So What Exactly Are We Talking About When We Talk About the Bronze Age? 2 2

[jools&jim]

 

I believe Stan Lee has said many times that chasing fads and cashing in was VERY much a part of his methodology, especially with the Atlas genre books in the mid/late '50s: if westerns were big on TV and at the movies (which they were), it was time to grind out more western books. Rinse and repeat for giant monsters (chasing Godzilla!), teen humor (Archie, yes, but also Dobie Gillis and many others on the tube), and more. So I don't think this was a unique characteristic of the Bronze Age. But with the market contracting in the '70s, the impetus to anticipate the coming bandwagon, and cast the net more widely for potential hit formulas, may have been stronger and more urgent...

[jools&jim]

 

It also just occurred to me that genre books (especially from Marvel and DC) went into a steep decline--and then disappeared completely--at roughly the same time (i.e., the late Bronze Age) as the rise of the Direct Market, after which it was pretty much all superheroes, all the time. So maybe one thing we're talking about when we talk about the Bronze Age is the last gasp of horror, western, romance, SF, fantasy, humor, etc., in mainstream comics...

[jjonahjameson1]

I think most folks will agree on the book or books that started the Golden Age and Silver Age, respectively, but to be honest I think people need to categorize and label things for the mere sake of ensuring a certain book 'fits' somewhere under an all-encompassing umbrella term.

 

Bronze Age, Copper Age, Modern Age? All are labels to fit a sqaure peg in a round hole, create additional Top 10 keys books lists and for who's benefit?

 

[Zonker]

Well, I'm with you when it comes to the so-called Copper Age. I've never had much use for the term, since for me, everything since 1981 has been indistinguishably "modern."

 

And maybe the origin of the Bronze Age terminology was just an attempt by some dealers to move their 1970s books-- I can't really remember when I first started hearing the term, and in what context. But for me at least it is a meaningful distinction. Just as you can talk about the Golden Age Green Lantern versus the Silver Age GL, or the Golden Age Human Torch vs. the Silver Age Human Torch, it makes sense to distinguish between the Silver Age Batman style and that of the Bronze Age. Similarly...

 

X-Men (new BA line-up and storytelling style)

Legion (updated BA costumes, also courtesy Dave Cockrum)

Green Arrow (new costume, new attitude in BA)

FF (Kirby vs. post-Kirby)

Green Lantern (he never really recovered his Silver Age right stuff swagger until Geoff Johns started writing the book).

 

Even Superman and Spider-Man had shifts in storytelling, as Mort Weisinger and Stan Lee started relinquishing their previously-close oversight of these franchises. (Though in the case of these commercial juggernauts, there were strong incentives to not rock the boat too much.)

 

And has been frequently noted, it is hard to imagine how they would have published Conan in any kind or recognizable form in the mid-1960s.

 

[Zonker]

I just happened to be at my work computer and came across this image that gets to the Bronze Age artistic pretensions part of my argument: Wrightson, Jeff Jones, Kaluta, and Barry Smith posed as 1970s rock stars! It's been posted on the boards numerous times, but I thought it belonged being archived with this thread as well.

 

Edited December 10, 2009 by Zonker

[jools&jim]

 

 

Awesome! They look like Led Zeppelin...

[awe4one]

Well, I'm with you when it comes to the so-called Copper Age. I've never had much use for the term, since for me, everything since 1981 has been indistinguishably "modern."

 

Yep...

 

I don't see the designation sticking like the other monikers. And the reason is the majority of the collecting crowd these days is more mature and older. They bought these comics off the racks, sometimes in their late teens and adults, and don't see them as a special "time". That's the difference when talking about the different eras. When talking everything up to Bronze, ALOT of collectors were already collecting comics afterwards off the racks as pretty mature collectors. So anything after, they were already "hip" to the comics scene and the comics wreren't "special". And "special" has a whole lot to do with collecting and the prices paid...

