Are you considering the "Atomic Age" as a thing? 7 7

[Coverdeath]

What a divergence between people on this era of comics history... Do you personally consider this age or is there gold, then silver and nothing else in between?

I just bought 8 new books to add to my collection this morning, all from this era and I'm really impatient to getting them!   these are my first books in this year range, I see them differently, it seems to be a different style, maybe more conventional and strict, less rude than GA and less crazy than SA, but I could be totally wrong, I don't know...

What do you think?

[Robot Man]

On 8/31/2024 at 6:10 AM, Coverdeath said:

What a divergence between people on this era of comics history... Do you personally consider this age or is there gold, then silver and nothing else in between?

I just bought 8 new books to add to my collection this morning, all from this era and I'm really impatient to getting them!   these are my first books in this year range, I see them differently, it seems to be a different style, maybe more conventional and strict, less rude than GA and less crazy than SA, but I could be totally wrong, I don't know...

What do you think?

I definitely consider it an era. Very different to what came before as well as what was to follow. A bit of a break for a while of superhero titles.The beauty of it are all the great genres that arose during this time. So many to find and enjoy. This is the bulk of my collection. From horror, crime, GGA to humor, romance and yes some superheroes. A lot to offer.

[jimbo_7071]

This has been discussed a time or two. I think of the Golden Age as books with cover dates of June 1938–December 1945.

The Atom Age would be January of 1946–September 1956 at the latest (i.e., just before the first appearance of the Silver-Age Flash in Showcase #4).

Some collectors see the Atom Age as ending with the last pre-code books, which had cover dates of roughly February of 1955.

Dell didn't participate in the code; D.C. did, but D.C. books were fairly sanitary to begin with, so I doubt the code made much of an impact on D.C. Archie Comics was a cheerleader for the CCA, but it doesn't seem like the code really affected the innuendo that pervades the Archie titles. Horror, romance, war, and crime were defanged by the code, and those were important Atom-Age genres, so it makes some sense to call the end of the pre-code era the end of the Atom Age, but it's hard to say that the Silver Age started with the code because the Silver Age was all about the next generation of superheroes. Some people have argued that the Silver Age is really the Marvel Age and should start with Fantastic Four #1, which has a cover date of November 1961.

[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.  In June 1941, there are 57 comics, 42 of which are arguably mostly super-hero based.  

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.  
  http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e167/adamxstrange/Action1_newstand.jpg
(The image was created by Theagenes.)

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.  Many of the themes, images, and dialog were of an adult nature, as there were no restrictions from the Comics Code.

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.  

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.

[Professor K]

I was going to chime in with an opinion but after adamstrange's post there is no need. 

[VintageComics]

On 8/31/2024 at 3:33 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Dell didn't participate in the code; D.C. did, but D.C. books were fairly sanitary to begin with, so I doubt the code made much of an impact on D.C. Archie Comics was a cheerleader for the CCA, but it doesn't seem like the code really affected the innuendo that pervades the Archie titles. Horror, romance, war, and crime were defanged by the code, and those were important Atom-Age genres, so it makes some sense to call the end of the pre-code era the end of the Atom Age, but it's hard to say that the Silver Age started with the code because the Silver Age was all about the next generation of superheroes. Some people have argued that the Silver Age is really the Marvel Age and should start with Fantastic Four #1, which has a cover date of November 1961.

I generally see transitions on a spectrum or, as a phase in-out period, so while the "Golden Age of superheroes" started with Action #1 (1938), and books like Detective #27, Whiz #1 and Marvel #1 cemented the era, any comics pre Action #1 are still considered "Golden Age" books. it took the GA about 4-5 years to 'find itself' or figure out it's identity. 

In much the same way, the Comics Code came in 1954, and Fantastic Four #1 (1961) cemented the SA trend, but am I missing something? Isn't Showcase #4 (1956) historically considered the beginning of the Silver Age, or the seismic shift? It again took a few years for comics to sort out what they were going to be moving forward. 

On 8/31/2024 at 3:48 PM, adamstrange said:

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.

The real significance is not how it looked to us historically, looking back but how it looked at the time, moving forward and the two are slightly different. Seeing things in hindsight doesn't look exactly the same way as they do when moving forward through it. 

We know what the transition looked like for Marvel SA. All the horror and fantasy titles became hero titles almost overnight, but before 1961, which titles changed significantly from the introduction of the code in 1954 to say when Showcase #4 came out in 1956?

What would that transition have looked like on the newsstand between those years?

Or between, say 1944 to about 1947?

The devil is in those details. 

Edited August 31 by VintageComics

[Dr. Love]

adamstrange, one of the preeminent board historians - encyclopedic knowledge    

adam, I seem to remember a great bar chart you had of the genre distribution during that period.  Do you still have that, and if so, could you post it?  

[jimbo_7071]

On 8/31/2024 at 4:29 PM, VintageComics said:

[A]m I missing something? Isn't Showcase #4 (1956) historically considered the beginning of the Silver Age, or the seismic shift?

