To discuss the history of the comic book art form, one must first define what is meant by “comic book art.” The definition is debatable, but for the purposes of this discussion, I will loosely define the art form as a combination of text and images, depicting events and characters in a sequence. The origins of sequential art date as far back as prehistory. Although predating the invention of text, there are images on the cave walls of Lascaux that are widely believed to be the sequential portrayal of the movement of a game animal. Sequential narratives from ancient times can be found worldwide: examples exist from Mayan, Chinese, Egyptian, Roman, and many other cultures that used a sequence of pictures to tell a story, and many of these examples incorporate both words and pictures. In ages past where literacy was not commonplace, it was not unusual for text to be supplemented with images.

The first known cartoon printed in the Americas was “The Burning of Mr. John Rogers,” a Puritan children's book published in 1646. The rise of newspapers in America also led to the popularity of editorial cartoons, and by the mid-18th century cartoons were employing many conventions of modern comic art such as bordered panels and word balloons. The first “true” American comic book and predecessor to the modern form that we all know was created by a Swiss printmaker, Rodolphe Topffer. Topffer’s book, “The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck,” was originally published in Europe in several languages in 1837. “Obadiah Oldbuck” was reprinted in 1841 in the United States, making it the first comic book printed in America. (It should be noted however that research into early American illustration as it relates to sequential art is still a fairly new field, and it is quite possible that an earlier example may show up in the future.) Topffer’s book remained in print in the United States until at least 1877. During this period, newspaper editorial cartoons continued to proliferate. Other printmakers continued to follow Topffer's example with publications of their own, such as the Read brothers’ “Journey to the Gold Diggins By Jeremiah Saddlebags” (1849, the earliest known sequential comic book by an American creator).

In the years following the Civil War, cartoon characters began to be used widely in advertisements. Some of these characters, such as Palmer Cox’s Brownies (first appearing in 1879), grew popular enough to warrant their own merchandising. This link between merchandising and comic characters remained a significant association up through the 1930s, and in fact continues up to the present day.¹ Another significant influence on early comic work was the publication of childrens' books and periodicals. These books often incorporated cartoony, sequential work that can be seen as a formative influence on the modern comic book.

Beginning in the 1860s, “penny dreadfuls” and humor magazines began to carry graphic humor, including comic strips. The earliest recurring comic strip character to gain popularity was Ally Sloper, first created by Charles Henry Ross and his wife Emilie du Tessier in 1867, for British magazine Judy (whose title played off of the better-known Punch). The character of Ally Sloper (a Victorian slang term for someone who regularly would “slope down the alley” to avoid paying a landlord) was a lecherous drunkard, a parody of the British lower class. The character proved popular enough to warrant its own annual publications. Although the writer and artist of Ally Sloper would change hands at various times, the Sloper remained popular up through World War I, when Britain’s changing class structure made the character no longer relevant. Even after Ally Sloper ceased appearing in print, the character's influence continued in his predecessor Andy Capp, and possibly in the stage persona of comedian W.C. Fields (who was familiar with the character).

By the 1890s, humor and caricature magazines were quite popular. Most of these, such as the humor magazine Puck, were produced in England, but U.S. magazines such as Harper’s and Truth soon began imitating the British format. Realizing the popularity of these publications, New York-based newspaper publishers began to produce their own Sunday “comic supplements.” This era of comic illustration is tentatively referred to as the Victorian Age of comics (although the mantle is something of a misnomer when applied to work as early as Topffer).

1894 saw the first published work by Truth artist Richard Felton Outcault. Outcault brought his comic strip featuring poor street children to the New York World, where it became a regular feature titled Hogan’s Alley. The comic strip, topically aimed at an adult demographic, became extremely popular and the strip’s star – the impish Yellow Kid – became widely merchandised for a wide variety of products. The World, owned by Joseph Pulitzer, continued to carry Hogan’s Alley (illustrated by another artist, George Luk) after Outcault was lured to William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal to produce the strip under the name McFadden’s Row of Flats. The ensuing furor over copyright disputes (a sideshow to a heated rivalry between the two publishers) gave rise to the phrase “Yellow Papers,” which soon became “Yellow Journalism” after emotions ran high over the controversial Spanish-American War.

In 1897, Dillingham & Co. (with permission from Hearst) produced The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats, a hardbound collection of Yellow Kid comic strip reprints. For many years, this collection was regarded as the first comic book, and it is this volume that in fact coined the term “comic book.” The popularity of The Yellow Kid proved that the American public was ready to embrace the idea of full-color comics, and is significant in that it demonstrated the marketability of such characters. The publication of this book heralds the beginning of what is called the Platinum Age of comic books.

For the next several years, newspaper comic strips grew in popularity and many newspaper strips, such as The Katzenjammer Kids, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Krazy Kat, Thimble Theater (better known as Popeye) and Mutt & Jeff, gained enough of a lasting and dedicated audience that these strips are still well known today. Many of these strips, such as George McManus’ Bringing Up Father (about a newly-wealthy Irish-American family) were inspired by the recent influx of European immigrants into the United States. The demographics of comics during this era broadened, and artists began to produce work aimed at both adult and juvenile audiences. This broadening of demographics included women as well: the 1920s saw a proliferation of comic strips featuring career girls, and strips such as Winnie Winkle [the Breadwinner], Polly and Her Pals, Fritzi Ritz,² and Tillie the Toiler did much to cement the image of the “flapper” in the public’s mind. Newspaper syndicates began to establish contracts with book publishers to reprint collections of their more popular strips. These early comic books were typically hardbound volumes and experimented with a large selection of dimensions and page counts. Although these comic books were generally single-issue publications (occasionally with one or more follow-up volumes if sales justified them), the first monthly comic book, Comic Monthly, was issued in January 1922. A dozen of these 8 ½" x 9", 10-cent comic books were published, each featuring solo adventures of popular King Features characters. 1932 saw the introduction of the Big Little Book, children's books about popular characters. The Big Little Books generally featured alternating pages of pictures and prose, and continued the hardcover format of the early comic books up through the 1950s.

