The men who destroyed super hero comics...

[huedell]

I'm going to play Devil's advocate for a minute. I think comics had to evolve or die out. As fond as I am of the old stuff(and I have lots of them in my collection)...can you imagine if Doctor Doom was still spouting things like..."It was you who sought to defeat me, but in the end it is I who will ultimately destroy you!" If a writer try to write something that over the top now a days he'd be fired. I'm not defending the lost of innocence of the "glory days" of comics. But like us...comics grew up as well. It's just a simple fact of life...evolve or die.

I'm gonna go with your "evolve or die being necessary" and T-bolt's "blame the audience" bit for now ^^^^---anything else in the "finger-pointing/blame" mold would drive me batty this early in the morning.

[hedrap]

I cannot discard the horror and crime books of the 40's and 50's. They were brutally exploitative. Wertham was a dictatorial nut, but EC Comics and it's knockoffs gave him a ton of ammo. Decapitations, bound women/in peril, glorified gangsters,etc..Kirby made his living working on these books alongside romance titles.

What I see Dwayne's big question as, is who co-mingled these genres and why. While it's definitely about money, by the 70's it was no longer only a publisher competition. By the 70's, TV had been devouring what were once reliable young readers for an entire generation. Some of these most loved shows on this site - Batman '66, Spidey '66, Alex Toth, SuperFriends - drew some new readers to comics in the start of the Silver Age, but by '75, they had turned into competition do to the advent of syndication. That, in turn, transformed shows originally made for adults - Trek, Twilight Zone, Limits - into Saturday afternoon programming.

Then add-in the effect TV had on movies. Theatrical audience attendance was clipped twice, first when TV arrived, the second when it went to color. So at the same time as the Silver Age begins, a growing fissure starts within film. For example, in '64 Goldfinger was the highest grossing movie, but 2nd and 3rd? Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady, with Lady winning the Oscar. While all three were audience-wide crowd pleasures, also nominated in '64 was Strangelove and it's at that point, a split widens between films made for artistic merit, audience be damned, and mass appeal.

From '65-'69, you see a tectonic change between what was box office popular/gross, the Academy nominees and the award winners. Within five years, we go from My Fair Lady winning the Oscar, to Midnight Cowboy. That's a huge cultural shift. This opened up more marketplace for Roger Corman and his fellow B-Listers, but it also made them look into more graphic fare. So we go from Psycho in 1960, to Last House on The Left in '72.

So who is growing up in this period? Frank Miller and Alan Moore were teenagers. Television had become the outlet for broadcasting, a term which actually meant "casting for the broadest audience possible", while movies were on a downward slide from 'the late 60's, until Jaws and Star Wars. The guaranteed audience for the comic industry, boys 7-15, was halved by the mid-70's, and the new writers coming in were the first generation raised on reading Marvel/DC comics, not pulp magazines or movies. These writers still had a feel for what worked, but the second generation who arrived in the 80's understood comics in the larger context of the 70's, where comics had influenced the movie and TV creators. When Moore and Miller hit, they were doing what was the norm in their youth; subverting a medium. But it's the next generation, the Image gang, who saw the exploitative opportunity, minus the context.

It becomes a pretty clear pattern that by the time you reach the second generation raised on a certain medium, the creative destruction of the pioneers and first generation leaves only subversion and exploitation for the second-gen newcomers. The medium then has to die and be reborn, but comics, like all entertainment now, are about perpetual IP - trademarks and copyrights. The birth-death-rebirth cycle is artificially stopped, forcing the medium into a half-life.

[huedell]

The medium then has to die and be reborn, but comics, like all entertainment now, are about perpetual IP - trademarks and copyrights. The birth-death-rebirth cycle is artificially stopped, forcing the medium into a half-life.

Ok, let's say I hear what you're saying and I agree with you that this is likely what is happening. If I were to hold out hope that with newer more powerfully efficient technology (to create and distribute new media) that there's going to be SO much product made for our favorite franchises that, altho' the majority of it will be senseless pandering, the raw aspect of recognition that good storytellers/filmmakers get will be enough to substantiate good product to always be found---albeit amidst a large sea of disposable stuff?

[enyawd72]

I think the popularity of Marvel's titles with adult college students during the 1960's while still maintaining a rather conservative/wholesome approach to the storytelling proves that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Writers like Frank Miller and Alan Moore simply took comic storytelling to a place it never should have gone, and didn't need to be in the first place, IMO.

