Name the era 0

[Panelfan1]

So this is probably in another thread,

Please help me out - with naming/confirming the various art age eras.

Feel free to correct dates if you think they can be more specific.

Golden age art 1930s -1950s

Silver age art 1960s

Bronze age art 1970s-1980s

1990s art ????

2000s art ??

Just released art ? Do we just say 'current art'??

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Panelfan1

[John E.]

9 minutes ago, Panelfan1 said:

So this is probably in another thread,

Please help me out - with naming/confirming the various art age eras.

Feel free to correct dates if you think they can be more specific.

Golden age art 1930s -1950s

Silver age art 1960s

Bronze age art 1970s-1980s

1990s art ????

2000s art ??

Just released art ? Do we just say 'current art'??

 

Missing is Copper Age which runs from about Secret Wars to 1991. Modern Age starts at 1992 with the founding of Image Comics to present. I don't keep with the dates so I may be way off. I'm also using comics; I don't think art goes by something different. 

[Squeezy McSphincter]

I may be wrong, but I believe Action 1 probably started the GA.  Before that was the Platinum Age.  The 50s are sometimes called the Atomic Age.  Showcase 4 has been called the beginning of the SA, to make things a little more unfocussed.

[drdroom]

30 minutes ago, Bubb Rubb said:

I may be wrong, but I believe Action 1 probably started the GA.  Before that was the Platinum Age.  The 50s are sometimes called the Atomic Age.  Showcase 4 has been called the beginning of the SA, to make things a little more unfocussed.

Right, GA starts in 1939. It's basically the forties. Atomic Age is basically the fifties, and it's a necessary age 'cause it's totally different, Superheroes OUT, every other genre IN. SA is basically the 60's. There's, in my opinion, too many outliers at every junction point to pin the dates down more than that. 

[Dick O.]

I basically go by this in my articles:-

Golden Age: 1938 (Action #1) to 1955

Silver Age: 1956 (Showcase #4) to 1969

Bronze Age: 1970 (GL #76) to 1979

Copper Age: 1980 to 1991

Modern Age: 1992 (Youngblood #1) to present day

The 25-year Modern Age seems too broad; I think there should be a delineation somewhere in the late-'90s/early-'00s. Perhaps the Marvel turnaround starting with Marvel Knights' Daredevil #1 (1998), Joe Quesada becoming Marvel EIC (2000), or the new breed of Image creator-owned titles starting with Walking Dead #1 (2003). If so, then the new Ages could look like this:-

Modern Age: 1992 to 2002

Digital Age: 2003 (WD #1) to present day

'Digital' Age seems apt due to digital production and consumption becoming increasingly prevalent during this period

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Dick O.

[Panelfan1]

1 minute ago, O. said:

I basically go by this in my articles:-

Golden Age: 1938 (Action #1) to 1955

Silver Age: 1956 (Showcase #4) to 1969

Bronze Age: 1970 (GL #76) to 1979

Copper Age: 1980 to 1992 (Youngblood #1)

Modern Age: 1993 to now

The 24-year Modern Age seems too broad; I think there should be a delineation somewhere in the late-'90s/early-'00s. Perhaps the Marvel turnaround starting with Marvel Knights' Daredevil #1 (1998), Joe Quesada becoming Marvel EIC (2000), or the new breed of Image creator-owned titles starting with Walking Dead #1 (2003). If so, then the new Ages could look like this:-

Modern Age: 1993 to 2002

Digital Age: 2003 (WD #1) to present day

'Digital' Age seems apt due to digital production and consumption becoming increasingly prevalent during this period

 

You hit it on the head. the era most giving me trouble was the 'modern age' as it was so long.  you may have coined 'digital age' as it goes for comics - but did we actually have digital art (blue line art) and digital comics in 2003?  or is that even an important distinction?

[Dick O.]

@Panelfan1 I'm sure there was digital art (colouring, words, probably blueline) in the early-2000s; not sure about digital comics?

I don't think that's a critical point though, as 'Digital' Age is simply meant to express the advance of electronic processes during this period.

 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Dick O.

[Pete Marino]

I think most collectors look at Oct 2000 as the beginning of the new modern age.  With the release of Ultimate Spider-Man 1.

[PhilipB2k17]

Any thought to breaking down eras by format? i.e. the Twice Up era, etc. 

[PhilipB2k17]

6 hours ago, O. said:

@Panelfan1 I'm sure there was digital art (colouring, words, probably blueline) in the early-2000s; not sure about digital comics?

I don't think that's a critical point though, as 'Digital' Age is simply meant to express the advance of electronic processes during this period.

 

Maybe call it the Comicraft era, which is the name of the independent digital lettering company that revolutionized how lettering was done by standardizing the digital format.