 

Calling something Copper, Lead, Prism, or whatever isn't going to do alot to drive demand for those comics regardless of the dealers desire to do so if the majority of your clientele were there when the comic was released...

 

Jim

[nmtg9]

Well, I'm with you when it comes to the so-called Copper Age. I've never had much use for the term, since for me, everything since 1981 has been indistinguishably "modern."

 

Yep...

 

I don't see the designation sticking like the other monikers. And the reason is the majority of the collecting crowd these days is more mature and older. They bought these comics off the racks, sometimes in their late teens and adults, and don't see them as a special "time". That's the difference when talking about the different eras. When talking everything up to Bronze, ALOT of collectors were already collecting comics afterwards off the racks as pretty mature collectors. So anything after, they were already "hip" to the comics scene and the comics wreren't "special". And "special" has a whole lot to do with collecting and the prices paid...

 

Calling something Copper, Lead, Prism, or whatever isn't going to do alot to drive demand for those comics regardless of the dealers desire to do so if the majority of your clientele were there when the comic was released...

 

Jim

 

 

Completely agree Jim.

 

I was buying comics new in the Bronze age (just, or rather my Dad bought the for me) and "copper age" doesn't feel special. I wonder though as we move forward dealers will want to categorize the era as they already do - it's plain and simple marketing tactics and they will only do it if it works!

 

Neil

[HouseofComics.Com]

 

Awesome! They look like Led Zeppelin...

 

[Zonker]

I thought I'd revive this thread as a home for occasional Bronze Age history I stumble across, and pointers to what I think are some cool comics of the period. (thumbs u

 

One of the themes I presented earlier in the thread was that by the 1970s, commercial comics started to be influenced moreso than ever before by factors beyond what would actually sell to the target audience. A couple of those factors I think were artistic peer pressure and the desire by editorial to placate their artistic talent.

 

So I came across a couple of anecdotes that fit in with this idea:

 

First, from the CBA interview with Dick Giordano:

 

CBA: Alex Toth did some outstanding work for you.

Dick: Toth and I were real friends...On the fifth issue of Hot Wheels, we

completely threw out the -script that we had bought and I let him write something that he really wanted to write, "The Case of the Curious Classic." He was in love with that car in the story, the 1937 Cord...

 

Then in the Best of Walt Simonson trade paperback I mentioned earlier in the thread, Simonson is discussing his Dr. Fate story from First Issue Special #9:

 

The Nelsons also demonstrated their exceptional taste in cars by driving a Cord. That was done partly in homage to Alex Toth, who had done a brilliant Cord job a few years earlier for DC's HOT WHEELS. It was a spectacular job that drove all of us young turks crazy at the time.

 

 

So, get this: Not only did an editor let his artist publish a vanity project centered on a classic car (in Hot Wheels, a comic whose sole reason for existance was to appeal to pre-teen boys who played with the miniature race cars!) but then also, years later, that same story was remembered by an up & coming artist, who worked the same classic car into his current story assignment. Don't get me wrong, I loved both of those stories, but I just think it is funny that both of the stories have elements (in the case of the Toth story, a central story element) that had nothing to do with what would likely sell comic books to the target audience.

 

[Zonker]

It's no secret that one of the Bronze Age comics creators I admired the most was Archie Goodwin. But here's a quote from him (lettercol of Detective Comics #440) that turned out to be spectacularly incorrect, though I do think it represented the then-current conventional wisdom: the classic saddle-stitched 32-pages-including-ads format was on its way out by the mid-1970s:

 

Each day seems to make larger-sized, higher-priced comics look more or less inevitable, Brian. Whether ultimately they all take this format or that of our dollar books or perhaps even the black and white magazine-size form remains to be seen, of course. But since the appearance of our first 100 page issue, a paper shortage has hit the entire publishing industry... Shortages are generally reflected by a cutting down of the product and a rise in price. This one won't be any exception. Since what is now the 20 cent comic can't really be pared down much more than it already is, and since I don't believe it can support many more price hikes, I think over the next couple of years or so, you can almost bet on it disappearing. Or so it looks to me.