1932 saw the beginning of the comic book as it appears in its modern form. Harry I. Wildenberg, a 45-year old sales manager for Eastern Color Printing in Waterbury, Connecticut, reinvented the comic book format when, realizing the popularity of the “funny pages,” he suggested that a comics tabloid would be a successful medium for advertising. In April 1933, Gulf Oil Company approved of Wildenberg’s idea and Eastern hired a few artists to create an original comic called Gulf Comic Weekly. The comic was 10 ½" x 15", and was advertised on national radio. Gulf Comic Weekly was soon changed to Gulf Funny Weekly, and distribution shot up to 3 million copies a week. The series ran as a tabloid until 1939 and lasted for 422 issues until May 23, 1941. Similar contracts followed, and Eastern soon published Standard Oil Comics. Later in the year, Wildenberg created the first modern format comic book when idly folding a newspaper in halves and then into quarters. It occurred to Wildenberg that the format was a convenient book size. In the spring of 1933, Eastern printed 1 million copies of the first modern-format comic book, the 32-page Funnies on Parade, as a promotion for Proctor & Gamble. Many of Eastern’s employees would later accomplish significant endeavors elsewhere in the comic book industry.

The comic supplements published by Eastern thus far had all been promotional giveaways. As a test to see if the public would be willing to pay for such publications, Eastern produced Famous Funnies: a Carnival of Comics, sold for 10 cents each; the comics sold out quickly. Despite the success of the book, interest from advertisers tapered off a bit when the advertisers expressed doubt that children would be willing to pay money for comic strip reprints.

Eastern Color Printing president George Janosik formed a 50/50 joint venture with Dell publisher George Delacorte to publish and market a comic book for retail sales. 40,000 copies of Famous Funnies Series One were distributed in chain stores, featuring reprints from the newspaper reprints featured in Eastern’s earlier books. The comic book sold out completely.

In May 1934, Eastern employee Harold Moore proposed a monthly comic book series. Famous Funnies #1 was then published; the title lost money at first, and George Delacorte sold his interest back to Eastern. Famous Funnies #2 marked the start of original material produced specifically for the book, and #3 began a run of Buck Rogers features. By issue #7, Famous Funnies began to turn a profit and other publishers soon rushed in to compete.

In 1935, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a former U.S. cavalry officer and pulp fiction publisher, founded National Periodical Publications. National’s first comic book, appropriately titled New Fun, became the first standard sized comic book to feature original material. It was also the first comic book to feature advertising, including the famous Charles Atlas bodybuilding advertisement that would remain a frequent feature of comic books for the next forty years. The same year saw Disney’s entry into the comic-book field with Mickey Mouse Magazine. 1936 saw a boom in comic book publishing, as several newspaper comic strip syndicates saw profitable possibilities in publishing their own comic books. In 1937, Wheeler-Nicholson formed a partnership with printer Harry Donnenfeld. National Periodical Publications changed its name to Detective Comics, Inc. (after one of its more successful comic book titles), but also went by the name National Periodicals. It is this company that eventually became known as DC Comics, the comics industry’s longest-surviving publisher.

1938 saw the true start of the Golden Age when two teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, approached DC³ about the publication of their character, Superman. With Superman's first appearance, in Action Comics #1, the comic book medium was changed forever.

Although Superman is widely considered to be the first “superhero,” it should be remembered that the idea of the superhero had its precedents. Pulp fiction characters such as Doc Savage, the Spider, and the Shadow had been around for at least a decade, and many of these pulps featured dashing characters with flashy names. The idea of costumed crime-fighters – the masked “mystery men” – was also popular in the pulps, and had already begun to make appearances in newspaper comic strips such as Lee Falk’s Phantom. And the concept of men with fantastic super powers had been a staple of both science fiction novels and science fiction pulps – such as Philip Wylie’s 1930 Gladiator, which largely served as an inspiration for Superman. Pulp fiction, in particular the “hero pulps,” were quite influential during the early Golden Age of comics, both artistically and in literary content, a fact overlooked by many comic historians.

What Superman did do was put the entire package together, and it turned out to be a winning combination. Superman’s early adventures featured him as a hero of social reform, crusading against causes such as unsafe working conditions and corrupt Wall Street practices. Superman’s popularity led to a radio show in 1939, and eventually Superman inspired other publishers to produce their own versions (often resulting in a lawsuit). DC soon saw fit to follow up a new sort of superhero – Bob Kane’s Batman. Batman was in many ways Superman’s opposite: he gained his powers through self-training rather than the “magic” of science, and his adventures had an altogether darker feel. The same year saw First Funnies, Inc. – the company that would soon change its name to Timely and eventually to Marvel⁴ – produce its first superheroes in the pages of promotional giveaway Motion Picture Funnies Weekly.

The next couple of years saw a boom in superheroes and comic book publication in general. Many new publishers, such as Fawcett and Quality, both in Connecticut, and Lev Gleason Publications and Fox Features Syndicate arose over the next decade, and nearly every one of them had at least a few superheroes among their line-up of titles. National/DC added more superheroes to their own line-up, combining several favorites into one team in All Star Comics. 1941 saw the introduction of comics’ most popular superheroine, Wonder Woman. Created by psychologist William Moulton Marston (also the inventor of the modern polygraph lie detector) specifically as a role model for female readers, Wonder Woman was and still is the quintessential icon of the female superhero.

If superheroes had lit a spark within the public imagination, World War II fanned those flames into a bonfire. May 1940 saw the first war comic, War Comics #1 from Dell Publications. But it was in March 1941 – nine months before Pearl Harbor – that Timely produced Captain America Comics #1. The creation of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Captain America was overseas fighting the Nazis when the reader could not. Superheroes suddenly became the very embodiment of national pride. When the United States entered the war, it set off a chain reaction within the comics publishing industry. Now, not only did every company need its own superhero, but it had to have its own patriotic superhero. Many superheroes, such as Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, went overseas to fight the Japanese and Nazi menace. Will Eisner’s war hero, Blackhawk, fought the Nazis with a sort of League of Nations of heavily-stereotyped Allied soldiers. Others, such as Superman and Fawcett’s Spy Smasher, fought the good fight on the home front against spies and other threats to national security.

