A Brief History in American Comics: Part 8: The Growth of Fandoms in the 1980s

The 1980’s comic sales reached a new market, due at least in part to the new specialty “fan shop” comic stores that began arising for collectors and readers alike. Although comic sales never quite reached pre-Comic Code levels, the new shown interest allowed the market to somewhat recover [3]. 

Even adventure comics began to hit a snag when comics about World War II seemed far enough in the past to seem irrelevant to many readers.  But where war comics were on the decline, superhero comics were on a substantial rise. Through the 1970s and 80s, sales for superhero titles went up, as did the general fan-base for superheroes [3].  

Although the superhero genre was “in decline since the late sixties,” the next couple of decades would ignite the genre and the comic industry in general. “The slow maturation that American mainstream comics had been experiencing over the previous decade took a dramatic leap forward [6].”

-------

1970s anthology, Star Reach, “lacked the inhibitions of the Comics Code, freeing creators to pursue more sophisticated themes. “Paired with the American trend towards longer, more involved stories, this led to a new focus on the craft of writing for the comics medium as a literary pursuit in itself, rather than simply a frame on which to hang the art [6].” 

In 1975, Len Wein and Dave Cockrum “reinvigorate[ed]” the X-men franchise, opening up “a major shift” in American comic stories. Chris Claremont later took over for Wein on The Uncanny X-Men, and, focusing on the teen-centered market, developed more complex plots and individualization of characters in lieu of an issue’s “self-contained stories”. Claremont also helped develop the “’family’ theme” of X-Men, “in a direct appeal to the outsider’s desire for a place of belonging—a theme many young superhero comic fans could relate to and become deeply invested in [6].” 

 

 As the stories of serials grew longer, publishers began to release “mini-series” and “maxi-series” starting from 1979. The end of episodic comics also aided to their “collectability” since several issues were needed to keep track of full stories and events. However, this also resulted in hampering the ability for new readers to keep track of previous events, thus gave rise to the “comics’ fandom as an insular subculture [6]”.  

Greater, more in-depth stories allowed for more political and “adult-focused content” for the more “mature-reader” of the 1980’s. The feminism wave of the 1960s brought awareness to popular sexist stereotypes, calling for “the complete reassessment of the industry’s treatment of women characters.” However, it wasn’t until the 1980s when publishers began to include this transformation [3].

By the end of the 1970s, comic book sales (including superhero titles) were low. Still sold at newspaper stands (and viewed as similar product), comic books were sold merely as a buffer profit or “bonus” by vendors, rather than as a valuable merchandise. However, the venues of underground comix proved that comics could be sold in separate or different venues from newspapers and still sell, such as specialty stores. Some of these stores evolved and grew their markets into general comic stores, where readers could purchase and collectors could sell or trade their old comic books. Comics also began to be ordered beforehand by consumers, rather than vendors purchasing them wholesale, thus cutting down on vendor returns and profit risk. This direct market approach allowed store owners to not only cut down on the stock received from publishers, but to customize their stores according to what they wanted to provide, allowing the stores themselves to help regulate title distributions. This newfound profitability “saved the comic book, but by doing so… changed the comic book’s appearance [4].” “By the mid-1990s, over ninety percent of all comics were being sold through this channel. In the space of a few short years, the fan market had gone from being a parallel outlet of little commercial importance, to becoming the new mainstream [3].”  

“It was these ‘veteran fans’ that dictated the creative evolution of the comics, and increasingly, it was other veteran fans like them who would produce the comics they read. In short, in order to survive in the direct market, publishers were forced to attend to the needs of their most enthusiastic supporters, isolating themselves more and more from the outside world… [4]” 

In 1984, Marvel’s Secret Wars became the “first large crossover ‘event’”, which covered a single storyline across several comic titles (think Marvels’ current film series). DC attempted a similar event with Crisis on Infinite Earths [6].  

The downturn of comic sales in the 70s and 80s is often shown to correspond to the rise of TV and video games. However, this factor may have also helped spread popularity of certain serials, such as Star Wars (1982) and Indiana Jones (1984), based on their film counterparts [3]. 

The Rise of the Graphic Novel  

“In the latter half of the 1970s, comics like Sabre (1978), by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy, a sci-fi thriller with nudity, announced the arrival of a new age in which a non-children’s audience could access comics that broke with the limitations of the Comics Code, but not with those of the traditional genres [4]. 

