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

[VintageComics]

On 8/31/2024 at 8:05 PM, buttock said:

(e.g. nobody talks about pre-code Disney)

Now you've done it. 

[Coverdeath]

On 9/1/2024 at 3:16 AM, VintageComics said:

Now you've done it. 

I want to know about it! 

[Robot Man]

On 8/31/2024 at 2:07 PM, adamstrange said:

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.

That newstand says it all. The most different book on the rack is the Action. Other titles had “heroes” but nothing like that. DC seemed to be the most “progressive” publisher of that period. 

[Jayman]

On 8/31/2024 at 8:05 PM, buttock said:

nobody talks about pre-code Disney

[VintageComics]

On 8/31/2024 at 5:07 PM, adamstrange said:

Those racks are not age appropriate. 

[VintageComics]

On 8/31/2024 at 8:05 PM, buttock said:

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.   

I really like this explanation. 1st time for everything. 

On 8/31/2024 at 8:05 PM, buttock said:

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. 

I was thinking along the same lines about how the different and gradual the reasons for the Bronze age shift were and that there wasn't a singular event that caused the shift as there was in the 1938, 1945 or 1954. Great observation. 

On 8/31/2024 at 7:25 PM, vheflin said:

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

The reasons for the names vary, or are not consistent. 

If the Gold and Silver ages represent the surge in Superhero interest, the Bronze age doesn't. 

But we have had the discussion on renaming current ages and even splitting or renaming the modern age, especially in Comics General.

On 8/31/2024 at 7:25 PM, vheflin said:

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

Why not? In some ways that's exactly what the Modern Age was...but it's been modern for decades so maybe it's not so modern anymore. 

On 8/31/2024 at 7:25 PM, vheflin said:

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

The atomic age of comics or the atomic age in general? 

[kent allard]

On 8/31/2024 at 5:05 PM, buttock said:

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).  

Brilliant! 

Of course, it makes life more difficult if one must evaluate and keep track of these different subtle factors.  In the trade-off between precision and convenience, it is often convenience that carries the day.

You say 'requoted' - from where?  Are you quoting yourself, or someone else?

[kent allard]

On 9/1/2024 at 8:07 AM, Jayman said:

I want first dibs on your under-copy! 

[adamstrange]

On 9/1/2024 at 11:07 AM, Jayman said:

Don Rosa drew a handful of Barksified EC covers for charity. 

They were awesome but I don't have any pictures handy.

[VintageComics]

On 9/1/2024 at 2:52 PM, kent allard said:

Brilliant! 

Of course, it makes life more difficult if one must evaluate and keep track of these different subtle factors.  In the trade-off between precision and convenience, it is often convenience that carries the day.

You say 'requoted' - from where?  Are you quoting yourself, or someone else?

It's all common sense, but it all depends on how much depth you want to delve into. 

I like the way @adamstrange put it. 

On 8/31/2024 at 6:42 PM, adamstrange said:

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.

As far as the coinees are concerned, it's all just GA/SA or BA/MA.

[VintageComics]

If anyone has any pics, I think it would be really neat to see successive covers of books in a series, as they transitioned from the GA to the Atom Age.

A pictorial guide to help visualize the changes, so to speak. 

So maybe choose a title and start showing images as the covers changed themes....

It would even be cool to have a thread for each transition, so one for GA to AA, and one for AA to SA...to help identify the AA visually. 

Or should we just do them all in this thread?

Thoughts?

 

[1950's war comics]

i hope nobody is looking for atomic age comic books on eBay

i typed in "Atomic age comic books" on eBay and not a single so called atomic age book showed up

[adamstrange]

On 9/1/2024 at 3:58 PM, VintageComics said:

If anyone has any pics, I think it would be really neat to see successive covers of books in a series, as they transitioned from the GA to the Atom Age.

A pictorial guide to help visualize the changes, so to speak. 

I have thoughts about how to do this, but would want an image area the size of a wall.  It would make for a good display for a Con.