The Golden Age superheroes and war comics inspired optimism and patriotism in their younger readers. Sidekicks, such as Batman’s Robin and Captain America’s Bucky, provided a sort of wish-fulfillment for younger readers. Kid teams also appeared, such as the Newsboy Legion, the Young Allies, and the Boy Commandos. Comic books were also a morale-booster to American soldiers themselves, and many G.I.’s followed comic book adventures while stationed abroad.

Not all of the Golden Age books dealt with the grim business of war. Humor books – the “bigfoot” school of cartooning, so called because of its roots in caricature – had remained in publication from the mid-1930s. These books appealed to an all-ages audience, and even through the 1940s held onto a humorous aesthetic grounded in vaudeville. 1941 saw the introduction of the “teen humor” book when Archie Andrews was introduced in MLJ Magazines’ Pep Comics #22. Archie was successful enough to spawn a host of imitations and was so popular that MLJ eventually changed its name to Archie Publications.

Humor was also to be found in the form of “funny animal” books. These humor books were written and drawn in imitation of the style of Disney cartoons and Bugs Bunny’s “Merrie Melodies.” Humorous, anthropomorphic animals were nothing new to comic books, but these books were written to a generation familiar with animated antics, and often included seasoned animators among their artistic staff. Dell Comics came to specialize in the funny animal genre, featuring the debut of Walt Kelley’s creation Pogo in the pages of Animal Comics and Donald Duck comics by the internationally renowned artist/writer Carl Barks. Harvey Comics, publisher of Baby Huey, Richie Rich, and other kid-friendly favorites, debuted in 1941.

Other popular genres appealed to older readers. In 1938, Fiction House – a publisher of pulp magazines – saw comic books as the wave of the future and commissioned the Will Eisner/Jerry Iger shop⁵ to produce Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Sheena – who had premiered a year earlier in a British publication – was enormously popular and produced a wide selection of “jungle girls” among other publishers. Fiction House never strayed far from its pulp roots, and marketed their books towards the same older, male audience that followed their pulp magazines. But the “jungle girls” and other genres featuring “good girl” art – characterized by buxom, often scantily-clad damsels in distress – began to put comic books under scrutiny by parents and educators who regarded comic books as a children’s medium.

Another sensationalist genre that began to arrive on the comics scene was the crime stories. Also a frequent venue for “good girl” art, these comics – such as Lev Gleason’s Crime Does Not Pay – often presented a more realistic (if exploitative) depiction of crime than the superhero books did. The crime books were criticized for their glorification of crime and graphic depiction of violence. This subject matter too was an echo of what was popular in the pulps, and the pulps themselves began to fall under opposition by legislators and community leaders.

Partly in response to such criticisms, and partly in response to the popular media’s dismissal of comic books as worthless trash (as well as some genuine efforts to provide quality educational material for young readers), comic book publishers began to produce educational comic books. Often, publishers would collaborate with (or at least claim to collaborate with) known educators, historians, and child psychologists. Some of these comic books, such as True Comics, highlighted the adventures of real-world role models such as Winston Churchill and Harry Houdini. Many of these publications featured comic book adaptations of literary classics. Comic adaptations of the classics had been attempted early on by Major Nicholson, but in 1941 Albert Kanter published Classic Comics, beginning with an adaptation of The Three Musketeers. Classic Comics, published by the Gilberton Company, grew into the most successful of the educational comic books,⁶ Classics Illustrated, which would remain in publication through the 1960s. In 1942, Maxwell C. Gaines – who had assisted in the publication of both Famous Funnies and Superman – left DC (where he was working at the time) to form his own publishing company, Educational Comics (EC) which produced Picture Stories from the Bible.

As the war dragged on, paper shortages began to limit the expansion of the comic book industry. Comic book characters did their part for the war effort by urging readers to buy war stamps, invest in war bonds, and to recycle paper. Ironically, these paper drives resulted in the destruction of many comic books, contributing to the rarity of Golden Age books today.

By the time the war ended, superheroes found themselves with relatively little to do. Superhero titles began to be eclipsed by other genres; those superheroes that did remain switched their focus to fighting underworld crime within the U.S., and fighting Communists. The Western and crime genres in particular gained ground during the post-Golden Age period. Science fiction became a popular subject as well, and the few new superheroes that emerged during this era commonly displayed a fascination with atomic power. For this reason, the post-World War II era is sometimes referred to as the Atomic Age, or simply Atom Age.

The post-War years also saw an effort by publishers to market towards girls. Cartoony humor comics featured female protagonists such as Little Lulu, Little Lotta, Little Audrey, and Little Dot. In 1947, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (the same team that created Captain America) produced the first romance comic book, My Date Comics. Although the series only lasted four issues, their next attempt – Young Romance Comics – was a hit and ran for 29 years.

In 1947, Maxwell Gaines (of EC Comics) died in a freak boating accident and his son William inherited the company. Desperate to keep up with the competition, William Gaines changed the name and the direction of EC’s comics line from Educational Comics to Entertaining Comics. This new line of comics prominently featured luridly drawn horror and crime stories, as well as science fiction and war tales. The latter of the two were especially well-drawn and well-written, frequently dealing with controversial topics such as the evils of racism or the meaninglessness of war. The cynical depiction of the Korean War by EC and its competitors presented a particularly sharp contrast to the optimism shown by the industry in its portrayal of World War II. EC’s biting anti-establishment satire became extremely popular and attracted many imitators; unfortunately, it was EC’s lurid and intentionally shocking graphic style that brought it attention by the popular media.

In 1953, the anti-comics sentiment that had been growing since the 1940s reached a critical level, largely thanks to a man named Frederic Wertham. Wertham was a psychologist who worked with troubled youths. Noticing that all of the “delinquents” that he treated enjoyed reading comic books, Wertham wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent, which brought national attention. Wertham argued that comic books were responsible for the corruption of America’s youth, and insisted that they debased American culture. Despite the fact that Wertham’s arguments were often illogical,⁷ the exploitative imagery shown in Seduction of the Innocent struck a chord with the public. In 1954, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, led by Senator Estes Kefauver, undertook an investigation of comic books.

