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edit: Whoops, this was supposed to be in the chat thread, sorry
Benito Cereno fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 18:14
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Mr. Maltose posted:Wasn't it Benito Cereno who said that a good mark was when Jack Kirby took over Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen? That's Chris Sims's preferred cut-off point, but it's largely a symbolic one: the Silver Age-y-est character is radically revamped for a new generation. My preferred milestone is the revision of the Comics Code in 1971, as this changes the tenor of superhero comics to include elements of horror and social commentary, two hallmarks of the Bronze Age. But, as CapnAndy says, there are no clear cutoff points. It's not a thing where it's like, "Welp, guess we're in a new age of comics now" and suddenly everything is stylistically different. Even the Golden Age/Silver Age transition isn't that clear-cut: while Showcase #4 is considered the kick-off of the Silver Age, there were new, Silver Age-style stories being told with the Martian Manhunter a few years before Barry Allen Flash showed up, for example. I know this comes up a lot, so one more time, here is a basic breakdown of the ages, keeping in mind that these are just generally agreed upon terms that don't actually mean anything. It's just shorthand jargon. Also, these eras only refer to superhero comics, generally speaking. 1) Golden Age (1938-early 1950s): from the first appearance of Superman, the fledgling genre finds its feet. Stories are often rough, art crude. Once WWII starts, superheroes explode and they're all slapping Japs. Major influences are the pulps. 2) Silver Age (mid-1950s-early 1970s): In the postwar era, superheroes lost their luster and a large percentage of the audience (i.e. GIs overseas), so there is a period between the Golden and Silver Ages where not much is happening with heroes, and most books get cancelled other than Superman and Batman--OR the books transition to genres that were more popular at the time, such as Captain America becoming a horror book, for example. But in the mid-1950s, those popular genres--crime, horror, and so on--get banned by the Comics Code when Congress flips its poo poo. So: some clever editors decide to reintroduce superheroes, but with a sci-fi twist to make them relevant to the Atomic Age. What we think of as Marvel Comics begins in this era, adding the ideas of bickering teammates and distinct character voices to the mix. 3) Bronze Age (early 1970s-mid-1980s): A number of things change: the CCA is revised to allow horror elements back in, Kirby moves to DC, Stan Lee is promoted to publisher and the writing at Marvel gets handed to a bunch of youngbloods, comics develop a social conscience, readership ages. All this contributes to a very 70s kind of vibe, with kung fu and exploitation everywhere. On the flipside, you have the first generation of new writers who grew up with comics coming in, and so nerd-style continuity gets real big. And those are the only three that are firmly agreed on. However, you'll notice each era is about fifteen years, so, although this kind of stuff is generally determined in retrospect by historians etc, we can say we are probably three eras removed from the Bronze Age. While nothing is named, I would suggest: 4) mid-1980s-late 1990s: This is the era of the direct market, creator ownership, black and white boom, speculator boom, comics' attempts at being taken seriously as literature, and comics learning the wrong lessons from those attempts. This is the grim 'n' gritty era. 5) ca. 2000-early 2010s: This is the post-bust, post-Marvel bankruptcy era. Quesada/Jemas mark a whole new approach to comics, bringing writers to the forefront, experimenting with bold new directions. Widescreen storytelling, decompression, bookstore markets, superhero movies. 6) early 2010s-???: This era will almost certainly be notable for the rise of digital distribution, but who knows what else is coming? It's hard to see a paradigm shift when you're in the middle of it. Anyway, like I said: none of this really means anything. But there you go.
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Apr 23, 2014 01:55
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Well, I was going to mention the pendulum swinging in favor of creators' rights, increased parity among creative teams, and more diversity in both characters and creators, but I didn't want to jinx it.quote:What does decompression mean in a comic book context? It means more or less what it sounds like--decompressing the stories to give individual moments and images space to breathe rather than cramming in as many actions and captions per page as possible. Some people call this "padding" or "writing for the trade," but it's just a tool like any other: used properly it can be very powerful. Decompression has its origins in manga: consider something like One Piece where 250 page can be dedicated to a single fight scene. In traditional superhero comics in, say, the Bronze Age, that would have to be compressed down to eight pages or so. Make sense? Benito Cereno fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 02:07
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While there are certainly older examples, I would say probably Bendis's work on Ultimate Spider-Man helped kick off the trend in the 2000s. Warren Ellis is/was also an early adopter of this style.