 

As it turned out, the 20-cent, 20 story page comic was simultaneously pared down to 17 story pages and supported a doubling of the cover price through the 1970s. Ultimately, thanks to the direct market, the story page count was boosted to the 20-25 page level, but has continued to "support" (if you can call it that!) a seemingly-infinite number of price hikes in the years since.

[Zonker]

I'm also going to use this thread to rescue my review of 1971's Forever People #3. The images were hosted on the webserver from my previous ISP. Now I've hosted them here, so they should stay around a bit longer.

 

You can read the original thread with rebuttals, etc. here.

 

I've long argued that one thing that sets the Bronze Age apart was the early desire to have super-hero comics self-consciously "grow up" by pointing to something larger. So that's the backdrop for my defense of Kirby's Fourth World: it is intended as satire, not in the sense of satire/parody like MAD Magazine or SNL, but in the earlier Jonathan Swift or Voltaire sense: A story that is exaggerated and pointing to a larger reality. In this case, the larger reality is the totalitarian 20th century, from Nazism to Mao's Cultural Revolution to the Stalin-era USSR.

 

And yes, I'll be the first to acknowledge that the Bronze Age was the beginning of super-hero comics putting on un-earned pretensions (like I'm comparing Kirby to Swift, Dickens or Voltaire? ) Maybe that's what led to the declining readership from the Silver Age days...

 

 

Anyway, let's take a look at Forever People 3...

 

 

 

Start with the splash, with its quote from Hitler. Remember Kirby was both a WWII vet and a Jew:

 

And the double-page spread, with Godfrey ("God-Free") enciting the mob as a latter-day Joseph Goebbels. Mark Evanier has claimed Glorious Godfrey was also a dig by Kirby at Billy Graham, who was then very publicly cozy to the Nixon Administration and very much pro-Vietnam War. But I'd rather not go there:

 

Yeah, the "Happiness Package" is an unfortunate Kirby-ism dialogue choice, but I'm choosing to believe this is Godfrey's attempt to translate an Apokolips phrase into English:

Pages 11,12-- cf. the brown shirts on the march, book-burning, etc.

Page 20--"Not the first of its kind seen on Earth." Indeed:

Page 21-- Here is Kirby's worry-- something in humanity seems to inevitably produce these Hitlers and Goebbels. As technology progresses, these monsters will have more and more powerful tools at their disposal. The "Anti-Life Equation" is the ultimate techo-solution for Darkseid as totalitarian. Rather than having to sell an ideology to work his will, he can simply shut down independent free will among his subjects:

 

Finally, by coincidence, the FP 3 lettercol has a letter from Harlan Ellison himself, praising the inaugural issue of Forever People, and making a reference ("Mountain of Judgement") to the earlier Kirby Jimmy Olsen series:

 

[Prince Namor]

Anybody else see the foreshadowing in that editorial response to Ellison's letter?

[40sJohn]

I'm sorry, but when I look at those pages, all I see is some really bad Kirby art.

[Jeffro.]

Great analysis Zonk. Next you can try to tackle when the Bronze Age ended.

[Dick Pontoon]

I'm sorry, but when I look at those pages, all I see is some really bad Kirby art.

 

Really? Even Colletta's inking is tolerable here. Why are these worse than what he'd been drawing at Marvel? Bad health affected his drawing in later years, but these pages are rock solid to my eyes.

[Jeffro.]

Kirby's 4th world stuff is much better, imo, than his Marvel stuff of just few years later. Not just the drawing itself but also the concepts behind the titles.

[40sJohn]

I'm sorry, but when I look at those pages, all I see is some really bad Kirby art.

 

Really? Even Colletta's inking is tolerable here. Why are these worse than what he'd been drawing at Marvel? Bad health affected his drawing in later years, but these pages are rock solid to my eyes.