 

Comics “not subject to Comics Code censorship” and often included more ‘mature’ content compared to major publishers, “ground-level” comics were a newfound middle ground. Star Reach was one popular comic of this type, and one of the few comics “where mainstream and Underground met.” Star Reach also included the first printing of an English-translated Japanese comic, although the pieces did not insight any greater interest in importing manga.Star Reach was one of “the earliest concerted attempts by mainstream creators to enter the world of alternative publishing [6]”.  

Gil Kane released His Name is Savage (1968) but it didn’t sell well, despite its magazine format and higher “abundance of text” to appear more literary-conscious [4]. Blackmark (1971) was Kane’s second attempt and proclaimed it as “the next step forward in pictorial fiction”. Although Blackmark was visually impressive, it was in essence reminiscent of pulp magazines of the 1950’s rather than an overall new look [6]. 

 

There were some other attempts to further the comic medium through the 1970s, including Jack Katz’s First Kingdom[4], but none quite popularized it until Will Eisner’s Contract with God in 1978, released as what he called a “graphic novel”,used in attempt for more literate-serious attention [8]. Released at a time when comics were still viewed as material for children or less mature readers, this collection of four related stories, as well as others by Eisner and several others, would only later help to project the medium into a field of higher criticism.

Next time in A Scroll in Time…
  Thank you all for your part in keeping this blog going. This entry marks the end of Season One, and thus the start of a new turning point. I will be taking a several-month hiatus from posting, during which I will be catching up on a bunch of research materials and writing a bunch of new, more in-depth accounts and entries. I apologize for the sometimes uncertain posting schedule that has occurred in the last year, but by preparing my entries earlier, I hope to eliminate that for the years to come. I am having so much fun doing this blog, and hope to bring a vast new interest in learning and understanding the ways culture and history shape our comics today. 

In order to stay up to date with the latest blog news, I highly suggest to either input your email at the top right of the page, or follow the blog on Twitter or Facebook! 

 
I want to send out a special thank you to my supporters on Patreon, without whom I would not have been able to obtain so many great books and resources which will help the growth of this blog. If you like what you see, and would like to help A Scroll in Time blossom further, please consider pledging to the blog on Patreon.com. Your support is greatly appreciated.

STAY TUNED….

[1] Couperie, Pierre, Maurice Horn, Proto Destefanis, Edouard François, Claude Moliterni, Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, and Eileen Hennessy. A History of the Comic Strip. New York: Crown, 1968. Print.
[2] Steranko, James. The Steranko History of Comics. Reading, PA. 1970. Print.
[3] Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels. Hong Kong. 1996. Print.
[4] Garcia, Santiago. On the Graphic Novel. University Press of Mississippi. 2015. Print.
[5] Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York. 2008. Print.
[6] Mazur, Dan, and Alexander Danner. Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present. London: Thames & Hudson, 2014. Print.
[7] Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation. Baltimore, MD. 2003. Print.
[8] Andelman, Bob. Will Eisner: A Spirited Life. M Press. 2005. Print.

A Brief History in American Comics: Part 7- Comics and Comix of the 1970's

The 1970s brought about another generation of new comic artists. Emerging with their own stories, inspired by the comics they read growing up, these new artists brought a new wave of science fiction, horror (while within the Code), and other nostalgic materials. One popular example came about in 1972 with DC’s own Swamp Thing, by Berni Wrightson and Len Wein, who became a successful character “through the next four decades ^[6].”

Neal Adams’ Deadman presented a maturity and emotional factor “new to comics” by that point, allowing it to seem much more down-to-earth (figuratively or literally) than some other superheroes in the stands and shops. Adams would continue this grounded sensibility in other serials like the Green Lantern/Green Arrow of 1970-1971, which had its heroes facing racism, drug addiction, and other concerns that would have been present in society. Just one example in an issue of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series in 1970, Green Arrow, a new hero representative of the contemporary time-period, argues with Green Lantern, a more conservative hero, after his saving a slumlord from an assault by his tenants. The contrasting viewpoints between Green Lantern and Green Arrow became a prevalent focus in the comic series ^[7]. Adams is also credited with transitioning Batman from the “blocky” look of its original artists to the “’dark knight’ approach” as we would recognize him today ^[6].

Thanks to the various publishers’ abilities to contour plot points around code-approved content, the superhero genre had readers flocking to comic books during the 1960s. However, this grand attraction also resulted in directing attention towards adolescents and children-focused sales, and retracting or outright ignoring adult readers and adult-like content.  A decade of superhero-intensive hype eventually created the effect of a burnout towards the end of the 1960s ^[6].