The investigation was a public relations disaster for the comic book publishing industry. Gaines, known for his sarcastic and irreverent humor, did little to endear himself to the Senate committee, which ordered that some method of regulation be established to control the content of comic books. On October 26, 1954, the Comics Magazine Association of America established the Comics Code Authority. The Comics Code created extreme restrictions on content: forbidden was any mention of drug use, horror monsters such as zombies or vampires, sexual activities, profanity, etc. Divorce was to be depicted as unacceptable, and authority figures were only to be presented in a positive light. The Comics Code officials also banned many words from a comic book’s title: words such as “crime,” “horror,” and “terror,” which not coincidentally figured prominently in the EC line. EC refused to give in to the Code and launched a last-ditch line of “New Direction” comics, but the series failed miserably. Disgusted, Gaines converted EC’s remaining title, the satirical Mad, into a magazine format and discontinued the rest of EC’s comic books.

Wertham regarded self-regulation as a sham, but the restrictive Comics Code changed the content of comic books overnight. Horror and crime comics became virtually extinct. Westerns had fewer gunfights and romance books didn’t have much romance. Many publishers were forced out of the business, and many artists and writers had to quit their trade due to economic hardship. Gilberton (of Classics Illustrated) and Dell (publisher of Disney comics) were just about the only publishers left unscathed. Seemingly locked out of other genres, publishers once again looked to superheroes.

The establishment of the Comics Code Authority and the return of the superheroes marks the beginning of what is referred to as the Silver Age, occasionally termed the Second Heroic Age. The exact beginning of the Silver Age is a point of debate amongst comics scholars. Some believe it to be the debut of DC’s Captain Comet (in Strange Adventures #9, 1951) or Martian Manhunter (Detective Comics #225, 1955). These heroes were the first representatives of the Silver Age breed of superhero: science-fiction superheroes with a heavy emphasis on outer-space adventures. But the more commonly held opinion is that the Silver Age began in 1956 with the DC’s publication of Showcase #4, featuring a new version version of one of DC’s popular Golden Age heroes, the Flash. Editor Julius Schwartz authorized new versions of the majority of DC's flagship characters (perennial favorites Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman were the exceptions) to be created. These heroes possessed more fantastic powers, new and sleeker costumes, and new characters (often employed in some scientific profession) bearing the mantles of the Golden Age heroes. Thanks largely to Schwartz, DC experienced a creative renaissance at a time when many other companies were forced out of business. Even Atlas, DC’s closest surviving competitor, arranged a deal for their comic books to be distributed through DC’s newsstand distribution system. During these years, DC bought up many properties formerly owned by now-bankrupt publishers, including titles previously owned by Fawcett and Quality.

Because of the restrictions imposed by the Comics Code, the superhero comic books of the Silver Age became more divorced in content from reality.⁸ Because of the controversy regarding racial minorities that was raised during the senate hearings, the industry’s response was to omit non-Caucasian characters entirely: DC’s universe may have expanded to the stars, but that universe remained “whites only.” Science fiction remained a safe, non-political outlet for superheroes (and space heroes, such as featured in DC’s Challengers of the Unknown and Adam Strange) to confront threats without having to risk exploring real-world issues. Even war titles began to separate themselves from the real world, and G.I.’s were soon depicted battling space aliens and dinosaurs.

Science fiction books flourished, for the most part predicting a rosy future, although certain publications such as the flourishing genre of Godzilla-inspired “monster books” may have indicated a growing anxiety about technology and nuclear power. Reflecting the 1950s’ fascination with technology, 3D comics (viewable through specialized anaglyphic glasses) became a brief fad.

The tone of the early Silver Age books was that of lighthearted, goofy fun. Another DC editor, Mort Weisinger, turned Superman into a marketing juggernaut in the late 1950s by his innovative method of marketing research. “Uncle Mort” would invite the neighborhood kids over to his house, give them comics to read, and then ask them what they would like to see Superman doing. The resulting comic books were often illogical and loaded with non-sequiturs – but they responded directly to children’s concerns, and the kids loved them. Superman became more and more powerful (both in the comics and as a marketing force) and a mythos was built up around the character, including Supergirl, Superboy, Super pets, multiple varieties of Kryptonite, and dozens of other story elements. Superman’s supporting cast members were spun off into their own comic books, as were many features from DC’s popular title Showcase.

In 1961, the tone in which comic books were written was changed permanently when Stan Lee, an editor for Marvel Comics, wrote Fantastic Four #1. The Fantastic Four were unlike any other team of superheroes seen before: they were a family, complete with in-family bickering and rivalries. The concept of heroes with human flaws became a trademark of Marvel Comics, and Marvel followed up the next year with The Amazing Spider-Man (a teenager with normal teenage problems such as schoolwork and girls) and The Hulk (a meek scientist with anger management problems). Marvel’s heroes placed an emphasis on the personalities beneath the costumes, and these new comic books began to appeal to an older age group.

Marvel Comics soon grew popular enough to become serious competition for DC, and other companies began to jump back onto the superhero bandwagon. Charlton, a publisher known more for its Westerns, science fiction, and war comics up to this point, re-vamped its superheroes Captain Atom and the Blue Beetle. A new company, Tower Comics, published Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and several other superhero titles. Even Archie Comics got into the act with their own group of superheroes, the Mighty Crusaders.