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Apr 23, 2014 02:50
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Skwirl posted:I'm reading through the old Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four and in issue 25 the Hulk guest stars, but he keeps referring to himself as Bob Banner instead of Bruce. What's up with that? Stan Lee's memory is notoriously lovely. That's why so many of the major Marvel characters have alliterative names: it helped him remember them. This is a case where that backfired. According to one interview I remember seeing/reading, there was a TV personality at that time named Bob Banner, and that creeped into the script in the Hulk on occasion. Of course, that could just be more Stan Lee bullshit and he really just forgot. Anyway, that consistent error is the reason why Hulk's name is officially Robert Bruce Banner. It was hardly isolated to the Hulk, though: there are issues of Spider-Man where he's called Peter Palmer, and, hell, there's a famous panel where Doctor Octopus calls him Superman. Ultimately, it's just mistakes. There were only a handful of guys doing as many strips as they could as quickly as they could. edit: Welp.
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Apr 29, 2014 01:41
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:I go to their Harvard Square shop all the time and it's boss so yeah order from them (and yeah, as others have mentioned, they were the OG publishers of The Tick) NEC has been the publisher of all 100+ issues of The Tick since 1988. There is a series of ten paperback collections that encompass ::cough:: almost the whole series. They tend to keep them in print so they're pretty easy to get either from your LCS via Diamond or from the NEC Press website.
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Aug 20, 2014 00:03
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Dr. Hurt posted:How many gangs of lovable street punks with awful names did Kirby create? I know there were these guys and the Newsboy Legion. They seem to pop up in his work all the time and they are usually always terrible. A few. With Joe Simon, Kirby created the Young Allies, the Newsboy Legion, and the Boy Commandos. Kirby by himself created the Bronze Age version of the Newsboy Legion (basically the same as the Golden Age version upgraded to include Flippa Dippa) and the Dingbats of Danger Street. Joe Simon separate from Kirby created the Green Team, a rich kid version of the kid gang formula. Both the Dingbats and the Green Team debuted in (different issues of) the 1st Issue Special, a series of one-shots intended to test out new concepts. Kirby's Atlas character also appeared in this series. One thing to remember about the kid gangs is that Kirby was actually in one as a child, so it's not hard to see where he got the inspiration. I can only imagine he was the Scrapper of his gang (though imagining him as the Flippa Dippa is...pretty awesome). Edit: I should point out that Simon and Kirby weren't the only comics team doing kid gang comics in the Golden Age. Just as a notable example, the Little Wise Guys, who were a kid gang of supporting characters for the Golden Age Daredevil, were so popular that they eventually took over the title, and Daredevil was edged out of his own comic. Benito Cereno fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 23:37
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Random Stranger posted:So you're saying entomologists don't work on particle physics or artificial intelligence? Almost this exact joke is made in an issue of Byrne's She-Hulk. I forget the issue number, but it's one of the Spragg issues from after he comes back to the book. I think it's She-Hulk's friend Weezy, but she talks about the nebulous nature of comic book scientists and gives Pym being an entomologist who built robots as an example.
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Sep 3, 2014 03:04
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Lurdiak posted:Yeah, those interpretations of KnightsQuest and Death and Return always seemed like DC fans trying to rewrite history to make it seem like DC's bad 90s stuff was somehow clever satire. According to Denny O'Neill, that was the intent with Azrael as Batman.
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Sep 10, 2014 04:01
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HitTheTargets posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a comic from... maybe a decade ago? It was an indie black-and-white in the vein of Scott Pilgrim or The Amazing Joy Buzzards that was basically about a couple of famous punk rockers raising a family. Hopeless Savages
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Oct 6, 2014 23:19
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Here are some recommended reading lists for various characters by ::cough:: the same writer as that Flash article.
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Oct 16, 2014 04:39
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Lot of people in this thread forgetting about Pythagoras Dupree
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Aug 6, 2015 18:30
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redbackground posted:Are there any Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman experts in the house, he asked, expecting the answer no. Depending on the era, I might be able to help you out. I know much more about the '40s and '60s than I do about the '70s and '80s, though.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:18
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It doesn't help that the only WW story from about 1971-1985 that's in print is The Twelve Labors. The book really struggled to find a direction during that time, even at one point switching to being set on Earth-2 so that it could be closer to the TV show.
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Aug 12, 2015 02:29
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Wheat Loaf posted:Twelve Labours was a JLA sort-of crossover as well, wasn't it? Martin Pasko (?) did it when he was writing both comics at the same time. Yes, Twelve Labors is the story of Wonder Woman rejoining the Justice League, which she had quit parallel to her losing her powers and the Amazons leaving Earth in the late '60s. In Twelve Labors, she has to perform a series of feats, each overseen by a different member of the League, in order to prove to herself that she's worthy to rejoin. The thing about this story is that not even this one story was by a consistent creative team. Various issues are written by Len Wein, Cary Bates, and Elliot S! Maggin, with Pasko writing the last few issues, and subsequently taking over as the regular writer, which didn't mean much in that era, as "regular" writers generally only did a few issues at a time.