 Showcase #4 was the first specific book that I mentioned with respect to the transition from the Atom Age to the Silver Age.

 

Some people question the importance of Showcase #4, however. D.C.'s "big 3"—Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman—carried on business as usual throughout the 50s.

To those people, the spin that Marvel put on superheroes in the early 60s (the cheeky humor, the teen angst of Peter Parker, etc.) was what moved the needle.

[VintageComics]

On 8/31/2024 at 4:56 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

On 8/31/2024 at 4:29 PM, VintageComics said:

[A]m I missing something? Isn't Showcase #4 (1956) historically considered the beginning of the Silver Age, or the seismic shift?

 Showcase #4 was the first specific book that I mentioned with respect to the transition from the Atom Age to the Silver Age.

Apologies. I misunderstood the gist of your post. 

On 8/31/2024 at 4:56 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Some people question the importance of Showcase #4, however. D.C.'s "big 3"—Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman—carried on business as usual throughout the 50s.

To those people, the spin that Marvel put on superheroes in the early 60s (the cheeky humor, the teen angst of Peter Parker, etc.) was what moved the needle.

Gotcha. 

Because I'm not as familiar with the Atom Age as many here may be, it would be great to see what comics were actually doing 1944-47 and 1954-56, which provides a great opportunity for people to post their Atom covers so that you can actually see and discuss them chronologically. 

As if everyone needed a real reason to post comic covers. 

 

[adamstrange]

On 8/31/2024 at 3:48 PM, adamstrange said:

This was what the comics newsstand looked like when Superman was published in 1938. 
(The image was created by Theagenes.)

On 8/31/2024 at 4:36 PM, Dr. Love said:

adam, I seem to remember a great bar chart you had of the genre distribution during that period.  Do you still have that, and if so, could you post it?  

From the Gerber Guide, an analysis based on title, which is not quite the same things as how many issues of each were published.  I still think it gives a good indication of trends.

Edited August 31 by adamstrange

[adamstrange]

On 8/31/2024 at 4:29 PM, VintageComics said:

Isn't Showcase #4 (1956) historically considered the beginning of the Silver Age, or the seismic shift? It again took a few years for comics to sort out what they were going to be moving forward. 

The conventional description of the Silver Age:

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).  The sci-fi aspects were critical to innovating a commercially successful approach within the restrictions imposed by Comics Code.

Marvel evolved the DC approach to heros by adding realistic incidents and problems to their stories.  For example, they show the difficulty Peter Parker has in trying to cash a check made out to "Spiderman."  With a greater emphasis on the personal life and by extending storylines across multiple issues, Marvels are a synthesis of superhoics and soap opera.

The Silver Age transition is very slow when we consider it through the lens of a superhero fan, as the growth of superhero titles was gradual, only coming to full bloom across all companies in 1964 or so.

This is one reason why I think that the dawn of the Comics Code is a clean break for the end of Atomic Age and start of Silver Age.  Virtually, overnight, horror, GGA, extreme violence vanished from the comic rack, as did many companies.  The struggle was to survive long enough to transition to an alternative creative vision that would be commercially successful.

[VintageComics]

On 8/31/2024 at 5:26 PM, adamstrange said:

This is one reason why I think that the dawn of the Comics Code is a clean break for the end of Atomic Age and start of Silver Age.  Virtually, overnight, horror, GGA, extreme violence vanished from the comic rack, as did many companies.  The struggle was to survive long enough to transition to an alternative creative vision that would be commercially successful.

That makes perfect sense.

So the evolution of the Golden Age percolated for a while, figuring itself out before starting with a bang with Action #1. Then, there was a distinct cultural shift from Golden Age to Atom Age around 1945, and then the Atom age ended abruptly with a seismic event, and the Silver Age took time to evolve out of those ashes. 

The most interesting thing to me is not what started each era, but rather the propellants at the start of each era that helped the big bang along as each ear got going. 

For example, you wouldn't have had a GA if you didn't have a Whiz #1, Tec #27 and Marvel #1 to challenge Superman and propel the story telling genre into a new arena. 

In much the same way, you wouldn't have a Marvel Silver Age in 1961 if DC didn't already start the shift in 1956-1960 because it's clear that Marvel was using DC's ideas (for example, the FF were a Kirby reimagining of the Challengers)

So what were the propellants in 1945?

It's those transitions that I'm most curious about. 

Edited August 31 by VintageComics

[adamstrange]

On 8/31/2024 at 4:56 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

 Showcase #4 was the first specific book that I mentioned with respect to the transition from the Atom Age to the Silver Age.

 

Some people question the importance of Showcase #4, however. D.C.'s "big 3"—Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman—carried on business as usual throughout the 50s.

An interesting question is "why did it take so long for superheros to catch on in the Silver Age".  Industry adoption of the latest trend had been much, much faster in the 40s and early 50s.