Despite the psychological outlook pioneered by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, by the late 1960s comic books were still being written as lighthearted and wholesome. A pool of aging writers continued to make its appeal to youth culture, and the result – as with DC’s Teen Titans – was often “hip” dialogue that was stilted and even ludicrous. A new generation of young adults was growing up, with new concerns and a new subculture, and by the late 1960s the underground comics, or comix, scene was in full swing. The idea of “underground comics” was nothing new – “Tijuana Bibles” had flourished from the 1920s to 1940s. But these new comix dealt with the youth counterculture’s concerns (such as sex, drugs, and the Vietnam War) with an unprecedented political consciousness and anti-establishment fervor. The underground movement had precedents as early as 1962 (Foolbert Sturgeon’s Adventures of Jesus) and 1964 (Jack Jackson’s God Nose), but it was the late 60s – the height of the “hippy era” – that saw publication of the best-known of the underground comix. Artistically, the underground books owed much to psychedelia and were generally distributed through “head shops,” music stores, and other venues frequented by the late 60s counterculture. The artistic style of the underground comic books would eventually become an influence on later generations of artists: rather than ending abruptly, the underground movement faded away by the mid-70s, but the underground style would later influence the small publishers of the 1980s and eventually work its way into the mainstream.

The psychedelia of the sixties counterculture influenced mainstream publications, too. In the 1966 Fantastic Four #48, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the concept of “God as a super-villain” in the form of Galactus (complete with his Christ-like herald, the Silver Surfer). Artists such as Jim Steranko drew upon the surrealist work of Salvador Dali and Man Ray to incorporate photo-collage and other experimental techniques. Magical heroes such as Marvel’s Doctor Strange incorporated elements of Eastern mysticism.

By 1970, comic books – now making an attempt to target an older and wiser demographic – began to regain social relevancy. Marvel’s Iron Man was a technology-based superhero with his origin based in the Vietnam War and links to the military techno-industrial complex. DC’s Wonder Woman and Marvel’s Nick Fury – both heroes with their origins in the Golden Age – were reworked as Cold War super-spies (inspired by the television show The Avengers and the popular James Bond movies, respectively). Hawk & Dove, a DC creation that debuted in 1967, featured a team composed of two brothers, one a political conservative and one a peace-loving liberal.

Despite this return to relevance, the Vietnam War was one area of subject matter that mainstream publishers dealt with cautiously. Many Vietnam War-related stories chose to address the domestic movement for peace (as in “Crisis on Campus,” a story from Amazing Spider-Man #68) rather than the violence overseas. Where the war was depicted, American soldiers were almost universally shown to be brave and heroic. Attempts to depict the war in the same fashion that comic books had depicted World War II proved falsely optimistic at best (as in Dell’s Jungle War Stories), and offensive at worst (as in Lightning Comics’ much-maligned 1967 Tod Holton, Super Green Beret). The bitterness of the American conflict in Vietnam may have soured the public’s taste for wartime drama, and might be considered to have been the death of the war comic as a popular genre. After the Vietnam War began to receive negative attention from the press, nostalgic World War II comics, with their clearly defined heroes and villains (often with superheroes thrown in for good measure) became the closest that the comic book industry would get to publishing any sort of “war comics.” It would not be until the late 1980s that the comic book industry would begin to examine the Vietnam War honestly.

No two scholars can seem to agree upon an exact event which heralded the end of the Silver Age, but many reckon The Amazing Spiderman issues #96-98 (1971) to be one sign that this era had come to an end. These issues told an anti-drug story, and were released by Marvel Comics without the seal of approval of the Comics Code, as they depicted actual drug use. DC produced their own anti-drug tale in Green Lantern/Green Arrow⁹ #61 (by writer Denny O’Neal and artist Neal Adams), when Green Arrow’s sidekick, Speedy, was revealed to be a drug addict.

Along with the comic industry’s new exploration of social relevance came the gradual return of minority characters. In 1970, DC’s Green Lantern was confronted with the problem of racism and set off on a quest with his partner, Green Arrow, to discover America; Green Lantern Hal Jordan would eventually choose an African American man to become his successor. A 1970 Superman comic featured Superman’s girlfriend Lois Lane “turning herself black” for a day. Marvel’s X-Men, which debuted in 1963 as a parable about racism and the struggle of minorities, was revamped in 1975 to feature a new team of multicultural heroes. Minority characters themselves finally achieved hero status in the likes of the Black Panther, Black Lightning, and the Falcon. Even Archie comics touched upon racism and other socially conscious issues, and included new minority characters amongst the Riverdale gang. In 1972, Marvel produced its first title featuring an African-American lead character, Luke Cage: Hero for Hire. Despite minority characters’ increased status in comic books, such characters were still subject to stereotyping: like many stories featuring African-American characters at the time, Luke Cage drew heavily upon the blaxploitation genre of film. Asian characters also began to reappear in comic books, such as Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu (Marvel, first appearance 1973). Boosted by the popularity of the newly-imported Bruce Lee films, Asian characters were almost exclusively martial artists.

Included in the push for increased role of minorities was the increased role of female characters. Marvel comics featured feminist characters such as Ms. Marvel and Valkyrie; DC’s Wonder Woman appeared on the cover of Ms. Magazine. Even other genres, such as the dwindling romance comics, incorporated “women’s lib” into many story lines. Like many other aspects of the socially conscious movement, comics’ approach to feminism was frequently heavy-handed.

The success of the socially conscious comic books, particularly the anti-drug stories, made publishers realize that the Comics Code was too restrictive. In 1972, the Comics Code was rewritten with more relaxed standards. Comic book publishers took advantage of this to re-introduce horror comics. In 1965, Warren Publications debuted its own line of horror comics, published in a black and white magazine format to escape the restrictions of the Comics Code. The loosening of the Comics Code inspired Marvel to produce its own horror-themed comic magazines, and in 1972 produced the first of their many horror comic books, Werewolf by Night. DC and Charlton soon produced their own horror comics.

Mainstream publishers, looking for new ground to cover, experimented with new genres. Swords-and-sorcery fantasy titles enjoyed brief success, such as Marvel’s appropriation of Conan the Barbarian. Other titles, such as Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck (also published by Marvel) defied categorization into any one genre.

Whatever the exact date one may choose as the end point of the Silver Age, it is universally acknowledged that by the mid-1970s, the Silver Age had ended and the Bronze Age was well underway.¹⁰ During the mid- and late 1970s, most of the first generation of comic book artists had retired, and the remaining first- and second-generation artists shuffled back and forth among publishers. By the late 1970s, Marvel Comics had eclipsed DC as the top publisher, and many of the secondary publishers dwindled away. The late 1970s also saw many publishers producing more licensed properties than ever since the 1930s, resulting in many titles based upon movies, television shows, and toys.

