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BburgDaddy-o Posts: 22
4/15/2016
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Isn't it about time for the so-called "Modern" age of comics, that generally seem be agreed upon to be from 1986- present, to be split? All of the previous eras are roughly 15 years in length. Has the industry remained the same for the past 30 years? Surely there has been some seminal event (9-11?) or change in character/art/writing/publishing style that merits splitting the modern age in two.
The modern age of comics is bursting at the seams.
And what would you call these "new" eras?
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stevegreer1 Posts: 41
4/15/2016
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I voted yes. I think it should definitely be split because there has been many changes since 1986 with paper stock and inks used as well as a huge turnover in industry leading artists and writers. And if you go by the 15-year average rule then it could even be chopped into thirds in a couple of years with '87 through '02 being something like the Brass Age and '03 through '18 being the Aluminum Age, and then have '19 starting the new modern age.
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+1
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Gilgandra Posts: 1246
4/15/2016
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I like the "comic book ages". keeps them in their place.
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CapnDoug Administrator Posts: 151
4/15/2016
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Honestly, if we want to start calling something the copper age, the years from 1986 to 1994-1996 or so would be the best fit. Basically, the production value of a single issue seems to have gone up, while print runs plummeted. Where exactly you put this break would not be clear, but it would make sense to put the break after the crash of the mid-90's. We might even be able to say that we are in a seperate age from that as well, with the New 52 and Marvel Now allowing for a fairly clean break in 2011.
But then again, no one can really point to when the Bronze Age started (I've heard death of Gwen Stacy, debut of Punisher, debut of Conan, etc), so pinpointing the start of these ages would be tricky, too.
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+1
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
4/15/2016
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Scrap all era names. They have run their course.
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genuine_article_comics Posts: 44
4/15/2016
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Respectfully, I'm not sure what purpose these names serve. I can't think of another artistic field that labels eras the way comics do. Film and music don't do this. They may refer to a "golden age" but it's not the same as comics naming all the eras. Why do we need to name the eras?
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CapnDoug Administrator Posts: 151
4/16/2016
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genuine_article_comics wrote:
Respectfully, I'm not sure what purpose these names serve. I can't think of another artistic field that labels eras the way comics do. Film and music don't do this. They may refer to a "golden age" but it's not the same as comics naming all the eras. Why do we need to name the eras?
Actually, film kind of does. I just doesn't feel the need to ensure that every year is part of an era, like the Silent Era, the Studio Era or the New Hollywood era.
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genuine_article_comics Posts: 44
4/16/2016
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CapnDoug wrote:
genuine_article_comics wrote:
Respectfully, I'm not sure what purpose these names serve. I can't think of another artistic field that labels eras the way comics do. Film and music don't do this. They may refer to a "golden age" but it's not the same as comics naming all the eras. Why do we need to name the eras?
Actually, film kind of does. I just doesn't feel the need to ensure that every year is part of an era, like the Silent Era, the Studio Era or the New Hollywood era.
Hmmm..I suppose that's true, good point.
What purpose do "silverage" or "goldenage" etc. names serve? Is it just for casual conversations? They're not offensive by any means but I'm curious why we use them at all.
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stevegreer1 Posts: 41
4/16/2016
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We could also look at sizes (dimensions) of the books. Silver age books are a different size (width) than bronze, copper, and modern ages. And golden age are a bit wider than silver. I do think there were some years that overlapped a bit though. So I guess it would still cause some confusion, much like I am now.
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CapnDoug Administrator Posts: 151
4/16/2016
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genuine_article_comics wrote:
CapnDoug wrote:
genuine_article_comics wrote:
Respectfully, I'm not sure what purpose these names serve. I can't think of another artistic field that labels eras the way comics do. Film and music don't do this. They may refer to a "golden age" but it's not the same as comics naming all the eras. Why do we need to name the eras?
Actually, film kind of does. I just doesn't feel the need to ensure that every year is part of an era, like the Silent Era, the Studio Era or the New Hollywood era.
Hmmm..I suppose that's true, good point.
What purpose do "silverage" or "goldenage" etc. names serve? Is it just for casual conversations? They're not offensive by any means but I'm curious why we use them at all.