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Aug 12, 2015 21:15
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redbackground posted:Well, ha ha!, that's the era I had questions about. I came across a huge chunk of WW issues from like 289 through the very last pre-Crisis issue (#329) for cheap, and I was curious if there was a primary writer/artist team from that section, good stories, blah blah. I did my Internet Research, and I saw that starting with 288 (and a preview/prequel in a DC Comics Presents issue just beforehand), DC tried to revitalize the comic with a new team of Roy Thomas and Gene Colan and make the WW comics more action-packed and exciting (the logo change kicked in here, as well). I did see that there was a 3-part story that teams Wondy up with like every female DC superhero, and that looked cool. Also, that #300 spectacular is nothing to sneeze at, it's huge. I looked to see if there was anything from that run in my best Wonder Woman stories article, but nope. It turns out I straight up have not read anything from that stretch of issues. There are certainly worse comics out there than whatever Thomas and Colan could cook up, but I'd be surprised if that team lasted for many consecutive issues. I know that's around the time the eagle was changed to the WW on her costume, but that's about it. quote:OK, that gives me a question: Is there a story behind why that relaunch didn't happen and we got the Perez version instead? The Greg Potter relaunch? We kind of did. Potter is the scripter and co-plotter on the first two issues of Perez's relaunch. If I recall correctly, Potter had some other job in addition to writing comics (advertising, maybe?) and he had to leave the book. Len Wein took over as co-writer for a little bit until Perez just wrote the whole thing himself. quote:Heh. Says on my "create game" page that it's been played five times today. Who wants to own up? I did. I think I've played most of your comics writer quizzes.
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Aug 13, 2015 00:40
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Vitamin P posted:A mate is doing a presentation thing for a film course about characters adapted from other mediums, has chosen Doctor Doom and is panicking because it's on in two days. Here is a list that includes some Amazon links, for whatever that might be worth: http://benito-cereno.tumblr.com/post/80397901792/benito-i-love-victor-von-doom-i-have-ever-since
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Sep 3, 2015 01:31
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Squizzle posted:I'm just learning this now as I google-poo poo around, but apparently there was a lengthy (~35 pp) article on Ethiopia in an early 1965 issue of National Geographic, and it did address some aspects of the Solomonic dynasty. At the very least, there's a good reason that Kirby might have been inspired by Ethiopia specifically at the time he was doing the FF issue. Kirby definitely kept stacks of National Geographic around (if nothing else, you can see bits of them in some of his photo collages), so this is 1000% plausible.
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Dec 3, 2015 21:25
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Uthor posted:Where does one place Kirby? He was a Marvel guy for the longest time until DC poached him. Personally, he's the Fourth World guy to me, but that's cause I haven't read a lot of early Marvel. Perhaps surprisingly, Kirby's total time at DC slightly edges out his total time at Marvel, with 16 years vs 15 years. Together, however, his time at Marvel and DC only accounts for about two-thirds of his career. The rest was spent at companies like Harvey, Hillman, Fawcett, Fox, Prize (aka Crestwood), and Pacific.
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Jan 3, 2016 03:33
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Madkal posted:Was there ever more than one Aquaman or has he always been half-Atlantean/half-human? The Golden Age version of Aquaman was fully human. His father was a famous oceanographer (apparently so famous they never say his name, because you would recognize it) who took his infant son down to the sea floor where they discovered the ruins of Atlantis and set up a home there. It was using Atlantean tech that the father imbued his son (never known as anything other than Aquaman) with the ability to breathe underwater and speak the language of the fishes. It wasn't until the late '50s that we got the Tom Curry/Atlanna origin and Aquaman finally got a real name. For the record, you can tell the difference between Golden Age Aquaman and Silver Age Aquaman by the color of his gloves: the former's gloves were yellow, the latter's the more familiar green. (Later reprints of the original Aquaman origin have since recolored his gloves green, however.)
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Apr 1, 2016 05:48
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That is the last page of Doom Patrol (vol 2) #46 by Grant Morrison and Richard Case. You should read Morrison and Case's Doom Patrol.
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Apr 5, 2016 06:48
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I suspect Marvel holds the rights to Ego since he first debuted in Thor and is not typically considered a core Fantastic Four villain.
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Apr 14, 2016 04:20
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JoshTheStampede posted:No, it's not Winslow Schott, it's a different guy, the one who they adpated for the Super Friends cartoon. Jack Nimball is his name. He only lasted about three years in the '70s before they brought Schott back. I really like the design from Justice, though. I think an animated wooden jester puppet has the potential to be as cool and creepy as the version from STAS.
