack the constitution for it! 

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Cat-Man_America

[Marty Mann]

Truly a great topic for thought and almost impossible for me to decide.  For me anything on the newsstand was my favorite with the only

thing limiting me was the money to buy them.  From 1942 until early 1954 the quest for new titles was my main objective and in looking

over my collection it does appear I was slightly successful.  From BATMAN to LOONEY  TUNES / MERRIE MELODIES they were ALL the

ones to own...but I guess SUPERHEROES were KING and QUEEN.

Marty

Edited January 27, 2020 by Marty Mann

[Electricmastro]

21 hours ago, catman76 said:

The ones that sold the most. Superheros only were very popular for a few years during the war, after that they died pretty much. I will never understand why superheros are what people think of when they think of comic books. They never were the most popular or best selling comics, ever. Even today there are far more non superhero comics published then superhero ones. Walt Disney's Comics and Stories alone was selling 2 or 3 million copies a month for a couple decades. If anything it's Disney/funny animal/cartoon comic books that best represent the "golden age". But most people ignore those facts and act like only superhero comics every existed pretty much.

Worth noting is that Charlton’s most successful superhero would debut not in the 1940s, but in the 1950s in the form of Atomic Mouse, whose 52 issue series lasted from 1953-1963.

[Electricmastro]

Might as well list what I think was the most successful superhero for each Golden Age publisher:

DC - Superman

Marvel - Captain America

Fawcett - Captain Marvel

Archie - The Shield

Quality - Plastic Man

Nedor - The Black Terror

Charlton - Atomic Mouse

Harvey - Black Cat

Fox - Blue Beetle

St. John - Mighty Mouse

Lev Gleason - Daredevil

Centaur - Amazing-Man

Ace - Magno

David McKay - Mandrake the Magician

Street and Smith - The Shadow

Tem - Cat-Man

Columbia - Skyman

Novelty - The Target

Eastern Color - Hydroman

United Feature - Spark Man

Prize - Fighting American

Dynamic - Dynamic Man

EC - Moon Girl

Magazine Enterprises - Funnyman

Edited January 29, 2020 by Electricmastro

[William-James88]

I feel confident in saying that Super Heroes truly capture the essence of the Golden Age. Unlike the other genres, this one was born of Golden Age comics and thus I feel represents it best.

Edited January 28, 2020 by William-James88

[adamstrange]

1 hour ago, William-James88 said:

That's nothing compared to the peak of Captain Marvel Adventures which was 14 million.

I have not heard a number that high for CMA.  Do you have a source for that?

[William-James88]

11 minutes ago, adamstrange said:

I have not heard a number that high for CMA.  Do you have a source for that?

Here is the source the figure comes from

https://web.archive.org/web/20051002164350/http://www.ugr.es/~alozano/Translations/ComicBooksinLibraries.pdf

 

EDIT: My bad, is says for the year. The article I initially read which quoted that article did not disclose that part. So it's just over 1 million copies per issue then.

Edited January 28, 2020 by William-James88

[adamstrange]

Thanks for double-checking and the link

[MrBedrock]

22 hours ago, Electricmastro said:

Might as well list what I think was the most successful superhero for each Golden Age publisher:

 

Dell - Mighty Mouse

?????

Mighty Mouse's longest tenure was with St. John. Very few appearances published by Dell.

[Marty Mann]

35 minutes ago, MrBedrock said:

?????

Mighty Mouse's longest tenure was with St. John. Very few appearances published by Dell.

 

[MrBedrock]

38 minutes ago, Marty Mann said:

 

Love that book!

 

[MrBedrock]

Mighty Mouse appeared in Terry-Toons 38 - 59 for Timely - 22 issues

He appeared in issues 60 - 86 for St.John's as well as Paul Terry's Comics 85 - 125? for a total of at least 66 issues. St John's also published all but four issues of Mighty Mouse and the entire run of Mighty Mouse Adventures. I think he appeared in more St John's books than any other character, more even than hot Baker girls.

Edited January 28, 2020 by MrBedrock

[MrBedrock]

[Electricmastro]

1 hour ago, MrBedrock said:

?????

Mighty Mouse's longest tenure was with St. John. Very few appearances published by Dell.

Ah right, must have mixed it up with his 60s appearances. Thanks.