A Brief History of Comics

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There are a LOT of books on the history of comics.  Above are covers of some of the books that I've read and think are quite good.  If you want a quick summary with some samples of comics across the history of the art form and don't want to read an entire book about it, you can get a quick summary here.

If you have the time, do a search on Amazon (or the internet in general) on "History of Comics".  You can dig into lots of information and lots of different viewpoints about this history of this fascinating topic.

 The Platinum Age applies to all comics that came out before the 1st appearance of Superman in 1938 and is a very specialized area of comics collecting.  The number of people collecting these comics is very small and less is known about them than comics from the Golden Age forward, but they undeniably laid the foundation that modern comics were built upon.  Popular character from the pre-super-hero days include R.F. Outcault's The Yellow Kid, George McManus' Bringing Up Father (with Jiggs & Maggie), and Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse. 

The Golden Age of comics is considered by most fans and comics scholars to have started with the first appearance of Superman in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) and ran through 1956.  Action Comics #1 changed the landscape of comic book from that point all they way to today.  Batman soon followed, debuting in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939) and then a host of other super-heroes who would ultimately form a team, The Justice Society of America, in All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940).   Super-Heroes became very popular and soon dominated the majority of the titles that were being produced.   DC Comics (known as National in the Golden Age) is often thought of first when people think of the Golden Age because of iconic characters like Batman and Superman. 

 The third major contender in the Golden Age super-hero market was Fawcett Comics.  Their most iconic super-hero was Captain Marvel, debuting in WHIZ Comics #2 (Feb 1940).  Fawcett created a number of other heroes over the years, but none had the endurance of Captain Marvel and the "Marvel Family".  Their adventures dominated the comics at Fawcett, they would guest star in a number of other comics and even introduce new characters to the Fawcett fans.  There were certainly other publishers during the Golden Age, dozens, but the 3 spotlighted here created the most enduring super-hero characters.

By the early 1950s, with the exception of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, the Golden Age of Super-Heroes was over.  DC's "Big 3" would keep the lights on until the super-hero resurgence that became known as the Silver Age.

When it comes to back issues from this time period, as you might expect, they're getting older and tougher to find.  Action Comics #1 for example: it's estimated that only 50-100 copies of this book still exist and with that rarity comes value.  In 2011 a copy of Action Comics #1 in really nice condition sold for over $2 million dollars!  If you're looking to buy or collect back issues from this time period, just understand what a challenge it could be, especially in higher grades. 

Super-heroes were on the outs by the end of the 1940s.  Most DC Golden Age super-heroes ceased publication by 1951 (with the exception of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, known as DC's "Big 3").  Fawcett's Marvel Family titles were gone by 1954.  Over at Timely Captain America held out until Sept 1954 and the Sub-Mariner ceased publication in Oct 1955.  While the super-heroes were waning in popularity, other genres were gaining dominance on the comic stands.   This era is characterized by a popularity of Western, Romance, War, Sci-Fi, and Horror comics, mirroring genres that were also popular on radio, TV, and movies. It was in this environment that EC Comics thrived (see above), but EC was not the only publisher putting out comics in this transitional period in between the Golden and Silver Ages of super-heroes, there were a lot of publishers who had a start in the Golden Age who continued publishing diverse genres in the 1950s.  But when all is said and done, the Atomic Age is really an overlay onto the end of the Golden Age and a shorthand that collectors will often use when referring to non-super-hero comics of the 1950s. 

 The success of the super-hero relaunch at DC caused Marvel Comics Publisher Martin Goodman to ask Stan Lee to create a super-hero team for Marvel.   What Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created was Fantastic Four #1 (Nov 1961) and with that, the Silver Age was well and truly off and running. The Fantastic Four was quickly followed by super-heroes like Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug/Sep 1962), Ant-Man in Tales to Astonish #35 (Sep 1962), the Incredible Hulk #1 (May 1962), Thor in Journey into Mystery #83 (Aug 1962), Iron Man in Tales of Suspense #39 (Mar 1963), The Wasp in Tales to Astonish #44 (June 1963) and two team books: X-Men #1 (Sep 1963), as well as a closer analog to DC's Justice League, The Avengers #1 (Sep 1963).

The Silver Age of comics is one of the most, if not the most, popular age with collectors today because of the amount of iconic characters created or relaunched during this time.  Collecting comics from this era provides a fan with great history and stories about where the characters came from who are still popular today and making a huge name for themselves in movies, TV, and video games. 