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Aug 6, 2016 02:56
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Lobok posted:Are there Thor runs before Simonson that are worth reading? My experience with Iron Man v1 leads me to believe that there are far more worthy runs to check out than most Best Of lists will have you believe and I'm guessing it's probably the same with Thor. The Kirby stuff is essential. The earliest stuff, especially when Larry Lieber was scripting, is pretty throwaway, but the book gets amazing around the time it transitions from Journey Into Mystery to Thor, when it becomes obvious Kirby is doing most of the plotting. Once Tales of Asgard starts, that's where the magic is. Soon you've just got insane epic poo poo every issue, like Galactus, Ego the Living Planet, Galactus vs Ego the Living Planet, Tana Nile, the Rigellian Recorder, Thor fistfighting Adam Warlock, and, most importantly, the Mangog saga which is loving amazing. Kirby's Thor is pretty much the most underrated thing in Silver Age Marvel. Other pre-Simonson Thor stuff I would recommend would be the Ragnarok story from Thor vol 1 #272-278, and the Celestial Saga from #283-302.
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Aug 27, 2016 06:12
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I suspect this is the webcomic they meant. The reason Wonder Woman uses her bracelets despite being invulnerable is the same as the reason why she uses an invisible jet even though she can fly: namely, that flight and invulnerability were not part of her power set pre-Crisis, by which point the bracelets and jet had become an inextricable part of her iconography, so they stuck around despite her post-Crisis power-up.
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Jun 15, 2017 06:14
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Endless Mike posted:Head Lopper? Hell yes Head Lopper is one of the coolest books of any genre right now
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Aug 4, 2017 03:02
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irlZaphod posted:While we're discussing the Flash, was there any reason why Waid's (original) run was broken up by the Morrison/Millar issues? Did Waid leave the book but come back, or did he just need a break from it for a bit? Pretty sure they just thought it would be fun to swap books for a while. Morrison and Millar did Flash #130-138 (Millar did #139-141 solo) and Waid did JLA #18-21 and #32-33. These issues roughly line up time-wise? Kinda? I don't know if there was any more to it than that, but maybe.
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Nov 28, 2017 22:20
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El Gallinero Gros posted:Is Gotham by Gaslight and The Doom that came to Gotham not included in the DC universe Mignola collection? It mentions some Batman stories in the details on Amazon but it's just numbered issues of Batman books (LOTDK #54 and Batman: Gotham Knights 36). Is it safe to assume that because those stories got separate releases they're not in the collection or did DC double dip? Correct, they are not included because they have their own separate collections.
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Aug 7, 2018 19:35
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Vincent posted:Was Vampirella ever a good comic? Like, is there a reason the character hasn't been forgotten since the 70's or 60's? Was it always fan wank stuff or was it good horror comics like Tomb of Dracula? The original 1969 series has a lot of very cool stories early on, written by guys like Archie Goodwin and Steve Englehart. They’re cool, often tongue in cheek gothic horror jams where Vampirella teams up with a boozehound stage magician, a handsome young vampire hunter and his blind psychic father who never quite trusts her. The latter two are, of course, Van Helsings. The real draw of these early stories though is the absolutely gorgeous art by Jose Gonzalez, who not only draws beautiful women, but good everything else, including amusing caricature when needed. He’s definitely of the EC school style, and there’s some overlap in style with Jack Davis. Comixology has some collections of the early stuff. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you catch it on sale.
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Dec 7, 2018 01:18
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Nah. His powers got reconfigured when his look did in his pre-Annihilation series. He’s more knifey-jumpy now, basically like the movies
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Feb 17, 2019 19:11
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It’s one of the many many many variant covers for Detective Comics 1000 https://www.comicburst.com/blog/detective-comics-1000-complete-cover-checklist/
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Apr 9, 2019 06:06
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The second Spider-Woman, Julia Carpenter, could shoot like psychic webs or something out of her fingers
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May 20, 2019 23:09
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Fritzler posted:I'm reading Uncanny X-Force. During the Captain Britain Corps arc Psylocke says "Once upon a time Brian caved in a man's skull for attacking me. He's in no position to judge you." Is that reference to a specific story? Yeah, that’s Slaymaster. It’s a story from pre-Excalibur Marvel UK Captain Britain stuff. Brian has left behind being Captain Britain and Betsy took it up in his absence. She encountered Slaymaster, who gouged out her eyes. Brian comes back in a rage and smashes Slaymaster’s head with a big rock.
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Jun 5, 2019 06:41
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I can’t believe y’all are talking about epic runs without mentioning Mark Gruenwald on Captain America. At 137 issues, he’s not number one, but he’s way up there without any renumberings making things harder to judge
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Aug 9, 2019 05:34
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