To me, they serve as a decent guide post when I am buying a collection. If I am told that it's 3 long boxes, mostly modern and bronze age Marvel, but there are a fair number of mid and low grade Silver Age DC, too, I know what to expect and still have the joy of finding things as I'm going through it. Same goes for eBay. It's mostly a guidepost for age. Using it as anything more doesn't make sense.
That's kind of why my preference would be for some sort of distinction for before and after the 90's crash. Comics published between 1986 and 1994 or so are just so easy to find. After that, comics tend to be rarer, but much better taken care of. Plus, I tend to see anything that was published before about 1995 as kind of interesting, since that was when I started collecting regularly. It doesn't hold any force or effect, just a slightly better guide post.
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+1
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kds_comics Posts: 652
4/16/2016
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My nickel's worth...
There is no argument that the Silver Age of comics started with the return of Super-heroes in Showcase #96. Well and good.
There is no single comic issue that started the Bronze Age of comics. One argument is additional of social relevance in the 1970's. with Amazing Spider-Man comics that failed to recieve the comic code of approval and this one from DC that provided social relevance of the time on topics like prison reform and drugs.
There is even less agreement on the specific data of the start of the modern era.
Some would say it was Marvel's Secret Wars in 1984
Some would say it came in 1986 with DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths.
However - us old time folks who lived it at one time agreed that this is the first Modern Age Comics. Why? It the the first comics NOT sold by comic wholesale distribution. It was sold by retail distributions at J.C. Penny, Woolworth (think Walmart today), and other drug store and retail stores. The distributions paved the way for independent comics like Eclipse, Pacific and other in the 1980s outside of the big distribution chain. For many years, this was held as the first Modern Age comics. It was called Captain Victory and the Galaxy Rangers
So if we cannot agree on the where the Bronze Age ends and where the Modern Age begins, how do we split the modern age into segments?
KDS
edited by kds_comics on 4/16/2016
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Gilgandra Posts: 1246
4/16/2016
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Excellent info you've provided KDS
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BburgDaddy-o Posts: 22
4/16/2016
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CapnDoug wrote:
Honestly, if we want to start calling something the copper age, the years from 1986 to 1994-1996 or so would be the best fit. Basically, the production value of a single issue seems to have gone up, while print runs plummeted. Where exactly you put this break would not be clear, but it would make sense to put the break after the crash of the mid-90's. We might even be able to say that we are in a seperate age from that as well, with the New 52 and Marvel Now allowing for a fairly clean break in 2011.
But then again, no one can really point to when the Bronze Age started (I've heard death of Gwen Stacy, debut of Punisher, debut of Conan, etc), so pinpointing the start of these ages would be tricky, too.
I have a question, then. Assuming that at some point a greater percentage of titles from '86-'96 become desirable again, which of the more obscure ones might become "must-haves" for either collectors or investors?
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BburgDaddy-o Posts: 22
4/16/2016
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kds_comics wrote:
My nickel's worth...
There is no argument that the Silver Age of comics started with the return of Super-heroes in Showcase #96. Well and good.
There is no single comic issue that started the Bronze Age of comics. One argument is additional of social relevance in the 1970's. with Amazing Spider-Man comics that failed to recieve the comic code of approval and this one from DC that provided social relevance of the time on topics like prison reform and drugs.
KDS
edited by kds_comics on 4/16/2016
I think there can be some overlap, and that is purely subjective to the individual. I agree with what you said above, and going a step further, for me the Bronze Age of comics started specifically with Green Lantern/Green Arrow.
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
4/17/2016
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If I am not mistaken Showcase #4, not 96 is the launch of the silver age.
IMHO the problem with having named eras is that it is going to become harder and harder to do as time goes on because the start and cut-off points become more and more problematic. Not to mention it drives the community to do more and more silly things to market books rather than selling on the book's own merits. For example, the need now to reassign when silver-age hero times began.
Wonder Woman was one hero that never stopped publishing but her "first" silver-age appearance is now supposedly #98 and not #85. It is argued that her origin was slightly tweaked at this time give credence to this redefinition of the first SA appearance. It should be noted that her origin was tweaked before and a few times after. Anyone who has ever put any concerted effort into collecting WW from this time period and before knows that 98 is a key and very hard to find in any condition. It really isn't the first SA WW. That designation justly belongs to #85. To be perfectly honest it cannot be applied to WW at all as the character never stopped being published from inception in the 40's.