[Carlo M]

I like to idea of breaking this down to track OA specific changes.  So differentiating twice up era of SA from late SA with standard art seems like a good idea.  One other big change is when they stopped having word balloons drawn or pasted on the art.  It is not yet moving to "digital art", but stil I think that makes a big difference as to how OA is experienced, for obvious reasons.  This happened I believe circa 1996.

[1950's war comics]

Golden Age: 1938 (Action #1) to 1955

Silver Age: 1956 (Showcase #4) to 1969

Bronze Age: 1970 (GL #76) to 1979

 

 

agree with above..........

Edited July 26, 2017 by 1950's war comics

[Brian Peck]

Reboot Age (1986-current) 

It started with Crisis and snowballed from there. Even now Marvel and DC are in the middle of more rebooting of their characters and universes.

[vodou]

The folks that really love comics from the 90s to present, and/or the original art are the ones that need to tell the rest of us (old fogies) what's what. From my lame pov, even though superheroes remain popular, it's not just about the Big Two anymore, or even just about superheroes...it's like a reboot of the 80s b/w indie era but this time it really took and -maybe- has more market share cumulatively than either of the Big Two individually? Making 'indies' of all stripes the third of the Big Three? I'm actually just making noise here though, somebody please correct me so I can learn something!

[Brian Peck]

I do agree Silver age ended around 1980-81. I think the next big age was

Direct Age: when Marvel started publishing comics for the direct market. Comic Book shops and companies selling directly to them changed the who dynamics of the industry, this lead to the boom in independent comic book companies First, Malibu, NOW, Comico and many others.

Image Age in 1992 would be the next BIG shift. It changed how creators got their books to the customers. Before that you had to start up your own company or goto the big 3 DC, Marvel or Dark Horse. But with Image they could have Image handle the publishing distribution and promotions.

[John E.]

A 25-year old and still aging Modern Age is too long. "Modern Age" was coined for as long as I can remember, so whatever group self-appointed itself to make that determination saw the founding of Image Comics as a major shift in the industry and chose that as the delineation. And that made sense at the time. A quarter century later, I think those classifications need to be reevaluated and the goal post needs to be moved. To me, I think major events in the comics industry need to be considered, as opposed to the release of particular titles. So we can have an extended Copper Age that ends with the collapse of the comics industry (or perhaps ends with the start of its recovery). Or we can have a Copper Age that ends where it does now in 1991, and a 9-year period of "Modern Age" that starts in 1992 and ends in 2001 when Marvel eschewed the Comic Code and published its first MAX title, Alias. Of course digital comes into play in the era too, so we don't get off that easy. The issue I take with "Digital" is that it sounds like NOTHING was ever put on physical paper, which is not the case. Furthermore, when I think of digital, I think of Comixology and the downloading of comics onto an iPad, and didn't happen until two or three years ago or whenever. Perhaps from 2001 to now could be the "New Millennium," and even then, that's currently a 16-year period.

[John E.]

9 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Any thought to breaking down eras by format? i.e. the Twice Up era, etc. 

To me, I see art as either Twice-up, Pencil-Ink-Lettering (PIL) (and my buying preference), Painted, Pencil-Ink-No Lettering (or pencil and ink only), Pencil only, Ink over blue line (or the combination of the two--Original Pencils and inks on separate boards), and just to throw it in there, 1/1 prints. Did I miss anything?

I don't necessarily care about the eras, because to me a PIL from 1991/Copper Age is essentially the same thing as a PIL from 1994/Modern Age, with the exception of nostalgic meaning. And the PIL "era" would run about 50 years, whereas the ink-over-blue-line era would run about 5 years (or whatever, and counting).

Because nothing is simple, I do wish those pencil and ink covers from the mid-90s on had the trade dress like their predecessors 

[jjonahjameson11]

1990's should be called the 'gimmick age' as a reflection of all the chrome, prismsa-Foil, die-cut, chase, and variant covers introduced during the era.

an alternate would be the 'Dark Age' as a reflection of the popularity and explsion in titles for characters with a shady morale compass.  Some such as Wolverine, Punisher and Ghost Rider were introduced previously, but really came into their own during the nineties:  ghost rider re-launch + reprint series + story arcs in MCP and guest appearances galore.  Punisher in his own title + punisher war journal + punisher war zone+ punisher POV+ guest appearances galore.  And Wolverine, well, too much to list here.  But there was also Deathstroke, Spawn, and a host of others to boot.

[The Shoveler]

On 7/26/2017 at 3:58 PM, Brian Peck said:

Reboot Age (1986-current) 

It started with Crisis and snowballed from there. Even now Marvel and DC are in the middle of more rebooting of their characters and universes.

What if the original five X-Men never walked away in X-Men #94 (August 1975)?