The 1970s also saw the increased influence of comics’ fan base as a controlling voice within the industry. Fanzines and comic book conventions emerged, and the publication of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide provided a pricing standard for dealers and collectors. As newsstand sales dwindled, many publishers focused on direct sales distribution, catering to the comic book specialty shops that had sprung up all over the country. As a result of catering to a dwindling fan base, comic books’ stories became increasingly self-referential, and by 1980, superheroes were the main genre in publication by a vast percentage.

As the two remaining large-scale publishers – Marvel and DC – began to face financial difficulties, the early 1980s saw the gradual introduction of a number of smaller publishers. Beginning with 1977’s Cerebus the Aardvark by David Sim (Aardvark-Vanaheim Press) and Wendy Pini’s Elfquest (WaRP Graphics), publishers such as Eclipse, Pacific, and First Comics began to solicit small print runs directly to comic book shops, bypassing the newsstand distribution system entirely. These early entries into the world of self-publishing were artistically fresh and conceptually innovative, and were regarded by some as a welcome change from the now-stagnating genre of super-heroics. In 1980, underground artist Art Spiegelman and editor Francoise Mouly published Raw. Raw was a large format, avant-garde collaboration between European and American artists; it sought to explore serious subject matter and experiment with the comic book medium as a legitimate artistic form, a far cry from the youth-oriented titles that filled the public’s perception of comic books.

1984 kicked off a second wave of self-publishing and small press ventures when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Mirage Press. Despite the fact that the Ninja Turtles would eventually become a youth-oriented media and merchandising phenomenon, the Ninja Turtles in their original conception were a dark parody of all that the comic book industry had become, filled with ridiculous characters and grim posturing. Initially a cheaply produced and poorly distributed comic book that became a smash success, the Turtles served as an inspiration for many would-be comic book publishers as proof that one did not need to be DC or Marvel to succeed. The Ninja Turtles spawned a new wave of self-publishing, as well as a fair share of cheap imitations.

By the mid-1980s, the black-and-white “good versus evil” worldview presented by superhero comic books would no longer be acceptable with the general comic book fan base. New, darker heroes, such as Marvel’s Punisher, began to emerge, and older heroes such as Batman and Wolverine were written with a darker interpretation. These “grim and gritty” heroes reflected the public’s anxiety about urban crime, and their violent, “any means necessary” solutions to crime fighting often thrust them into the realm of moral ambiguity. The dark and violent atmosphere of this “Dark Age” came was popularized even further by Frank Miller’s rendition of Daredevil for Marvel Comics, and Miller’s classic miniseries Batman: the Dark Knight Returns for DC in 1986.

Publishers embraced the dark side even to the point of killing off classic characters. In 1985 DC “cleaned house” by merging their system of various fictional universes into one big universe, in the company-wide crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, which culminated in the death of two Silver Age characters, the Flash and Supergirl.¹¹ In 1988, Batman readers participated in a poll to decide whether Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, or his sidekick Robin, should be killed off. Robin “won,” and was murdered, although a new character took up the Robin identity shortly afterwards.

Occasionally, the issue of hero versus villain would disappear completely: the introspective approach to characters pioneered by Stan Lee had progressed to the point of angst (exemplified by writer Chris Claremont's wordy rendition of the X-Men). It became rare for comic book stories to become encapsulated within a single issue. Rather, stories often would have no clear beginning or end; they would continue, soap-opera style, from one issue to the next. Naturally, this was a savvy marketing technique to keep the audience reading, but it also provided new narrative possibilities to writers as they had the freedom to stretch a single storyline, or “arc,” over many issues.

The mid 1980s saw the beginnings of a deconstructionist period (my own term, although I have seen it used elsewhere) in the superhero genre. Writers began to seriously examine the elements of the superhero story, and began to closely look at the way those elements functioned in a narrative context. In addition to the aforementioned Dark Knight Returns (which explored the conceptual evolution of various elements of the Batman mythos), 1986 saw the publication by DC of Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ Watchmen. Watchmen was a multi-layered story in which writer Moore (expanding on the techniques he developed through his British-published series Marvelman) explored virtually every aspect of the superhero tale. Moore boldly experimented with the story’s narrative structure, exposing gaps in the genre's logic, and following up on the often-overlooked consequences of characters’ actions. Moore would later follow up Watchmen with similar attempts in work such as V for Vendetta and Swamp Thing; writer Grant Morrision later worked towards the same ends with his rendition of Silver Age characters Doom Patrol and Animal Man. This mature, literary approach to the content of comic books – which often bent the context of the superhero genre to the breaking point – paved the way for DC’s Vertigo imprint of artistically experimental comics. At worst, such comics were dismissed as pretentious and “goth,” but at best they were complex and innovative. In 1990, Neil Gaiman’s deconstructionist work, Sandman, won a World Fantasy Award in the category of Best Short Story.

1986 – a banner year for the comic medium – saw the publication of yet another landmark publication, Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Maus was a two-volume set of graphic novels depicting Spiegelman's father’s experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Like Moore does with Watchmen, Spiegelman takes the vernacular language of comic books – in this case, the anthropomorphism of the “funny animal” comic books – and turns it on its ear by twisting the iconography into an Orwellian visual metaphor. Also in common with Watchmen is the fact that Spiegelman’s tale works on multiple levels: Maus is not only the riveting tale of one man’s experience as a prisoner of the Nazi concentration camps, but it is also the story of the loving (if conflict-ridden) relationship between father and son. In 1992, Maus became the only comic narrative to ever win a Pulitzer Prize, and the public at large finally began to realize that comic books could be serious literature. In the literary world, similarly postmodern treatments were given to comic book properties by Jay Cantor to George Herriman’s Krazy Kat (Krazy Kat: A Novel in Five Panels, 1987) and Frederic Tuten to Herge’s Tintin (Tintin in the New World: A Romance, 1993).

