So we agree.

Accept it is not.  It might be true that your father said that and was nostalgic, and there were aspects of Comics in the 1930's and 1940s was unique, and often of high quality, and highly creative, and ground breaking, but it was never the prevailing opinion of the independent comics press that developed later, that largely started in the early 1980s.  Nobody with any mustard on the topic said, yeah, I'm glad you read the Sandman, and Planetary, and SIn City, and American Flagg, and the X-Men, etc etc and said the quality of the writing and storytelling was better in the 1940's.

Planetary was awesome, no bones about that but in the last ten years there have been plenty of books that were easily just as enjoyable. To start with I present Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen's Descender which is a fantastic sci-fi coming of age story with stunning are by Nguyen...and it's sequel which just started, Ascender, is proving to be just as good so this is a two for one deal.

Next is Frank Barbiere and Chris Mooneyham's Five Ghosts which is a fun pulp adventure story about a hero who can summon the gifts of five literary legends.

Number three is Ink and Thunder, a miniseries of one shot stories by Becky Cloonan exploring fantasy, horror and mythology.

For number four I give you Thor: Mighty Avenger which is an amazing all ages friendly collection of adventures told by Roger Landrige with some really fantastic art by Chris Samnee. 

The IDW reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz does a great job of taking everything you loved about all the past iterations of the Turtles and weaving them into a new cohesive whole that still feels fresh and exciting.

Although Mike Mignola first spun Lobster Johnson off into his own back in 2007, the book never really go going until he paired himself up with Tonci Zonjic and Kevin Nowlan. And while any of the minis they did were fantastic(Especially "The Burning Hand" and "Get The Lobster") the pulpiest of the lot was 2015's Christmas special "A Chain Forged in Life".

2011's Spaceman by Brian Azzarello, and Eduardo Risso is a sci-fi noir that is a definite must read.

Breath of Bones is a three part mini by Steve Niles and Dave Watcher that features a Golem protecting a small Jewish village during WWII.

Baltimore by Mike Mignola and Benstenbeck is a brilliant love letter to Dracula, the Universal and Hammer Monster Movies and everything else that goes bump in the night. 

Non-fiction is seldom a popular genre in comics but if you haven't read Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree then you're really missing out as it provides an intimate look at the evolution of Hip-Hop from it's early roots to today in a way that will keep even those not even interested in that genre of music turning the pages.

And while yes Planetary was great...you know what books weren't good in that decade?
Bill Jemas' Marville
Chuck Austin's X-Men
Countdown: Arena 
Ultimates:3
Image United
Tarot
Trouble
Ultimatum
Onslaught Reborn
Our Worlds at War
...and those are just off the top of my head. Any decade is a mixed bag when it comes to quality.

 




 

Titles such as Golden Age or Renascence are just names for eras, they don't objectively denotate that such eras are better than others.  As such I'm going to need sources on those scholars you claim say otherwise. 
I only ask because as an Art History major I never read a single scholarly article that objectively stated that the art(whether literary, musically or visually) produced in one era was superior to the art produced in another.

Even to a layman the reason why comparisons between eras should seem pointless is obvious as it's a classic case of apples to oranges. Art doesn't just spontaneously appear; all art(no matter the medium) is a product of the culture it was produced in meaning that the history and society that influenced,informed and educated say Michelangelo is drastically different than the inputs that inspired Picasso making any objective comparisons of quality impossible. 

Now, you can personally enjoy the art of Picasso more than Michelangelo(or vice versa), and that's completely factual because subjective tastes vary from person to person...but objectively better? I've never seen anyone successfully argue that.

It is not subjective. There is actually expertise in this. If you want to believe that all art and artist and era's are fundamentally equal, that is wrong. You want to compare Picasso to Michelangelo, that is fine. Picasso was a master artist, who again was famous in his time during a period of great artistic output (which contradicts your point that we glamorize previous generations and over new works, which is just not true and Picasso refutes that opinion as he was loved from the very start of his career). I doubt he could have done David and the Sistine Chapel, and I doubt he would have wanted to. It wasn't the Renaissance though. The Renaissance which constituted to greatest leap and output of western art in its history. And everything they did was break through from creating paint by hand to inventing oils painting, perspective, line drawing, architecture, human anatomy, in a 30 year period. Da Vinci, Giorgione, Michelangelo, Veronese, Raphael, Titian, Bellini, Tintoretto.... all at the top of their creative greatness producing at once.

And not only did they not have tubes with paint to buy off the rack, but Picasso never touched these men for their scientific backgrounds, medical examinations, mathematical expertise etc etc which largely formed the art they made at that time. That is because that moment in time demanded and afforded that kind of vast exploration into the unknown, which by Picasso's time was already well developed areas of study, in a more modern, bureaucratized, educated, and brutal world. And that is largely the point. Each historical moment and time period is ripe for a particular technological and philosophical development. I golden age is formed by its individual geniuses and masterminds, and a sociological and technical moment that could be exploited by them. This is true of Liverpool in 1961, Amsterdam in 1620, Florence in 1492, Paris in 1876 etc.

In terms of comics, the output today is nothing close to the golden era of the it's creativity when it's audience and creative teams matured and leveraged new printing and selling techniques to create a pronounced stream of quality works unlike what had been seen before, and which has not been seen since.

This era was created by the internationalization of the comics market, the ditching of the comics code, creator owned properties, and overall interest to not just create sales, which were already flat and in decline compared to the market in the 1940's, but to invest in long term value of stories and to cultivate a lasting following.

It was destroyed as the creative community spreading out, out of NYC, by the push for blockbuster sales and gimmicks, lack of editorial control (which I know sounds contradictory but there is a need for a balance) and the rise of ultra cheap digital creation and production making it harder and harder to give a story time to develop with low sales in a hyper competitive market.

Say what? Your comparing that to Planetary?

So this is "a real critique"™.  The Roger Ebert of comic book criticism.