Underground “Comix”
From 1967 to 1975, the comix boom surged almost entirely from self-publishing outlets. University magazines that became significant include University of Texas’s The Texas Ranger and University of Wisconsin’s Snide ^[3]. 

As stated previously, the underground comics/comix were in many ways their own, as Sabin states, “anti-Comic Code reaction”, since they often included what the Code forbade, including drugs, sex (where the ‘x’ in ‘comix’ stems from), and political messages or meanings^[3]. EC Comics, publisher of MAD and many other comics popular in the 40s and 50s, became “the grand model” for many cartoonists in the underground movement. Some even saw underground comix “as revenge for the destruction of EC at the hands of institutionalized censorship ^[4].”

Political messages took on their own path within the wake of the American hippie movement. Taking place during the mid-to-late 1960s, the movement pressed its own messages against the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights struggles, Women’s and Gay Liberation movements, and others ^[3].

Zap (1968) created by Robert Crumb served as a major turning point and “the title that started the whole comix ball rolling.” Its mixed inspiration, from MAD to Disney, along with its contrasting content with the strips themselves (complete with a parodied Comic Code seal on the cover), appealed to a massive audience. Beginning by selling on street corners, Zap quickly reached a more professional publisher, The Print Mint. Following this, the magazine took off in popularity, creating its own market of consumers ^[3]. 

Many artists followed with their own works out of inspiration from MAD and Zap, like Bijou Funnies (1968) from Chicago, Young Lust (1970) based in San Francisco, and Bizarre Sex (1972) out of Milwaukee. Comix by and for women also emerged through Wimmen’s Comix (1972), It Ain’t Me Babe (1970), and several others ^[4]. This new movement made its own substantial mark by being “the first time, generally speaking, that women creators had been given the scope to produce stories by themselves ^[3].”

Autobiographies also came on the rise via underground comix, such as Binky Brown.  An open and honest loose memoir by Justin Green, Binky Brown followed the main character through “his adolescent sexual anxieties, suffering from what today is known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” The breadth of honesty portrayed by Green allowed readers to recognize a greater possibility in the comic medium, inspiring future artists like Art Spiegelman ^[4].

Underground in the Conventional World

The animated film of Crumb’s series Fritz the Cat and Marvel’s Comix Book were indicators of the influence by underground-style and art in the mainstream and pop media/culture. In 1972, Fritz the Cat, the animated film based on Crumb’s comic of the same name (and the first animated rated-X film) was, although a commercial success, such a downturn from the original comic that artist Crumb demanded to be removed from the movie’s credits. Similarly, the release and fall of Marvel’s short-lived Comix Book series in 1974 was (only five issues long) pointed as a ‘beginning of the end’ for underground comix as a whole ^[3] as it failed to appeal “to the counterculture nor to fans of mainstream funny comics ^[4]”.

The Downfall of Comix

“The American comix underground was not built to last.” Most comix cartoonists only maintained themselves “as long as the inertia of the movement lasted”, according to Garcia. Harvey Kurtzman, an underground artist himself, describes underground artists he knew as “very frustrated guys, torn between a desire for material success and a contempt for it.” Gilbert Shelton described the sentiment as a paradox, stating “if we succeed, we’ve failed. But if we fail, we’re successful.” Thus it was precisely once mainstream venues began taking notice of the underground movement that many perceived the end of it altogether ^[4].

The beginning of the end was in 1973, when underground comix were criticized by one of their own, Bill Griffith, for stating they were saturated with “clichés of terror, fantasy and pornography, no longer with any ironic intent.” The external world also viewed this as a hindrance as many stores, concerned for their financial bottom lines and community image, began halting their distribution of lesser-sold and obscene titles. By the mid-1970s, ‘underground’ became more of a genre than a movement or style ^[4]. 

The “last great adventure of the underground” came in 1975, with magazine Arcade, edited by Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman. In its attempt to “do battle at the newsstands” with national satirical works, Arcade lost with only seven issues.  “’Underground’ thus resulted in a style that barely survived in the pages of the few veterans of the golden age of comix who remained active with individual titles ^[4].”

Overall, the installation of the Comic Code of the 1950’s, and later outcry against it in the 1960’s and 70’s, proved that despite previous perception, American comic readership included a broad age range. As the installation of underground comics catered to this mature readership, mainstream publishers would use these as tools to develop their own market towards adolescents and teenagers in the following decade ^[3]. This new market, as indicated by Sabin, “was something that would develop over the next decade into a completely new system of comics marketing based on comics ‘fandom.’”