In the early 1990s, creators’ rights became an important issue in the comic book industry. The question of royalties first received attention in 1978, when Superman’s creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, sued DC to gain some compensation for what DC had turned into a blockbuster property. By 1988, DC – under pressure from its artists and writers – initiated a new policy of allowing creators of new characters to retain ownership of them (Marvel responded by initiating their own creator-owned imprint, Epic). Despite this advance, the “Big Two” still kept tight creative control over their characters. Fed up with such restrictions, in April 1992 a group of top artists from DC and Marvel changed the comic book industry by forming their own company, Image Comics. Image functioned as a coalition of creator-owned imprints: artists and writers (frequently the same person in this case) would receive the lion’s share of the profits, and would retain both ownership and creative control over their creations. Image was an overnight hit, to the extent that many people consider 1992 to be the start of the “Image Age” of comics.

The name "Image" was an apt one, as these new comic books relied heavily upon art. Being primarily the creations of artists (as opposed to writers), Image books soon became known for their "house style,"¹² consisting of frequent “splash pages” (comic book panels occupying an entire page), flashy and complex page layouts, and dynamic, stylized figures. Image also became known for the introduction of the “bad girls” school of art. Fueled by a 1989 revision of the Comics Code, the bad girls were a telling reflection of the “good girls” of four decades earlier. Image heroines were violent, scantily clad, and often portrayed in cheesecake poses. As the flashy style of early 90s' Image books grew in popularity, other publishers began to imitate them – including top publishers DC and Marvel, whose sales figures started to be threatened by Image by the middle of the decade.

Marvel and DC responded to the success of Image with their own brand of glitz, ushering in what some refer to as a “Gimmick Age.” Publishers consciously imitated the eye-popping layouts and military-inspired character designs popularized by Image. Writing style became increasingly darker, to the point where it became difficult to distinguish heroes from villains (leading some to refer to this period as the “Dark Age”). But on top of that, publishers across the board, desperate to increase flagging sales, began to introduce a wide range of marketing gimmicks to sell their books. Cover variants, books sold bagged with trading cards and posters, holographic covers, foil covers,¹³ and embossed covers were just a few techniques employed by publishers to get their own slice of an ever-dwindling pie.

Many of these gimmicks – such as crazy numbering schemes and “rebooting” long-standing series from issue number one – catered to the speculator market. Speculators (i.e., investors) were comic book collectors who collected and sold comic books (often without even reading them) based upon the books’ perceived future value. Speculation was nothing new (beginning with the 1976 poorly distributed Howard the Duck #1) but the new explosion of “zero issues,” “number one issues,” and “Collector’s Editions” created a false demand. By the late 1990s, the speculator boom had gone bust, which was partly responsible for the comic book industry’s decline into financial ruin (from which it is still recovering), culminating in Marvel being into Chapter 11 in 1996 (from which they have since recovered).

Despite Image Comics’ flashy artistic style and, according to critics, shallow writing, Image did much to legitimize independent comics. The first wave of small-press publishers introduced in the early 80’s had largely disappeared, but were replaced by a new crop of publishers in the mid-90s. New publishers such as Dark Horse Publishing, Slave Labor Graphics, and scores of independent publishers produced work with higher production values than the first wave of small-press publishers from ten years earlier. Whereas the first wave of small publishers was for the most part fairly derivative of the superhero-oriented work produced by Marvel and DC, the indie scene was considerably more diverse in subject matter, and attracted artists from a wide variety of backgrounds.

In 1993, comic book veterans Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan founded Milestone Media, Inc. Gathering together a group of minority artists and writers Milestone set out to produce a series of superhero comic book titles featuring a multi-cultural cast of characters. The Milestone characters were not stereotypes, although they did play with heroic archetypes for narrative effect. Nor did the Milestone books carry a political agenda. Although topical issues were examined within the books frequently, the Milestone creative team endeavored to present fresh, entertaining stories as a primary goal. The Milestone books were also unique in that they promoted intellect and communication over physical might, and many readers regarded Milestone as a sort of antidote to the blaxploitation heroes that had come before. Milestone, whose properties were also creator-owned, had a unique agreement with DC Comics in that Milestone comics would be distributed through DC, but would remain separate as a corporate entity. Although only one Milestone title remains in publication today (Static Shock, boosted in popularity by a Saturday-morning cartoon), the books were critically acclaimed and the properties remain intact.

In addition to the independent publishers, the American comic book art form was further diversified by the continued globalization of the comic book medium. Comic books in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere had undergone an evolution parallel to American comics over the past century. American comics frequently influenced the development of foreign publications, but by the mid-1990s, the reverse was beginning to be true. In 1978, the comic magazine Heavy Metal first introduced American audiences to the avant-garde work of European comics artists, and with the 1980s there began a gradual influx of British talents into the American industry, bringing with them their own artistic sensibilities. But it has been Japanese manga (comic books) and anime¹⁴ (animation) that has had the greatest foreign impact on American comic books in recent years. In 1988, Marvel Comics’ Epic imprint reprinted the Japanese classic, Akira. By the mid-1990s, manga imports were available in most comic book shops, often filling niche markets that the American industry had not explored. Today, many American artists (such as Joe Madureira of Battle Chasers) have responded by bringing a distinctly manga-inspired artistic style to American comics, and American publishers are beginning to see possibilities in publishing their own manga.

If the 1980s saw the development of a deconstructionist movement in comic books, by the mid-1990s there was evolving a reconstructionist movement (also an unofficial term). Whereas the deconstructionist books sought to pick apart the comic book medium to see what makes it tick, the reconstructionist books picked up the pieces and put them back together in fun, smartly-written comic books that carried an air of optimism and a “retro” sensibility.¹⁵ Although precursors could be found as early as 1984 in Scott McCloud's Zot!, it was Kurt Busiek’s Marvels (Marvel, 1994) – a nostalgic yet complex look at Marvel’s fictional universe through the eyes of the common man – that truly kicked off the movement. Marvel and DC both responded in their mainstream titles by a “back-to-basics” approach to their flagship characters. The reconstructionist books employed some of the more positive developments in writing that had evolved in the past two decades, but also carried with them a nostalgia for the Silver Age, and at times an almost tongue-in-cheek sense of self-awareness.