 

"Professor, we're sticking around.  So some of these new guys will have to sleep on the couches. Or double-up in a rented loft in Westchester"

 

The O5's departure gave the necessary space for the All-New, All-Different X-Men to develop and become a phenom that fed into the 80's boom (and the eventual 90's bust).  And before that, the original superhero resurgence (Silver Age) was driven by continuity-shredding reboots of Golden Age characters like the Flash and Green Lantern.  Even Marvel's entry into the Silver Age was heralded by the Human Torch's reboot from an android cop into a punk teenage kid...a kick in the face to fans of the original android Torch .

It seems as if a lot of the reboot action over the past several years is driven by reluctance to abandon the relatively small number of truly lucrative legacy characters (and their associated milieus) and give the space to a next generation of characters and stories to really take root.  So, we have several dozen Young Spideys and young Bat-People gasping for oxygen within several clashing continuities while the original Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne continue to have the limelight.  Kudos to the comic companies for allowing Parker & Wayne to take on some new roles as elders.  But so far, they just can't figure out how to gracefully absorb the worthy bits of past continuities (or sideline them altogether) while clearing the deck so that a new generation can "take the field" as was successfully accomplished in the Silver Age (and later by the ANAD X-Men).

Brainstorming here:

1990s: The Image Age (Doctor Dre).  Art is characterized by a signature shift in design and storytelling technique, as well as the emergence of creator-owned publishing as a viable competitor to Marvel and DC.  Maybe this period starts in 1988 with McFarlane starting on the ASM flagship title, or in 1990 with Lee (& Williams!) and Liefeld on the flagship X-books.  This period constitutes the industry's boom and the speculator bust, as well as a growth in manga influences in American comics.

2000-2009: The Ultimate Age (MF DOOM).  Expansion of the cultural presence of superheroes, in an unprecedented scope and scale, with comic book properties adapted into years of global blockbuster movies that are informed significantly by the Ultimate, Marvel Knights, Max and similar lines that often existed outside of the "current" mainstream continuity which is still rooted in the Silver Age.  Includes the maturation of independent comic lines, expansion of non-superhero titles that successfully appealed to non-traditional comic audiences, and the zombie trend.  Art is characterized by the rise of decompressed storytelling and the influence of cinematic wide-screen story boards.

2009-current: The Pre-Partum Age (Kendrick Lamar).  The Big Two publishers experiment with repeated continuity reboots and re-shuffles, on a "Crisis" or near-Crisis scale, attempting to fold the milieus of the Ultimate Age into the legacy material of the Silver-through-Image Ages.  Independents continue to prosper, and "indy" artistic sensibilities expand in comic titles published by the Big Two (the House style becomes indy).  Traditional pencil and ink art production transitions into digital applications, so that a published page may be constituted from multiple physical pieces of pencil and/or ink art (or from no physical piece at all).  Some art continues to be produced traditionally.  This is an ongoing stage in transition, so further observation is required to place the trends into context.  Oh, and the Original Five X-Men are back!

 

My dabbling in current comics is somewhat limited.  So feel welcome to shred this apart...

 

Edited July 28, 2017 by The Shoveler
All Caps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewc1hixzYPY

[zhamlau]

Golden Age: Action 1 (1938, Start of Superhero Comics) - More Fun 108 (1946, post-war beginning of transition from hero to humor/alternate content)

Atomic Age: Atom Man Comics 1 (1946, Start of post bomb era comic book themes) - Tales from the Crypt 46 (1955, last pre-code EC flagship issue, end of artistic freedom)

Silver Age: Showcase 4 (1956, re-introduction of superhero-centric genre in comics) - Avengers 65 (1969, end of 12 cent era-could be any issue in that 2-3 month window for the big two)

Bronze Age: Green Lantern 76 (1970, Beginning of gritty social aware multi-issue arcing storytelling) - Brave and Bold 200 (1983, end of the run for anthology mainline books, also MTIO 100 and House of Mystery/secrets, Adventure ended same year)

Copper Age: Secret Wars 1 (1984, limited series universe spanning "event's", series birthed start of black suit spidey additionally) - Spider-man 1 (1990, New direction artist focused trend for on-going series started at Marvel/DC)

Modern Age (Foil Age):  New Mutants 98 (1991, introduction of post modern superhero Deadpool)- Wolverine 189 (2003, final issue for era defining book)

Digital Age: Walking Dead 1 (2003, start of decompressed art indy comic boom) - Present

 

I sometimes wonder about using secret wars and not contest of champions, but CC was to gimmicky and its effects were negligible even though it was i think marvels first limited series. If the book never happened nothing really changes except i think for "the collector" (been years since i even looked at, but that was always my impression). Secret wars was a critical/commercial huge success and the black suit Spidey roll out was major event so i count that instead. Anyway thats my list.