Although there really isn't a single agreed upon comic that marks the beginning of the Bronze Age like there is with the Silver Age, many consider the Bronze Age to begin around 1970 and run through 1985.  As comic books started to tackle current topics like drug use and war that the Comics Code Authority previously tried to keep out of comics, comics began to be a little more serious, this shift of focus in mainstream super-hero comics is a key feature of the Bronze Age.  For example, in 1971 Marvel Comics published a Spider-Man story that dealt with drug use.  Although the Comics Code did not allow the use of the CCA stamp on the book, Marvel put it out anyway.  In the same timeframe, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams were dealing with similar topics in Green Lantern.  3 months after the CCA-less issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy was actually revealed to be a drug addict in a similarly CCA-seal-free issue.  The publishers were no longer letting the CCA totally dictate their content, when the situation warranted it, they would forgo CCA approval.  Around that same time, minority characters like Luke Cage and John Stewart were introduced bringing much needed diversity to the pages of comics. 

The perfect end point of the Bronze Age is embodied in 1985's massive DC Comics crossover event "Crisis on Infinite Earths" that wrapped up and simplified 50 years of DC Comics continuity by doing away with the concept of DC's multiverse, a somewhat convoluted concept (for people who were not hard-core comics fans) involving multiple parallel earths where all the DC Comics stories ever published could exist all on their own different versions of earth; Earth One for Silver Age stories, Earth Two for Golden Age stories, Earth-S for Captain Marvel family, etc.   

Underground Comix emerged in the 1960s as part of the counterculture of free love, drug use, and rock music (sex & drugs & rock'n'roll).  They used comix instead of comics to differentiate from the mainstream and also to indicate the presence of more adult content.  These comix began in the early 1960s but didn't gain a strong popularity until 1967.  1968 marked an early milestone with the publication of Robert Crumb's Zap Comix, which featured the debut of Underground Comix icon "Mr. Natural", as well as Crumb's iconic Keep on Truckin' image.  These comix were regularly sold in 'Head Shops', stores that specialized in selling drug paraphernalia.

Characters like Mr. Natural, Wonder Warthog, and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers captured the imagination of a generation of free-spirited young people, along with stories featuring non-specific characters who used drugs, spent time in conflict with or evading police, and mocking the establishment and political figures of the time.  The irreverence and humor hit a chord with fans and over time these comix started to attract more and more creators who had something to say that didn't fit in the confines of corporate-owned comic books featuring super-heroes.   As the 1970s progressed, the lines between "Underground" and "Independent" (or 'Indie') comics began to blur, as the subject matter moved away from primarily illegal drug use and sex to include topics like feminism, environmentalism, gay liberation, politics, and autobiography (like Harvey Pekar's self-published American Splendor).   Once direct sale comic book shops began to appear in greater numbers in the late 1970s, there was less reason for these comics (which could not be sold on comics spinner racks targeted at children) to only be sold in Head Shops, and they moved into the comics shops along with the other comics presented as an alternative to the mainstream super-heroes. 

Other sites attribute a date range for the Copper Age of 1984 through 1991 or 1992, suggesting that Marvel's Secret Wars crossover was the start and the end was heralded either by Jim Lee's debut on X-Men in 1991 or the mass exodus of Marvel artists in 1992 that led to the founding of Image Comics.

 Several other sites (that all seem primarily set up to sell comics, particularly those from the "Copper Age") list the end of the Age as 1994, but give no explanation since they are stores, not sites interested in documenting or explaining terms.  1994 is an interesting choice as the end of the age since 1994 was a very tumultuous year in comics, marking the collapse of the speculator market.  

So, a number of conflicting and overlapping definitions for a Copper Age of comics, with issues ranging from an overlap with the end of the Bronze Age to lengths that seems too short to define an age and an overall lack of a unified theme for the age, relying instead on external market forces and events to define the beginnings/endings.   Combining the multiple concepts and making  

 "Indie" comics is kind of a loaded term.  In many cases the definition today is just "Not Marvel or DC", but that is not a definition that can extend back through history since many publishers like Archie, Fawcett, EC, Dell, Gold Key and many other non-Marvel/DC companies have had a long history and presence on the racks alongside the super-hero books.  That said, by the late 70s super-heroes had been the predominant force in comics for a while.  As alternates to this super-hero dominance began presenting themselves to readers once again, it was certainly a noticeable change for fans and the concept of "Indie comics" started getting some play among comic book collectors of the day, many of whom had been predominantly buying from the "Big 2" for many years.  Having a number of other choices in comics that were not perceived as being aimed directly at younger readers, as was the case with Archie & Gold Key, was something that made the maturing base of comic fans sit up and take notice.  Typical fans were now in their late teens, 20s, or even older, as opposed to a much younger predominant demographic in the 1960s and earlier.

Late 1977 and early 1978 brought some key properties to light that would enjoy long runs and become iconic independent comics success stories.  Cerebus the Aardvark debuted in December 1977 and ran for 300 issues, the exact number that Dave Sim said he'd do early on when he created the series.  Elfquest debuted in Fantasy Quarterly #1 in Spring of 1978 and would go on to be featured in more than 100 issues from many publishers and translated into many languages.    Also in 1978, we got the 1st publication from Eclipse Comics, the graphic novel "Sabre" that would go on to be a comic series in 1982. 

