What was the difference working for DC vs Marvel?

[Mayor006]

What was the difference between the 70's Marvel and DC?

 

So my latest collection idea was to put together the complete list of books from the month/year I was born which was May 1971. Yeah, yeah, I know those weren't actually the books on the shelves that month, but those are the books that the CGC label will have 5/71 listed on them.

 

When I started doing research on those books I started with listing all the Marvel books and tried to list all those that still are living that worked on the books. Amazingly, with the list I have there were only 4 books I was either unsure of because of a lack of information or would not be able to get at least 1 single person to sign the book that originally worked on it or has some credit to it (I'm not counting Editor-Stan Lee, only writer Stan Lee).

 

Now DC was a whole new ball-game. Almost every book I looked up everyone that worked on the book was already deceased. If it wasn't for Neal Adams, there would truly be very few left. Same could be said for Marvel, but not to the same extent. So those more familiar, was DC using an older wiser bunch back in the day and Marvel was a bunch of young hipsters or did the DC bunch chain smoke while the Marvel guys hit the gym? The revelation totally changed my collection focus since I now won't be able to obtain even 50% of the DC titles with at least one signature.

 

Charlton is next but information on them is scarce!

 

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[Ronnylama]

Many of the DC workers were much older even in the 70's and there is no "Stan Lee" that can sign any book presented...

[Mayor006]

That's basically what I'm getting at.... so the average age of the employee at DC was significantly older than that of the person at Marvel? Was there a reasoning behind that or did Marvel just fire everyone and go looking for new blood? Just trying to figure out why there would be such a difference.

 

And I get that there's not another like Stan Lee, but in this context I only count him as a writer. Even then it's astonishing to see how many books he is credited with writing in one month - by my count 9 titles!

[vane]

Some reason to me I feel DC Comics are from the Golden era. That's why I like DC Comics better than marvel.

[surfer99]

Marvel is kinda Golden...when they were Timely. I LOVE those old Captain America books! Way expensive though even for Fair copies.

 

Good luck on building your set Mayor006. Looking forward to seeing which books you pick up and hearing about the signatures you're able to add. I was just looking through my gallery yesterday and making notes of who I wanted to sign what. Some I won't crack, but others I will if I can get the right signature.