The naming of the eras also fails to acknowledge anything other than the big two which is so very wrong. Never mind the fact that it over shadows so many other thing which collectors should consider when buying books.
OH and size of books have overlap. Golden age books were larger in the 30's and early 40's. Then they start taking on the sizes more common to the silver age. However, there were some books, such as Dells that were large than their other 50's counterparts. DCs had 3 different sizes in the silver age Atlas/Marvel 2. Bronze had two.
edited by Oxbladder on 4/17/2016
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CapnDoug Administrator Posts: 151
4/17/2016
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BburgDaddy-o wrote:
CapnDoug wrote:
Honestly, if we want to start calling something the copper age, the years from 1986 to 1994-1996 or so would be the best fit. Basically, the production value of a single issue seems to have gone up, while print runs plummeted. Where exactly you put this break would not be clear, but it would make sense to put the break after the crash of the mid-90's. We might even be able to say that we are in a seperate age from that as well, with the New 52 and Marvel Now allowing for a fairly clean break in 2011.
But then again, no one can really point to when the Bronze Age started (I've heard death of Gwen Stacy, debut of Punisher, debut of Conan, etc), so pinpointing the start of these ages would be tricky, too.
I have a question, then. Assuming that at some point a greater percentage of titles from '86-'96 become desirable again, which of the more obscure ones might become "must-haves" for either collectors or investors?
It's not so much that they aren't desirable. I put some of the death of Superman stuff or the Todd McFarlane Spider-Man #1 in the dollar bin and it moves pretty easy. It's not that people aren't interested in them. It's that they are not hard to find. Issues from that era are so over produced. Add that to the fact that most of the issues went into collections where the were cared for, or put into a box where someone thought they were going to pay for their future child's education and if you want these issues, you can find them without much difficulty. Heck, even the really valuable stuff from the era like New Mutants #98 is easily available, so long as you are willing to pay for it. Even some of the more obscure titles from that era are not hard to find, since again, people thought they were going to be valuable and put them away to appreciate in value, not realizing that publishers were milking this collectability for all it was worth (see the massive number of chrome/metallic ink/hologram covers in addition to the gimmicky keys like the 1993 Marvel Annuals, the replacement Superman/Batman/Green Lantern/Spider-Man/Thor, etc.) There are so many of these out there.
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Oxbladder Posts: 487
4/17/2016
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The books are never over produced. Yes publishers will milk ANY AND ALL trends but they will never ever produce more than the market demands. The crash of the 90's had little to do with "gimmicks" and everything to do with what was happening in the hobby at that time. If anyone has not noticed the gimmicks are still very much here and very much supported by the collector and are producing a large number of excess books and poor publishing and retailing habits. Habits that had devastating consequences for the hobby in the 90's.
The quality of writing took a dip in the 90's but that was sadly supported by virtually all collectors that were wowed by the glitz of the new art styles that were taking shape through the 90's. Style took priority over substance. However, this would not play a factor in the 90's crash either. This played a roll later in the 90's.
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stevegreer1 Posts: 41
4/17/2016
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I agree with Oxbladder. Comics are never over produced. I think what happened in the 90's crash is that the market was just too slow to respond to the sudden decrease in demand. Of course the publishers will milk any and all trends. The publishers are in it to make money and to keep the board of investors happy. You really can't fault them for that. The publishers have a completely different mind set from the artists and writers. The artists are writers typically view their work as getting paid for doing what they love to do (unless your name is Greg Land, in which case you get paid to photoshop other people's work and claim it as your own. But that's a different topic altogether).
I think we are seeing an all-new repeat of the trendy crap that defined the 90's in the form of variant covers. I don't even buy any new comics. In fact, the last new comic I bought off the stand at my LCS was X-Men (Volume 3) #1. There were two reasons why: It was the first all-female team. And I bought one variant cover, 1C, because it had the Deadpool zombie Abbey Road cover (I'm a huge fan of the Beatles). Other than that, no new comics. I went there just yesterday to get a new short box and to browse through the back issues, and just out of curiosity I looked at the new release shelves. Too many to keep up with, and almost every hot, trending title had at least three variant covers. But again, I can't blame the publishers for wanting to milk the trend for all it's worth.
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