Comics timeline

Thanks to Jared Millet at Hoover for this spectacular bit of history!

A Comics Glossary

Comics (Sequential art) – The use of pictures and text arranged in chronological order to tell a story.

Comic strip – A short comic story usually consisting of only three or four panels. Comic strips are published on a daily or weekly basis, and appear online and in newspapers.

Comic book – Comics published in magazine format.

Graphic Novel – Comics published in a bound hardback or paperback format. Graphic novels may include original material, but are usually collections of stories previously published in magazine format.

DC Comics – The oldest comic book publisher currently in operation. DC is owned by Warner Bros. and publishes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Justice League, and other related characters. DC also publishes comics for an adult audience under its Vertigo imprint.

Marvel Comics – Comic book publisher that came to prominence in the 1960s and continues to hold the largest share of the comic book market. Marvel is currently owned by Sony and publishes Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, and other related characters.

Independent comics – Generally refers to any comics not published by the “Big Two” (DC and Marvel). Independent comics are usually the intellectual property of the creators and not the publishing company, as is the case with comics published by DC and Marvel.

Manga – Blanket term for comics from Japan.
Manga can be divided into:
• Kodomo – for children
• Shojo – for female readers
• Shonen – for male readers

Direct Market – The primary business model for comic book distribution, in which readers buy their comics from independently-owned specialty stores. The development of the Direct Market in the 1980s caused sales of comic books at newsstands, drug stores and supermarkets to dwindle.

A Comics Timeline

1934 - Famous Funnies, the first comic book sold through newsstands, is published.

1938 – Action Comics #1 is published, featuring the first appearance of Superman.

1938- 1949 The Golden Age
Comic book sales skyrocket. Comics of all genres are popular, including detective stories, westerns, adventure, romance, cartoon characters, and superheroes. The Golden Age saw the births of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and Captain Marvel. The beginning of the Fifties saw a sharp decline in the popularity of super-heroes and a rise in crime and horror comics, most notably EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt.

1954 – Seduction of the Innocent, by Dr. Fredric Wertham, is published. Wertham, a psychiatrist, blamed comics for juvenile delinquency, sexual deviance, and the rise of communism, even going so far as to testify before Congress to that effect. The comic industry saved itself from government interference by creating the Comics Code Authority, a self-censoring body that would approve all comics before publication and prevent anything not considered appropriate for small children from seeing print.

1956-1969 The Silver Age
With all adult subject matter forbidden by the Comics Code, the late Fifties and early Sixties saw a revival of the superhero. At DC, classic characters like the Flash and Green Lantern were revamped with a science-fiction twist. At rival Timely Comics (soon renamed Marvel), writer Stan Lee, along with artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, created an entirely new line of characters who were super-human but with real human problems, such as the Fantastic Four (a dysfunctional family with super-powers) and Spider-Man (whose alter ego was a nerdy, unpopular teenager).

The 1960s saw many innovations in comic book storytelling and artistic styles, while underground “comix” become popular on college campuses. Most of the comic book characters still known and loved today saw their origin in the Silver Age.

1970-1985 The Bronze Age
The early Seventies saw a relaxing of the Comics Code and the reintroduction of adult subject matter to mainstream comics, partly due to the increasing age of the average comic book reader, and also because of several direct challenges to the Code itself. In 1970, Stan Lee published three issues of The Amazing Spider-Man without the Code’s seal of approval in order to tell a story dealing with drug addiction.
At DC, Batman shed the campiness of Adam West and once again became a creature of the night. The Seventies also saw a return of non-superhero genres such as horror (Tomb of Dracula) and fantasy (Conan the Barbarian). Even superhero comics themselves began to take on elements of other literary styles, such as Daredevil, which, under writer/artist Frank Miller, became a gritty crime drama.

The major storytelling innovation of the Bronze Age was the introduction of “soap opera” plotting, in which a comic series would feature continuing sub-plots that would take months or years to come to fruition. This style was exemplified in Chris Claremont’s 17-year tenure as writer of The Uncanny X-Men, during which what was once Marvel’s least selling title became the most popular comic book for decades.