The mid to late 1980's Spider-Man arc also reinforces this. The latter half of that decade saw the black costume saga, as well as the birth of the Hobgoblin and Venom, two of the most successful modern age villains ever created without deviating from the classic Marvel storytelling style. Readers both young and old embraced these stories because they were GOOD, not because they were adult or exploitative. Truly good stories don't need to be.

[hedrap]

If that's regarding what I wrote Dwayne, I meant Miller/ Moore were influence by the pop culture shift towards Midnight Cowboy and Last House then Marvelmania.

Hue - Yep. I'm totally with you in the tech wave. That's the major difference with the web compared to previous mediums. The bridge gate is down for entry, compared to studio publishing/productions of the past where the gate was up and the moat was full.

That was actually one of the main lobbying propositions to the Comcast/Time-Warner Cable merger; raise the financial bar to protect studio productions. Same thing coming from Net Neutraility.

[huedell]

Hue - Yep. I'm totally with you in the tech wave. That's the major difference with the web compared to previous mediums. The bridge gate is down for entry, compared to studio publishing/productions of the past where the gate was up and the moat was full.

That was actually one of the main lobbying propositions to the Comcast/Time-Warner Cable merger; raise the financial bar to protect studio productions. Same thing coming from Net Neutraility.

Thanks for the reply hedrap---not only does that magnify my gut feeling of "hope" for media entertainment's future, but it also means you totally vibed my question, even though my posts' syntax lost its plot/inquiry halfway through

[VintageMike]

My opinion is the men who destroyed comics as we knew them are the men who destroy pretty everything: Men who sit in a board room and bean counters who are penny wise and pound foolish. I could give numerous examples but I'll make condense.
One poor decision after another by people who over complicate things and can't grasp the simple stuff.

Simple stuff like if you provide good stories and art people will buy. The current mentality through is endless reboots and events to keep people buying. The problem with that is that is whether you love or hate whatever the "new" presentation is everything is rendered meaningless. Case in point: there's a small buzz about the current issue of "All-New X-Men" because a character is revealed as being gay. Which I would think is not only passe in 2015 but a new "Secret Wars" is coming up where basically everything will be rebooted. Some things may remain while others will go. So this big reveal may mean nothing in two months. Tomorrow is constantly sacrificed for today.

Tying into the above, think about this, these decision makers constantly mess with comics but when it comes to licensing images for clothing etc it's almost always the "classic" versions of the characters. These products obviously sell. But still these genius who are raking in it can't put two and two together. Not saying things should never change but a natural evolution/update would work better overall reboots.

Another easy fact they miss: When you are dealing with a published fantasy world readers are investing themselves in those worlds/characters. Throwing everything in upheaval for a quick buck, for "new" readers and attention while crapping on existing readers who have not only supported their business but contrary to popular belief have long lives ahead. These folks being alienated might even have introduced their kids!

Failure to keep up digitally: Here's a great medium for get people on. They'll give a million reasons why but $3.99 is too high for new comic. The price of comic books have outpaced inflation quite a bit. I'll even give them the fact that publishing is hurting and physical book is a "boutique" item. No way the digital copy should be the same price. Marvel at least has some grasp on this as they include a free digital copies with new books, and there's Marvel Unlimited which is basically Netflix for comics. But you have plenty of new readers and more existing readers willing to cut some slack if they could keep or get in at a lower price point.

[samurainoir]

we live in a world where Lynda Carter and Adam West now star in their own DC Comics, and if we're unhappy with the past two decades, there are quite literally 100 years worth of comics content available to us with a couple of clicks. If this isn't the new Golden Age, I don't know what is.

[huedell]

we live in a world where Lynda Carter and Adam West now star in their own DC Comics, and if we're unhappy with the past two decades, there are quite literally 100 years worth of comics content available to us with a couple of clicks. If this isn't the new Golden Age, I don't know what is.

Now, THAT'S the spirit!

I empathize with those who aren't getting what they want from modern comicbooks and superhero culture overall---heck, to me, this kind of entertainment is as holy to me as the next guy who posts on these boards----but things DO change.

That's not the bean-counter's fault. It's just the way the universe works.

That said: There's always gonna be a way to be loyal to a comicbook brand, a way to be a collector, a way to find "the good stories", a way to be a fan---ya just haveta shift your perspective a bit to see a world that's shifted---the way worlds tend to do

[The Bat]

It's nice to hear such optimism from you hue! And your right, things do change...it's the one constant in the Universe.

