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Renaming of the Modern Comics Age
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55 posts in this topic

So I know we can't always refer to the 90s and beyond as the Modern Age...

I read comics from the 90s and they feel dated, so when are we going to change the name to something more current? I believe the concept of a Modern Age best reflects the present time, but then what about the past?

We all have the existing ages that were clearly named after their inception... some terms I was not so familiar with, but I degree it high time for a reestablished timeline!

So please, chime in and give your ideas so we can put these titles in stone! Oh, and correct me too if I get these dates wrong.

 

Platinum Age (pre 1938)

Golden Age (1938 to 1956)

Silver Age (1956 to 1970)

Bronze Age (1970 to 1984)

Copper Age aka: The Dark Age (1984 to 1992)

this is where things go amuck... I suggest (not my suggestion mind you, I think someone else came up with this):

Image Age (1992 to 2004) due to Image comics creation and a complete change in the comics industry, then...

The Civil War Age (2004 to 2013) Avengers Disassembled, House of M, Civil War, World War Hulk, Avengers vs X-Men

And now to our current Modern Age (2013 to current)

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

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I think of the 90’s as more of a “dark age “ than the copper 80’s. It could be the foil age. 

I don’t feel like the comics in the 2000’s feel like any kind of age. Just variants variants everywhere. Honestly I feel like we’re in a dark age now. Despite all the movies it doesn’t feel like many average people read comics anymore 

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16 minutes ago, BrooksR said:

I think of the 90’s as more of a “dark age “ than the copper 80’s. It could be the foil age. 

I don’t feel like the comics in the 2000’s feel like any kind of age. Just variants variants everywhere. Honestly I feel like we’re in a dark age now. Despite all the movies it doesn’t feel like many average people read comics anymore 

Maybe this is the Silent Age?

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My $0.02, my mind can be changed as I am only in it for $0.02.  There is wisdom in just using decades from here on out (if for no other reason than to not fall into this mess again...).  I'm a DC guy, and therefore have little idea what goes on in the MCU.  I know there are plenty from the flip side of the coin.

1992-2000 'Chromium Age' (not my idea, it is catchy though)

2000-2010 'Paper Age', back to basics focus on stories, fewer gimmicks, ie what goes on the paper

2010-2020 'Mylar Age', focus changes to what goes on the cover (and multiples there-of), which supposedly looks good slabbed in Mylar

2020-2030, unwritten, but I suspect 'Digital Age 1.0' for reasons I shouldn't need to explain

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8 minutes ago, jdandns said:

I think Diamond is good, but for different reasons than given above.

When did Geppi and Diamond get their distribution monopoly?

Wasn't that around 1993?

Maybe call 1993 through 2020 (when they lost DC, effectively ending it) the Diamond Age.

 

I definitely thought about the Geppi/Diamond aspect. I was hoping someone would catch it to further prove my point. (thumbsu

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Just a thought, but does every year of comics publication need to fall within an age? If there are large periods of time in which nothing of positive significance occurred (this is different from finding several titles one enjoys reading from a particular span of time), do those years need to be included in an “age?”

I know they make a handy reference — I’ll sloppily refer, for example, to anything pre-Showcase #4 as Golden Age for general purposes, such as describing what I might put in a sales thread. But in my heart the Golden Age is Action 1 through WWII.

I’ll just as often say “I bought some 80’s books” as “I bought some copper books.” (I grew up reading new books in the Bronze Age as a child; as I became a back-issue collector in middle school, I didn’t think of the term Bronze Age as necessary. In retrospect, I can see there was a lot of creative significance in that timeframe.)

Those who first read in the 80’s can make that argument with the flowering of independents but I can’t see the same argument for the positive significance for the 90’s or more recent. And I could go either way on whether the 80’s really rises to an Age; I’m half-hearted on both arguments for that time period.

On the other hand, there’s a famous Roy Thomas quote, said to come from a discussion among he and other collectors about the years encompassing the Golden Age: “The Golden Age of comic books is seven.” — meaning, of course, that everyone has their own personal Golden age in whatever years they first discovered the magic of comics. So maybe everyone deserves an age? But I think that if one looks at ages as historical epochs of positive significance in the hobby, not every year needs or deserves to fall within one. Just my two cents; I use the nomenclature because it gives us common reference language, but I’m not strongly wedded to it as an essential tool for categorizing every year of comics publication.