Next time in A Scroll in Time... 

We see how the transformation of comics in the '70s helps boost the image of comics in the 1980s and on! 

Stay tuned!

[1] Couperie, Pierre, Maurice Horn, Proto Destefanis, Edouard François, Claude Moliterni, Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, and Eileen Hennessy. A History of the Comic Strip. New York: Crown, 1968. Print.
[2] Steranko, James. The Steranko History of Comics. Reading, PA. 1970. Print.
[3] Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels. Hong Kong. 1996. Print.
[4] Garcia, Santiago. On the Graphic Novel. University Press of Mississippi. 2015. Print.
[5] Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York. 2008. Print.
[6] Mazur, Dan, and Alexander Danner. Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present. London: Thames & Hudson, 2014. Print.
[7] Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation. Baltimore, MD. 2003. Print

---

A Brief History in American Comics: Part 6- The Comic Rebirth of the 1960s

“The 1950s backlash that resulted in the Comics Code mainly affected adventure comics… in the 1960s, criticism was focused on the humor comics for being violent, sexist, and racist. In the US, humor comics were similarly attacked, and were additionally prone to criticism from the Left for being conveyors of capitalist propaganda…” especially of the Disney titles (ex. Uncle Scrooge) ^[3]. 

As soon as the Comic Code was implemented, the world of comics transformed. Sales slumped almost immediately as lines of comics were cancelled. Whole genres virtually destroyed, and entire publishing companies sunk.  “For parents and educators, the Code meant peace of mind, but for kids, it signified little except insipidly ‘safe’ entertainment ^[3].”

As one of the leading comic companies of the 50’s, EC Comics (short for “Entertaining Comics”) went near-bankrupt (if not for their MAD comic-turned-magazine), the comic market became available for other publishers to fall in place, and thus was done so by DC Comics and Marvel (previously known as ‘Atlas’ and ‘Timely’), and smaller companies, like Gilberton. At the same time, as horror and crime comics were pushed down and out of the magazine stands, the adventure story and romance tales were pushed into the forefront ^[3].

Various genres took over the spotlight as media venues were constantly grabbing for any content that would stick.  Although this was met with a multitude of new content, not all content was seen as high quality. As described by Blackbeard, “By the 1960s, the newspapers’ need for quantity of strips had triumphed almost entirely over any series interest in quality of storyline or art.” 

ROMANCE

“Crime was going out. Sex was in” said Morisi. Although crime titles were still being published, “many had disappeared since 1948”. “Meanwhile, romance was blooming in the stands.” Crime publishers switched to romance titles, recognizing an “appeal of comic books across gender lines ^[5].” 

According to Hajdu, “The first comic book devoted to love stories, Crestwood’s Young Romance, had not appeared until the summer of 1947… In 1948, there were only three new love titles: Sweethearts, My Romance, and My Life,” creating a slow start for the genre. However, “by the end of 1949, there were some 125 romance comics, and, a year later, 148 from 26 publishers ^[5].” Romance may not have been new to the stands by the 1960s, but by then the titles had exploded with interest and popularity. 

Part of the reason romance titles became so popular was that they were adapted to approach another new audience: adolescents. With older teenage characters, romance stories attempted to reach their like-minded readers. For comics, this would be a new, conscious attempt for an older audience than previously generated ^[5]. 

 Social politics also held as a topic in romance titles, with stories of “free-spirited, willful girls who thought and acted independently, challenging not only their parents, but their boyfriends,” romances provided a unique model placement in a young woman’s eyes.  Being most probably the only venue of young womanly independence at the time, “no other genre of comic books was as overt in its depiction of youthful rebellion as romance comics ^[5]. “

ADVENTURE

Although it usually required a greater sense of artistic detail, the adventure genre is said be one of the (if not the) most diversely flexible comic genres.  It is probably this flexibility which has allowed the adventure genre to uphold its longevity and resiliency in the post-Comic Code era. It was not long until sub-genres took hold, including war anthologies (briefly spoken about before) and sports ^[3]. 

IPC (International Publishing Corporation) was an initial leader in the adventure genre just as they had been early on in humor comics. However, the comic industry shift in the 1960s brought in new comic company giants, Marvel and DC comics. Marvel and DC worked within the Code with their Superhero comics. Marvel’s continued success “had the effect of kick-starting the entire industry back into life.” Superman and Batman became DC Comics’ main stars, but the diverse crew allowed the Superhero genre to thrive until the end of the 60s ^[3].