[Mr.Marion]

I don't think its fair to say Miller or Moore killed the comics you love. But I understand your opinion. Comics were going in that direction anyway. There was a time when Aquaman wasn't cool because he lived underwater and communicated with sea life. Those fantasy elements were looked downed upon when you had Daredevil and Punisher. Captain America's run in the mid to late 80's was beyond awful. Because the writers didn't know what to do with a then outdated character.

[Blue Meanie]

I had a conversation with Jim Shooter around 2001 at the Silver Age Legends show in White Plains New York. It was an actual conversation for about a half hour about what his thoughts were on the industry at the time. The whole Image era of comics. I found it interesting at what he told me. He said that what was wrong with comics was the fact that writers/artists can't tell a self contained story in one issue. I found this ironic because he was one of the people in the industry that pushed the so called "soap opera" story telling in comics with one of the first maxi series in Secret Wars. Marvel had been promoting the extended story lines through X-Men and Spiderman. Story Arcs have never left the industry. It sells comics. It tapped into the "I gotta have the entire run" of the story arc collector mentality. IMHO the decline of comic books was already starting to decline before Alan Moore and Frank Miller. I also find it ironic that in these days with many more cases of ADD that comics have lasted this long. Everything in comics these days are story arcs and I don't think you can find one single issue self contained story line these days. There sure as hell are not new creations of characters or bad guys for them to fight. Shooter also said during the conversation that the creative process should be one of using the panels like a movie. Each panel is a scene and that wasn't the process that was being used. Makes sense if you look at the splash pages of those image books...the entire book was a giant splash page. More panels instead of one giant panel would mean getting in enough story to actually tell a story in one issue. I never thought I would agree with Shooter...but he was dead on about the problems of comic books back then. Unfortunately it hasn't changed in 20 years.

[Figuremod73]

I remember when McFarlane became more and more popular during his run on Hulk. He started out with smaller panels and seemed to work with Peter David fairly well but as time progressed he took more power from David and did the stories his way. This carried on into The Amazing Spiderman and into his own Spidey book. The more power he was given from editing, the more violent and graphic it became. It sells and once they get those kinds of sales they will do whatever it takes to keep them. I think this is what happened earlier in the decade with Miller. (Although Miller is much more talented as a writer, IMO)

Watchmen is one of the best graphic novels I ever read but I can do without The Killing Joke.

[hedrap]

Meanie - that is actually quite surreal to read. Shooter is a really confusing guy to me. As you pointed out, he ushered most of this in, but I cannot argue how right he is over the inability to contain a narrative.

...and the panels thing, he knows it was a combination of artists incentives and story protraction, whereas in the olden days, the more panels meant more pages, equaling more money per book. Whole thing was inverted.

[samurainoir]

Here's the thing though... I get what Shooter is saying from a structural POV, in regards to how a single issue ideally SHOULD be framed in a periodical format.

But given that he's been in the business end of publishing long enough to know how the market moved forward when he was still in the industry. The periodically version of the comic book did not have a high enough price point to sustain the space dedicated to it in the retail venues that folks traditionally bought comics (newstands, grocery stores, drug stores). It moved to a specialty niche marketplace to survive the dwindling newstand sales... which formed a life-raft for around two decades before the book/library market embraced the Graphic Novel collection as the primary mass market format. By necessity, the price point on a BOOK justifies the retail space that the periodical floppy comic could not.

By necessity, the story structure needed to evolve to the 5-6 issue "arc" to create that "one and done" experience in a thick graphic novel with a spine rather than a floppy comic book. I'll always point to the Walmart Graphic Novel section as the accurate indicator of where the mass market exists these days (especially as the bookstore market dies). Hardly any Superhero stuff other than video game and movie tie-ins. Naruto and Pokemon Manga. Twilight and other YA Fiction translated into comics. Video Game tie ins. Archie. Amulet. Bone. Drama/Sisters. and all manner of Wimpy Kid style prose/comics/illustrated book hybrids.

Here's the thing about the fact that there are DOZENS of those Naruto and One-Piece and Pokemon graphic novels in the "series". as with comics that were aimed at kids like us back in the day, it was never any real change, just repetition and the illusion of change. Because kids like (and need) repetition... ask any parent who's had to sit through the same movie/tv show over and over and over again. That is why to our adult sensibilities, Pokemon et all is just the same thing over and over... because IT IS!

so kids ARE reading comics... just not Dad's old smelly floppy comics starring Superheroes. Which again, is just nuts because they are buying the Superhero Lego, Video Games, and watching the cartoons and movies.

Decompressed Manga structure has also infiltrated the language of North American comics, as have their formats of closer-to-digest sized volumes.