Some thoughts:

• DC's "Big 3" were continuously published throughout the 50s so the addition of a few more wasn't as obvious an indication of success.
• DC was so cautious that they waited for newsstand sales figures to arrive before putting out Flash "2" in Showcase 8 and waited again before Flash "3" in Showcase 13.
• Other companies had published post-Code supes that failed (e.g. Atlas, ME, Prize), so enough time had to pass for them to be confident to try again.

[Darwination]

Adamstrange's cutoffs are pretty on the money by me.  Like Bob, my main interests are in the atomic age. 

My fave genres all came into existence here.  Crime, romance, horror - the good stuff.  I think there's more sophistication in the art in this era, too, but no doubt opinions vary

For simplicity, I don't mind everything getting lumped together as "golden age."  I get enough dumb looks when I use that phrase in mixed company, I often just refer to "ten-centers."

[adamstrange]

On 8/31/2024 at 5:47 PM, Darwination said:

For simplicity, I don't mind everything getting lumped together as "golden age."  I get enough dumb looks when I use that phrase in mixed company, I often just refer to "ten-centers."

The purpose of defining "Ages" is to simplify communications between fellow hobbyists. 

When talking with someone outside the hobby, I'm probably not mentioning Atomic Age unless the conversation goes longer than 30 minutes.

[adamstrange]

On 8/31/2024 at 5:37 PM, VintageComics said:

So what were the propellants in 1945?

It's those transitions that I'm most curious about. 

During the war, two additional genres sprang up alongside the Supers:  funny animal and violent "true" crime.  The funny animal phenomenon resulted in a significant quantity of titles proving that non-super hero titles were viable.  True crime, on the other hand, set a precedent for expanding the kind of topics and depictions that could appear in comics.  If someone were to say that these were "proto-Atomic Age", I don't think they are far from the truth.

The post-WWII collapse of war-happy superhero title sales freed up printing and artistic capacity which needed a new creative impulse to ensure commercial success.  The Atomic Age was basically the introduction to comics of additional genres (e.g. romance, horror, teen, etc.) that were already prevalent in other media, combined with a substantially increased freedom of expression, especially with respect to gruesome and s*xy imagery.

Note:  All of my comments ignore newspaper strip reprint comic books as there was nothing particularly original or creative about reprinting them in comics.

 

[adamstrange]

The ages of the modern American newsstand comic:

• Reprint Age of Syndicated Strips
• Golden Age of Superheroes
• Atomic Age of Awesome Everything for Everyone
• Silver Age of Superheroes

[vheflin]

If this is so, then the Silver Age should be renamed Space Age and the current age should be renamed the Information/Digital Age.

You don't name a comic book age after the broader world age.

Furthermore, the Atomic Age started in 1942 when Fermi almost nuked Chicago.

[buttock]

2nd or 3rd time I've requoted this:

1.  Ages don't necessarily start and stop consecutively.  i.e. it's not the case that the GA stops on 12/31 and SA starts on 1/1.  I think there are a few cases where the start is obvious (Action 1, Showcase 4), but more where an age evolved slowly, both beginning and end.  So to try to define them with an absolute date or issue is impossible.  

2.  Ages don't apply across the board for publishers, titles, or characters.  Showcase 4 in 1956 is obviously silver age, but Batman from the same month still feels like the doofy 50s Batman rather than the one that changed in 1964.  You can say that the GA ended with WW2, but I think the later All Stars, Flash, Superman, Batman, etc., still feel very GA.  Timely and Nedor, on the other hand had clear changes as the war ended since their covers were almost exclusively war-related.  So a 1947 DC might seem very GA, but a 1947 Timely doesn't.  Similarly the SA is very different for DC vs. Marvel.  The Silver Age begins with Showcase 4 in 1956, but for Marvel it doesn't really start until FF 1 in 1961.  Therefore a 1957 Marvel (which would be Atlas at the time) isn't viewed as SA, while a 1957 DC might be SA.  Further, Showcase 4, while being clearly the start of the SA, doesn't mean that all DCs after Showcase 4 are SA.  Is All Star Western 89 not SA, while 91 is SA?  No, it took some time for the whole comic book field to evolve into the SA.    

3. The definitions of an 'age' aren't consistent.  GA and SA conventionally refer to superhero comics.  The Golden Age started with Action 1 and the Silver Age started with Showcase 4.  Those terms are used broadly in society, but there aren't societal equivalents for Bronze, Copper, etc.  Those terms then followed to refer more to eras than actual events, which is why there is so much debate over when the BA started.  There isn't a singular book like Action 1 or Showcase 4 that defined the change, nor was there a tapering out of the preceding era to make such a singular book stand out.  In this case it's more that things shifted over time with things like GL 76, the Spidey drug books, etc., that were reflective of a societal shift rather than an event in the history of comic publishing.  So GA and SA refer to one type of change, while BA refers to another and CA yet another.  Then throw in things like "atomic era", "pre-code", "pre-hero Marvel", etc., and things get really confusing because you're referring to different framing points in different genres, publishers, titles, and characters (e.g. nobody talks about pre-code Disney).  

[Dr. Love]

1949 - 23%

1950 - 27%