As in virtually all aspects of modern life, the Digital Age has resulted in great changes for the comic book industry. The Internet and imaging technologies have affected virtually every aspect of the industry. One such aspect to be changed is in the production of comic books themselves. Early experiments with computer-generated artwork began in the mid-1980s, but were at first rather clumsy and pixilated. Today however, many artists use computers in a variety of ways. Some artists choose to enhance already-existing artwork (such as Richard Isanove’s digital coloring). Some artists create digital work that is indistinguishable from hand-created artwork (such as Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics). Others use imaging programs to create digital collages that could only be created using a computer (artists such as Jose Villarubia). This has been a boon for self-publishers: the proliferation of home computers has allowed for shortcuts in processes such as lettering, inking, and coloring.

The Internet’s facilitation of communication has been utilized by dealers, professionals (and aspiring ones), and fans. Usenet discussion groups related to comics have been in existence since the mid-80s; today newsgroups are supplemented by thousands of fan sites, bulletin boards, and publisher web sites. This capacity for communication has benefited the world of comic book readership, as it allows for scholars and readers with similar interests – often widely dispersed geographically – to discuss and review comics. The immediacy of the digital medium is also used effectively, as comics reviews are often posted online as soon as a particular issue is made available (or even earlier, as dealers often receive advance copies). Online mail-order catalogues offer collectors the opportunity to acquire hard-to-find or poorly-distributed items, and eliminate the obstacle of distance. Both comic professionals and publishers are able to use the Internet for promotional purposes, and are able to get immediate feedback from their readers. Many specialized comic book-related organizations (for example, Friends of Lulu, an organization devoted to the promotion of women in the industry) are able to both reach a wider audience and to focus their attention on audiences with a niche interest.

But perhaps the most exciting development of the comic art form in the past decade has been the use of the Internet as an artistic medium itself. The World Wide Web offers new possibilities to artists that were previously unavailable when confined to the printed page. The use of the Internet as a venue for web comics is still developing, as artists continually try new ways to use the medium, and digital technology progresses. Scott McCloud has written much about this in his book Reinventing Comics, and on his web site.

Today, the comic book industry is in a frustrating state of affairs. In this author’s opinion, there has never been as much diversity and talent available to the industry. Yet, paradoxically, comic book sales remain low, and the mainstream publishing industry remains choked by a repetitive glut of superheroes. The mainstream American media continues to treat comic books as juvenalia, although fair treatment as an artistic medium has been gaining – slowly but steadily – for the past two decades. Many people in recent years have predicted the “death of the industry” in the near future. But it is difficult to kill an artistic medium. The format for publication may change over time,¹⁶ but “comics,” as an art form, will continue on.

Endnotes

¹The best-known example of Brownies merchandizing was Kodak’s “Brownie camera,” which was popular enough to outlive the Brownies cartoons themselves.

²Which later became the venerable Nancy.

³To avoid confusion, “DC” will be used from here on when discussing National Periodicals, Detective Comics, Inc., and other incarnations of DC Comics.

⁴Marvel Comics has, over the years, gone by no fewer than 15 different names. For the purposes of this discussion, the following terms will be used: “Timely” refers roughly to “Marvel’s” incarnation of the 1940s; “Atlas” refers to Marvel publications of the 1950s, and “Marvel” or “Marvel Comics” refers to Marvel publications beginning with Fantastic Four #1 (q.v.) onwards.

⁵A company that produced work-for-hire comic features for a variety of publishers. There were a handful of other such companies as well, most notably the studio of Harry “A” Chesler.

⁶Although some have speculated that the real reason for the title’s popularity was due to children who would read the comic book for book reports in lieu of actually reading the original material.

⁷Much has been written about Wertham and Seduction of the Innocent; see Amy Nyberg’s book Seal of Approval. Although some of Wertham's accusations were ludicrous (such as his insistence that Superman was a fascist and that Batman and Robin promoted homosexuality), it should be remembered that some of Wertham’s arguments – such as criticizing the portrayal of racial minorities – did carry weight, a fact often overlooked by Wertham’s opponents.

⁸Outwardly, at least – subtext is another matter.

⁹Another conservative/liberal pairing.

¹⁰The taxonomy of comic book history into “ages” is in itself an interesting and complex matter. Beginning with the end of the Silver Age, there is much controversy over how to divide the years following the Silver Age, and how many ages have followed since then. Some scholars place the entirety of comics history after the early 70s under the label of the Modern Age. I will try to include all variations from this point on. The Overstreet Price Guide lists the Bronze Age as lasting approximately from 1970 to 1980 and the Modern Age as 1980 to the present, but readers should be aware that there is no accepted standard of terminology as of yet.

¹¹Crisis… was initiated partly in response to Marvel’s company-wide crossover, Secret Wars. These crossovers – which required that a reader buy multiple issues to get the complete story – eventually became popular enough with publishers that they are now a fairly regular occurrence.

¹²Ironic, considering that Image promoted the individuality of the artist. To be fair, Image has since diversified its comic book line and shed itself of its “bad girls” image for the most part – although various other publishers such as Chaos! Comics and Harris Publications have taken up where Image left off.

¹³I have heard this era also referred to as the “Chrome Age” or “Chromium Age,” after the chromium covers so prevalent at the time.

¹⁴Pronounced “a'-ni-may;” this term is now preferable to the once-used “Japanimation.”

¹⁵Some people have billed this era as the “Retro Age;” others consider it to be the beginning of the modern age.

¹⁶In addition to the aforementioned web comics, there is a publishing trend towards trade paperbacks (collected volumes of previously published comic books), prestige format books (square-bound publications lengthier than a comic book, often with higher production values) and graphic novels. Some publishers have also experimented with direct-to-CD ROM comics; this format has not been well-received, but has enjoyed some success (as have microforms) as a means of preserving older comic books.