All I need is the donation of a few books like Action 1, Tec 27, Marvel 1, All Star 3, Phantom Lady 17 and I'm good to go.

[grendel013]

I see a distinct cut off with Batman 163 and 164. The addition of the yellow oval around the bat. Same cover artist but looks like a very different Batman. May to June 1964.

[Coverdeath]

On 9/2/2024 at 12:29 AM, grendel013 said:

I see a distinct cut off with Batman 163 and 164. The addition of the yellow oval around the bat. Same cover artist but looks like a very different Batman. May to June 1964.

Maybe this article could interest you, if you didn't know about the Batman transition 

https://galacticjourney.org/october-22-1964-introducing-a-new-look-batman/

[VintageComics]

On 9/2/2024 at 12:22 AM, Coverdeath said:

On 9/1/2024 at 6:29 PM, grendel013 said:

I see a distinct cut off with Batman 163 and 164. The addition of the yellow oval around the bat. Same cover artist but looks like a very different Batman. May to June 1964.

 

Expand  

Maybe this article could interest you, if you didn't know about the Batman transition 

https://galacticjourney.org/october-22-1964-introducing-a-new-look-batman/

Just as Adamstrange and Buttock had noted that transitions between ages happened differently across publishers and titles, this seems to be a late transition into the Silver Age for this particular character for DC.

Consider that by 1964, Marvel had already been putting out SA superhero titles with a more serious tone for 3 years, and DC may have finally decided it was time for a change to stay competitive, rather than sticking to their old, schlocky guns for this title.

Not only did Batman get a costume change, but they killed off Alfred, created a charity for boys, installed a "hotline" and made Batman more of a detective and less of a superhero. 

So in the broad scope of this discussion, this is a very interesting example of one title changing it's tone and adapting to the expanding Silver Age.

Edited September 2 by VintageComics

[kent allard]

On 9/1/2024 at 3:29 PM, grendel013 said:

I see a distinct cut off with Batman 163 and 164. The addition of the yellow oval around the bat. Same cover artist but looks like a very different Batman. May to June 1964.

spot on for Batman!

Who can provide similar transition covers for others?

Edited September 2 by kent allard

[bronze johnny]

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

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.

Excellent.

There are further progressions as the age gains greater definition that is evident by a publisher adding titles to correspond with the new genre and other publishers following suit.  Interestingly, this is evident with the catalyst of the Golden Age of the Superhero genre, which is Action Comics 1. It’s a distinct point of reference for the beginning of the Golden Age. We see what happens afterwards as DC expands its superhero line of titles and other publishers follow.

The Second World War is the most significant and revolutionary period of 20th Century History (in fact it can be argued in all of world history) and the primary focus for America and its allies at the time was wartime mobilization with a shift in economies to ensure victory. The arts assisted in further ensuring a message that would raise the national morale and spirit of the citizenry to contribute as much as possible to the war effort (see Capra films for the military in addition to Hollywood films like Casablanca), and the American Comic Book was no exception. It’s only fitting that the greatest era of the American Comic Book would coincide with the most significant period of 20th Century History. The superhero joined the war effort to help America fight the Axis powers. They would continue this fight up until the war ended with the defeat of the enemy dictators and in the case of the War in the Pacific, the dropping of the atomic bombs in August of 1945. Fascism and Nazism were no longer the forces to fear. The postwar Cold War era gave rise to new found fears that were initially not as distinct as those fought by the superheroes during the war. The anxieties and fears coinciding with the bomb, unclear future, rise of communism, and shift back to a peacetime economy that included the challenges presented for soldiers adjusting to a post combat life couldn’t easily be resolved by the superhero. The Atomic Age had begun.

Interestingly, Crime Does Not Pay #22 was published during the war and led the crime genre to becoming the dominant genre of the early postwar era (1946 - 1949). The crime genre was so popular that superheroes went back to fighting crime but it was not enough for those outside of DC’s mainstay superheroes Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman (special mention to Aquaman who hangs around throughout this period) to maintain their wartime popularity. 