 

In my opinion (which is strictly personal taste), Kirby, in the '70s and '80s, was hard to look at. His art is instantly recognizable and for me not pleasing. All of his people have fat fingers, fat forearms and the faces are similiar. Please look at the splash page that is posted earlier in the thread and check out the hands. Sure he has clean lines and the perspectives are solid (my art lingo lacks), but the overall effect is not good for me.

 

I'm a Neal Adams fan. But some criticize his work - something about arthritic hands and wide eyed expressions of surprise for all of his heroes on covers. All I see is greatness...

[Zonker]

I'm sorry, but when I look at those pages, all I see is some really bad Kirby art.

 

Really? Even Colletta's inking is tolerable here. Why are these worse than what he'd been drawing at Marvel? Bad health affected his drawing in later years, but these pages are rock solid to my eyes.

 

In my opinion (which is strictly personal taste), Kirby, in the '70s and '80s, was hard to look at. His art is instantly recognizable and for me not pleasing. All of his people have fat fingers, fat forearms and the faces are similiar. Please look at the splash page that is posted earlier in the thread and check out the hands. Sure he has clean lines and the perspectives are solid (my art lingo lacks), but the overall effect is not good for me.

 

I'm a Neal Adams fan. But some criticize his work - something about arthritic hands and wide eyed expressions of surprise for all of his heroes on covers. All I see is greatness...

 

Well, you're certainly not alone in your opinions on the boards re: Kirby's '70s stuff. (Read some of the commentary on my original thread linked above. ) If I were trying to make the case for Kirby's '70s art, I'd probably pick some different pages. Instead, here I was trying to highlight the storyline. I do think Kirby had great ambitions for his Fourth World concepts. People can disagree how successful he was, but I think it's unfortunate not to recognize the scope of his ambition in making the attempt.

 

Adams & Kirby-- the yin and yang of commercial comics from the 1960s & 1970s. I think they're both great: Adams' illustrative photo-realism and innovative camera angles on one side, Kirby's several-pages-a-day minimalist cartooning and raw, impressionistic power on the other. No reason we can't appreciate each for what it is. I expect fans of graphic storytelling have forever been having this discussion, going back to Hal Foster versus Milton Caniff.

[Prince Namor]

A lot of Kirby's style probably derived from output.

Go and go and go and go....churn those pages out.

My god, his output was amazing.

 

Neal Adams, drawing in the style he does, could never produce the amount of pages in a month that Kirby did at certain points of his career. I'm not sure anybody could.

 

Here's a very busy random month, November 1963, when he did 139 (!!!!) pages and covers:

Avengers # 2 : Marvel - cover (1)

Avengers # 2 : Marvel - "The Avengers Battle the Space Phantom" (22)

Avengers # 2 : Marvel - advert (1)

Fantastic Four # 20 : Marvel - cover (1)

Fantastic Four # 20 : Marvel - "The Mysterious Molecule Man" (22)

Journey into Mystery # 98 : Marvel - cover (1)

Journey into Mystery # 98 : Marvel - "Odin Battles Ymir, King of the Ice Giants" (ToA) (5)

Sgt. Fury # 4 : Marvel - cover (1)

Sgt. Fury # 4 : Marvel - "Lord Ha-Ha's Last laugh" (22)

Sgt. Fury # 4 : Marvel - Weapons of War (1)

Strange Tales # 114 : Marvel - cover (1)

Strange Tales # 114 : Marvel - "The Human Torch Meets Captain America" (Human Torch) (18)

Tales of Suspense # 47 : Marvel - cover only (1)

Tales to Astonish # 49 : Marvel - cover (1)

Tales to Astonish # 49 : Marvel - "The Birth of Giant-Man" (Giant-Man) (18)

X-Men # 2 : Marvel - cover (1)

X-Men # 2 : Marvel - "No One can Stop the Vanisher" (22)