1986 – The Best Year Ever
In the mid-Eighties there was a surge of creativity in the comic book industry, and with the birth of the Direct Market, the way that comic books were sold was changing as well. More and more, comic books were produced with ever increasing production values for a college audience.

In 1986, DC Comics followed its 50th anniversary celebration (the year-long Crisis on Infinite Earths) with two series that set new standards for literary storytelling and brought comics to a much wider audience: Alan Moore’s Watchmen, a post-modern deconstruction of the superhero genre, and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, which featured an aging Batman as a harsh, driven vigilante. These were not only hits as serialized comic books, but were published as trade paperbacks and sold in bookstores nationwide.
The modern “graphic novel” was born.

1986-20?? The Modern Age

Our current era has been marked by a continued shift towards an older audience, with more sophisticated storytelling and stylized artwork. The Modern Age has seen a “British Invasion” of talented English writers and an influx of artists from Europe and Latin America. Graphic novels have won major literary awards, such as a Pulitzer for Art Spiegelman’s Maus and a Hugo for an issue of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. Comic sales went through a boom when speculators flooded the market, followed by a bust during which Marvel actually filed for bankruptcy. The mid-Nineties were characterized by stunts designed to increase sales, such as the death of Superman and the near-deaths of Batman and Wolverine (leading some to call the Nineties the Dark Age of Comics). Also in the Nineties, a group of popular artists, tired of doing work-for-hire for Marvel and DC, founded their own company: Image Comics. Image, along with Dark Horse Comics (founded in 1986) championed a new creative model in which writers and artists would own the characters and stories they created. This led to many new creator-owned series such as Todd McFarlane’s Spawn and Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.

The 2000’s have seen a shift away from the traditional 30-page comic book to the graphic novel as the primary means of distribution. By the end of the Nineties, all issues of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman had been collected into graphic novel format and were selling as well or better in bookstores than they ever had in comic shops. More and more, monthly comics are written in 5-7 issue story arcs that can be easily reprinted in trade paperback. Comic publishers are less concerned with meeting rigid monthly publishing schedules and are letting creators take their time to produce novel quality stories.

Manga, which in this country are only published in graphic novel format, have flooded the comic book market, bringing a whole new audience to the comic scene: teenage girls. Meanwhile, traditional American comics are being mined by movie studios for summer blockbusters. Internet comics provide an outlet for budding young talent, as well as a new market for the older publishers. If graphic novels’ availability, popularity, and overall quality continue to increase, they will become a more and more vital part of any children, teen, or adult library collection.
Comics Writers & Artists

The Greats

Alan Moore – Watchmen*, V for Vendetta, From Hell*, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen*, Swamp Thing, Tom Strong, Promethea

Frank Miller – The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Daredevil: Born Again, Sin City*, 300*

Neil Gaiman – The Sandman*, Violent Cases*, Stardust, 1602, Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?

Will Eisner – writer/artist who coined the term “graphic novel.” Known for The Spirit and A Contract With God. The highest honors in the comics industry are the annual “Eisner Awards.”

Stan Lee – wrote almost everything published by Marvel in the ‘50s and ‘60s: Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, Avengers, X-Men, etc.

Jack Kirby – definitive comic book artist from the ‘40s to the ‘70s, did seminal work on Captain America, Fantastic Four, and New Gods

* recommended for Adult collections only

Today’s Popular Writers

Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, Brian K. Vaughan, J. Michael Straczynski, Robert Kirkman, Rick Remender, Peter David, Gail Simone, Keith Giffen, Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Jeph Loeb, Matt Wagner, James Robinson, Kevin Smith

Today’s Popular Artists

Alex Ross, Mike Mignola, Salvador Larroca, Dave Finch, John Romita Jr., Francis Manapul, Darwyn Cooke, Andy & Adam Kubert, Terry & Rachel Dodson, Terry Moore, Tim Sale, Adam Warren, Richard Corben, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Todd McFarlane, Greg Capullo, Jae Lee, Dan Jurgens, Ivan Reis, Stuart Immonen, Leinil Yu, Amanda Conner, Alex Maleev, David Mack, Dave McKean