Additionally, the birth of independent comics would not have been the same without the inadvertent assistance received from Marvel Comics via their Epic imprint in 1982.  Seeing the growing popularity of companies like Eclipse and Pacific, Marvel spun up a line of very different comics featuring a creative alternative to their standard super-hero fare and offering a large degree of creative freedom and also allowing creators to retain ownership of their properties.  There were a lot of fans who would not have otherwise tried out these very different (from standard super-heroes) comics, but since they were from an imprint of Marvel, try them they did.  Many fans had their horizons expanded and they would ultimately find themselves open to trying comics from a number of other independent publishers. 

 In November 1988 a number of independent comic book writer and artists got together and drafted a Creator's Bill of Rights, designed to give creators proper credit for their characters and stories, profit sharing, fairer contracts, return of original art, among other things.  Comics were maturing due to the work of many hard working and imaginative creators who wanted fair treatment and compensation for the compensations they were making to the industry.  This movement would go on to make lasting changes and paved the way for a more creator-friendly comics industry. 

Called by a few the Iron Age, to follow the metallic progression of ages, many more people think of it as the Dark Age.  As comics began to skew towards an older readership as the Bronze Age progressed, comics continued to get edgier and grittier. With historic stories like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), Watchmen (1986), and Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), darker more adult-oriented themes abounded.   Characters being maimed or killed and the inclusion of dystopian political concepts into the stories became fairly common. 

Colorful costumes were covered up with leather jackets, punching bad guys was replaced with shooting them, the general demeanor of the books was dark.  External market conditions in the comics industry were beginning to mirror the dark and bleak worlds the stories themselves were set in.  

The health of the comics industry took a hit and almost collapsed when the speculator bubble burst in 1994.  At least 19 publishers went out of business, as well as two thirds of comics specialty stores in the US closing up their shops. 

 A lot of smaller comics publishers that we didn't take the time to detail in the "Birth of the Indies" write-up didn't make it past the crash of 1994.    Axis Comics, Blackball Comics, Comic Zone Productions, Continüm Comics, Dagger Comics, Fantagor Press, Majestic Entertainment, Ominous Press, Revolutionary Comics, and Triumphant all ceased publication in 1994.   

Something had to change and fortunately it did.  In 1997 DC revitalized the Justice League franchise with a new take titled simply 'JLA' and written by superstar writer Grant Morrison.  At the end of 1998 Marvel revitalized their line with the creation of the Marvel Knights imprint pulling in Kevin Smith to write Daredevil (with art by Joe Quesada) and Christopher Priest's reinvention on Black Panther for a new generation of comics readers.   The industry was pulling out of the mid-1990s tailspin and entering the Modern Age.  

This continued in 2000 with Marvel's launch of their "Ultimate Universe", re-imaginings of key properties driven by creator Brian Michael Bendis, that were not burdened with years of continuity.  Marvel's Ultimate Universe provided a useful alternate to the main Marvel Universe but itself ultimately became burdened with over a decade of its own continuity and outlived its usefulness.  After 15 years the line ended with Marvel's 2015 Secret Wars event, with a few of the more popular characters surviving to be merged into the main Marvel Universe.

 Another key feature of the Modern Age is a prevalence of creators shaping the main super-hero universes who feel that they must leave a mark on each series they take over, making it feel like it is theirs.  When a new team comes on board they often toss out everything that was done by the last creative team, sometimes this works better than others, depending on how a creator's new take is received by fans.  This led into another facet of the Modern Age, downplaying years of continuity.  There is typically a desire for the characters to behave consistently with how they have behaved in the past (though this is sometimes thrown out the window if a creator has a story to tell that entails a complete personality overhaul for a character) but the need to hold every single event that ever occurred as canon that can handcuff the creators from telling the story they want to tell has been discarded.  The common credo is 'tell a good story' and let the rest work itself out. 

The defining event in the rise of independent comics was the mass exodus of top-selling Marvel artists who left in 1992 to create their own company, Image Comics.  The early sales success of Image led to a boom in sales of comics but a lot of this boom was due to the comics speculator market, people who were not necessarily comics readers but who were buying comics in large quantities with an eye towards them becoming valuable for later resale at a profit.  Unfortunately, as these comics sold in the millions, there was no way for demand to outpace the supply once the speculators were removed from the equation.  There just were not that many fans out there.  Once the direct market crash occurred as a result of the speculator bubble bursting a lot of indie companies (and comics shops) went out of business.  

The publishers that kept on going post-crash learned that ultimately it was the stories and characters that won out over the flash and carnival-like atmosphere of the early years of the rise of the indies.