COMICS

Comics what a wonderful form of entertainment.  Since the start of the Golden Age with Action Comics number one in 1938 people have been reading the adventures of SUPEHEROS. Now it is true there are a lot of non-superhero comics out there – I even collect some, but it is the Superhero comic that has made an impact on comics. The started as reprints of the comic strips in the Sunday funnies. Sometimes in the 1930 they started making original stories – many of them funny – but also adventures, sf, romance, detectives.  In fact National Periodicals named their line after one of their comic called Detective Comics  - in fact the first few years it was about detectives until one of them decide he should dress up as a BAT. But that was not until after Action one introduced the world to SUPERMAN! By 1941 superheroes were everywhere. You had Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Submariner and so on and on. More and more comics got into creating Superhero Comics. The Golden age lasted from 1938 – 1950 and we were left with just DC’s Superhero comics – we had Superman , Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow, who was a back up story in books like Action, Worlds Finest, Adventure, and Detective comics.  Green arrow shared the back stories with Congo Bill and Tommy Tomorrow and short stories with no returning hero. 1951 -1955 was a void. Now comics didn’t go away we had the EC comics, Disney Comics, Archie, and a lot of other non-superhero – War, Westerns, Romance, SF, Humor.

Then in 1956 DC came out with Showcase #4 with the FLASH – but if you had been reading comics in the 40’s this wasn’t your Flash.  DC decided to update some of their older heroes and see how they would fair.(This why Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow – still looked the same). After Flash we got Green Lantern, Hawkman, Atom, JLA, Aquaman, and new charters like the Martian Manhunter – DC was king of the beginning of the Silver Age (1956 – 1970) Other comics saw how well the Superheroes were doing for DC we started seeing a lot of new comic companies coming out – some like Archie, who had been part of the MLJ comics in the 40’s and as they retired their heroes Archie took over name of the comics, brough back some of their superheroes like the Hangman, Shield and new ones like The Fly.  But in 1960 Timely comics who had changed their name to Atlas had an Editor named Stan Lee who decided it was time for them to bring back Superheroes, but instead of bringing back their 1940 heroes he started doing all new heroes – the first being the Fantastic Four.

Now the next age in comics is called the Bronze Age (1971 – 1984) This was the period in which Kirby went to DC.  I personally see this more as a break from the Silver age as unlike the Golden Age and the Silver Age it didn’t really bring any major changes.  I personally would like to seen 1984 the start of a new age – this was when we got the Independent comic – mostly black and white at first – but color came to them also or the ones who lasted. It all started with a team of Superhero turtles – but it wasn’t a funny animal comic it was a Superhero comic TMNT.

Now we have a lot of people who have added many more ages, but the majority  feel that 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths started the Modern Era. Now I’m at the age that when I fist started reading comics we had  the Golden Age and Modern Age – which my the time I was an adult it was the Silver age and again I was in the modern age – which became the bronze age.  But the Golden Age lasted a little more than 10 years. The silver age almost 15 years bronze age about the same as the Golden Age. And now the modern age is getting into 36th year.  But it was also about the time we started having comic stores and comics as a collectable was changing. Grade was becoming important – people who were collecting were not always readers. When I first started collecting comics if someone had told me there would be collectors latter on who would not read the comics they collected I would laugh…