The crime genre gives rise to the romance and horror genres with the publication of the two most significant comic books during the early postwar years: Young Romance 1 and Adventures into the Unknown 1. These catalyst books soon influence rival publishers to follow suit in publishing their own romance and horror titles. EC Comics would take the horror genre to its greatest height during the latter part of the Atomic Age.

The Golden Age published Archie comic book does the same for teen humor titles. 

The later part of the postwar era (1950 - 1956)  saw the Korean War and rise of McCarthyism. The communist threat and fears of an escalated war with “Red China” resulting in McArthur advocating the use of atomic weapons contributed further to the fears of Americans. Comic books continued to remain popular while television begins to move in a direction that would make it the most popular medium before the end of the 1950s. 

The Atomic Age would then give rise to one of the most significant changes to the comic book medium, which is the industry self censoring its publications to avoid government involvement in regulating content following the reactions to Wertham’s book, and Gaines’ testimony before Kefauver’s Senate Committee investigating the impact comic books had on young Americans. 

The Code and the subsequent successful addition of superheroes to DC’s already existing superhero universe along with the advent of the Big “5 War” comics, and the introduction to most significant sci fi character creation of that era in Adam Strange, and Kirby’s original concept team creation that laid the groundwork for an even greater achievement, began the DC Silver Age of Comic Books. We know that what followed in 1961 would rise to one of the greatest creative eras in the history of the medium when Marvel Comics would follow DC’s lead and take comic books to the next level of greatness. 

Perhaps the time has come for CGC to have a seperate forum for a well deserved and fascinating Atomic Age of Comics so any confusion about the existence of this incredible era in the history of the medium is clarified once and for all. @CGC Mike 

The Atomic Age deserves its own forum.

John

Edited September 5 by bronze johnny

[grendel013]

With Action Comics, there seems to be a little back and forth. Issue 332 is the last issue without the checkered racing banner. Jan 1966.

Issue 333 is the first with the checkered banner but still feels GA.

The next few still feel GA but then there is issue 340. First appearance of Parasite. Definitely SA now. But not until Aug 1966.

[jimbo_7071]

On 9/1/2024 at 11:36 AM, VintageComics said:

But we have had the discussion on renaming current ages and even splitting or renaming the modern age . . ..

Even though @adamstrange's comments about gradual transitions are all valid, collectors want to be able to fit every comic book neatly into a box (no pun intended). That's just the way humans' brains seem to work. Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that when wrote about how people have a need to latch onto Great Men; he could have been writing about comic book collectors needing to latch on to Great Comic Books.

I don't really collect Modern Age comics (although I might pick one up here or there), but we could identify some watershed moments for those collectors who want clear delineations.

The Neal Addams Tecs and Batmans could mark the beginning of the Bronze Age. The hokey 60s were over. NA did for comics what All in the Family did for sitcoms. Trends in comic books and society were doubtless heading in that direction, so if it hadn't been NA it would have been somebody else, but NA is the Emersonian "Great Man" that we can latch onto. Batman's dark turn rippled throughout the industry and led to Marvel's introduction of the Punisher in ASM #129 and Wolverine in Hulk #180  a few years later.

The Zany Age started when Marvel gave Howard the Duck his own comic book. Creators and readers realized that there were no boundaries for what heroes could be. Cerebus, Flaming Carrot, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles all owe a debt of gratitude to Howard.

Things get a bit murky because there are connections between dark anti-heroes like Punisher and Zany anti-heroes like Howard. They probably both reflect the loss of faith in institutions that defined the 70s.

Since collectors do want those clear lines, maybe you could say that Frank Miller's '82—'83 run in Daredevil kicked off the Psychopath Age; comic books had permission to become much darker. I would have to read more comics from that era to see whether the hype around those comics is justified—whether that run made a lasting impact. (I think that Frank Miller may actually be a psychopath, but that's a discussion for another day.)

Spawn 1 could be seen as spawning the Manufactued Collectibles Age where the scales tipped and sales of comic books for hoarding exceeded sales of comic books for reading.

Edited September 2 by jimbo_7071