THE INTELLECTUAL COMIC

Post-Code years also brought about the intellectual comic, which covered an array of subjects, from social topics to physiological, and would include subjects not yet portrayed in American comic strips. From the late 50s through the 1960s, the intellectual comic would continue to grasp a greater hold of the reader’s world, even incorporating politics. 

Illustrative “stereotypes of blacks as criminals and ‘social problems’ were common” within comics throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and derogatory representatives rampant. “Arabs were ‘shifty’, conniving and treacherous; Orientals were ‘inscrutable’ sadists; and Native Americans were monosyllabic savages.” As one could expect, “both in Britain and America, there were only a handful of creators from ethnic backgrounds working in the industry” creating an obvious imbalance of insight in the comics released ^[3].  

 “Sexism was seen as an even bigger problem…” and was dealt with much quicker.  Women were usually only portrayed in three different ways; as ‘helpers’ (nurses, housewives), ‘victims’ (to be rescued), or sex objects (plunging necklines and long legs). In response to this, “Wonder Woman was revolutionary in a psychological sense” and served as a self-imposed high-calling to all women that they should “realize their potential, should fight for equal rights, and that a feminized society would be more caring than the prevailing patriarchy ^[3].” 

Walt Kelly’s beloved strip, POGO, made its debut in 1949. Through Albert the alligator and his cast of animal characters, he “was the first to deal with the great moral, social, and political questions” within the lines of a comic. The characters at times fall under a political sphere of conversation, and are each endowed with their own “highly individual personalities.” It is this beginning which Couperie points out as “contributing to the rehabilitation of the comic strip ^[1].” 

Perhaps Kelly’s intellectual “kindred spirit”, Charles Schulz arrived on the scene soon afterwards in 1950. Schulz continued Kelly’s portrayal of intellectual comics by “penetrated still deeper into intellectual analysis with his Peanuts”. Between the both of them, “Schultz and Kelly endowed the comics with their patent of nobility, and assured the birth and development of the intellectual comic strip ^[1].” 

The 1950s intellectual comic brought about the first antihero by Bernard Mergendeiler, Feiffer comic strip (“anti-comic strip”) in 1956, dubbed the “blackest and most depressing ever depicted by the comic strip.” and B.C. in 1958. They continued in the 1960s with the Wizard of Id. Other intellectual comics of the time included The Strange World of Mr. Mum by Irving Phillips, Short Ribs by Frank O’Neal, and Still Life by Jerry Robinson, which portrayed only inanimate objects ^[1]. 

These ‘intellectual strips’ “present a remarkable esthetic unity. Their creators’ affinities lie not with the easy models of the novel and the cinema, but with the most exacting of all methods of artistic expression: the theatre... the characters are presented in full view, at eye level... and the only space we are permitted to see is that defined within the rectangle of the picture… ^[1]”

UNDERGROUND

Perhaps the biggest dynamic of comics that wasn’t regulated by the Comic Code (and rather, was inspired by its effects), was the underground movement established within the United States. As San Francisco attracted musicians in the 1960s, it also intrigued some artists in a new “comix” movement, influenced by MAD, “the hippie generation”, and other surrounding culture developments ^[4]. 

Many aspiring artists and writers founded and sought out University humor magazines and other unorthodox publishing means in order to publish their own works. According to Garcia, the comic Help! is seen as the first underground comic book due to the various artists who worked on the project. As the decade continued, various titles, including Zap and Wonder Wart-Hog, the pig parody of superhero comics ^[4].

 

NEXT TIME ON A SCROLL IN TIME…

Although the Comic Code changed the comic world forever, the medium itself showed to be more resilient and transformative as some may have earlier predicted. The devastation of the 50s and resurrection of the 60s within the comic domain was, although crude, perhaps necessary to prepare it for the development and progressive period of the 1970s, as American society was soon to see...

CATCH UP WITH ME IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT!

[1] Couperie, Pierre, Maurice Horn, Proto Destefanis, EdouardFrançois, Claude Moliterni, GéraldGassiot-Talabot, and Eileen Hennessy. A History of the Comic Strip. New York: Crown, 1968. Print.
[2] Steranko, James. The Steranko History of Comics. Reading, PA. 1970. Print.
[3] Sabin, Roger. Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels. Hong Kong. 1996. Print.
[4] Garcia, Santiago. On the Graphic Novel. University Press of Mississippi. 2015. Print.
[5] Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America. New York. 2008. Print.