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11 hours ago, Readcomix said:

I’ll just as often say “I bought some 80’s books” as “I bought some copper books.”

^^

Golden Age

Silver Age

Bronze Age

1980s Comics

1990s Comics

2000s Comics

2010s Comics

... anything beyond these labels just causes people to ask "What does that mean?" and then you explain by stating a decade or two.  Skip the middle step.

Edited by valiantman
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Platinum Age (pre 1938)

Golden Age (1938 to 1956)

Silver Age (1956 to 1970)

Bronze Age (1970 to 1984)

Copper Age (1984 to 1992)

Chromium Age (1992 - 2004) - Accepted by most collectors as the best name to represent the age due to the chromium, foil, holofoil and gimmick covers.

Digital Age (2004-2012 or 2013) - Comic books entering the mainstream media (TV, Internet, Movies, Digital Comics, Video Games)

Modern Age (2013 or 2014 to Current) - The introduction of diversity (sexual orientation, race, gender, religion, etc....) into comics. It is becoming clear that Marvel Now is the beginning of a new age.

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1 hour ago, Juggernaut said:

Platinum Age (pre 1938)

Golden Age (1938 to 1956)

Silver Age (1956 to 1970)

Bronze Age (1970 to 1984)

Copper Age (1984 to 1992)

Chromium Age (1992 - 2004) - Accepted by most collectors as the best name to represent the age due to the chromium, foil, holofoil and gimmick covers.

Digital Age (2004-2012 or 2013) - Comic books entering the mainstream media (TV, Internet, Movies, Digital Comics, Video Games)

Modern Age (2013 or 2014 to Current) - The introduction of diversity (sexual orientation, race, gender, religion, etc....) into comics. It is becoming clear that Marvel Now is the beginning of a new age.

love this

(worship)

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4 hours ago, Juggernaut said:

Platinum Age (pre 1938)

Golden Age (1938 to 1956)

Silver Age (1956 to 1970)

Bronze Age (1970 to 1984)

Copper Age (1984 to 1992)

Chromium Age (1992 - 2004) - Accepted by most collectors as the best name to represent the age due to the chromium, foil, holofoil and gimmick covers.

Digital Age (2004-2012 or 2013) - Comic books entering the mainstream media (TV, Internet, Movies, Digital Comics, Video Games)

Modern Age (2013 or 2014 to Current) - The introduction of diversity (sexual orientation, race, gender, religion, etc....) into comics. It is becoming clear that Marvel Now is the beginning of a new age.

o.O

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2012 for me was the start of the Great Film and TV Speculation Age, and we're still in it, transitioning through to a year, in the near future, when physical comics stop being published.  That will be the true start of the Digital Age.

Edited by Ken Aldred
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9 hours ago, Juggernaut said:

Platinum Age (pre 1938)

Golden Age (1938 to 1956)

Silver Age (1956 to 1970)

Bronze Age (1970 to 1984)

Copper Age (1984 to 1992)

Chromium Age (1992 - 2004) - Accepted by most collectors as the best name to represent the age due to the chromium, foil, holofoil and gimmick covers.

Digital Age (2004-2012 or 2013) - Comic books entering the mainstream media (TV, Internet, Movies, Digital Comics, Video Games)

Modern Age (2013 or 2014 to Current) - The introduction of diversity (sexual orientation, race, gender, religion, etc....) into comics. It is becoming clear that Marvel Now is the beginning of a new age.

I love it, but I'd call the Chromium Age (1992 - 2004) the Wizard Age instead, since that catches all of the enhancements you named plus the proliferation of the designed variant cover(s) intended to juice the sales of a single book. Wizard Magazine is the bible of that age. It was a cataloguing of the companies, titles, and their most popular creators and via their, ahem, optimistic monthly Wizard price guide, an all-important value-pumper in the age before CGC (and even the internet during the early part of the era) really caught on.

Finally, the magazine itself displayed many of the very gimmicks used on the actual comics including die-cut covers, illustrated and photo variant covers, #1/2 issues, ashcans, and plenty of chromium...

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