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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jan 21, 2020 16:08:19 GMT -5
The '90s, but I'm not counting a lot of truly atrocious superhero stuff from that era (the Image-style ones). As Slam mentioned earlier, that's a decade we still got treated to a lot of great books: Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, Bone, still a lot of Cerebus, Finder, Bone, the 5YL era of the Legion, the Archie Legion, Berlin, Roy Thomas's return to Conan, a lot of the Valiant line and more... Despite the shoulder pads, big guns, tiny heads and humongous breasts, it was a good time for comics.
Plus, let's be honest... that's probably the decade I bought the most books. So even if I tried to claim otherwise, I must have liked that era.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 21, 2020 16:21:16 GMT -5
The '90s, but I'm not counting a lot of truly atrocious superhero stuff from that era (the Image-style ones). As Slam mentioned earlier, that's a decade we still got treated to a lot of great books: Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, Bone, still a lot of Cerebus, Finder, Bone, the 5YL era of the Legion, the Archie Legion, Berlin, Roy Thomas's return to Conan, a lot of the Valiant line and more... Despite the shoulder pads, big guns, tiny heads and humongous breasts, it was a good time for comics. Plus, let's be honest... that's probably the decade I bought the most books. So even if I tried to claim otherwise, I must have liked that era. There are plenty of crappy comics in every era and decade. My guess is that the proportion of bad to good seldom changes, Sturgeon's Law and all that. |
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 21, 2020 16:22:51 GMT -5
Maybe I overthought it, but I went with the 1940s. As another one of those '70s into the '80s guys, I was all ready to pick the '60s, but then it occurred to me that back then I was reading so many reprints from the 1960s as well that it seemed to me that my feelings about that material might also be colored by childhood/adolescent nostalgia. So I chose the decade when comics first exploded - and creators like Eisner, Fine, Crandall, Cole, Simon, Kirby, Montana, etc., etc., etc., set the foundation for everything that came later.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jan 21, 2020 17:29:57 GMT -5
I'm always kind of into "now." American comics developed more as an art form in the last twenty years than the eighty before 'em.
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,865
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Post by shaxper on Jan 21, 2020 18:16:13 GMT -5
Despite the shoulder pads, big guns, tiny heads and humongous breasts, it was a good time for comics. A perfect epitaph for the decade, if ever there was one. |
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Post by Farrar on Jan 21, 2020 18:20:59 GMT -5
I cast a vote for the 1950s, since in the last couple of years I've gotten into '50s comics big time. Among other things I'm fascinated by the variety of genres. And this is an oversimplification but beneath the Eisenhower era facade there was a lot of subversion going on. Yes, I know that's the case for other decades too and I will explore those others later on, but for now I am having fun researching comics and '50s popular media topics like post-War comics, Wertham and the Code (of course), sex and gender roles, sci fi and the road to the Silver Age, and so on.
And that art! I have a new appreciation of artists such as Burgos, Everett, Harry Anderson. and many many many others. It's such a fertile period.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
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Post by Confessor on Jan 21, 2020 19:27:57 GMT -5
I grew up in the late 70s and 80s, and voted 1960s. There was a lot of good stuff in the 90s and 2000s, but for me, there's something magical about the Silver Age...especially at Marvel.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jan 21, 2020 20:14:34 GMT -5
I voted for the 60's but it was a tough choice choosing that decade over the 70's.
I started officially collecting comics in 1987 but I never felt that the era I was reading was the best, or even my favorite, unlike most. The reason was that around that same time I read X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga and Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle and that era crystallized for me what mainstream superhero comics could achieve at their peak. Over the subsequent years, I think that era (up to say around 1984) arguably saw the superhero genre (non-deconstructed, non-pretentious and mostly free from superficial nostalgia) reach its zenith (Shooter's pre-Secret Wars Marvel, Teen Titans, etc.). I loved Peter David's Hulk, but I always had this slight irritation that I wasn't reading the tales of the classic "Hulk Smash!" Hulk that became so iconic in the 70's. I was thrilling to the then Silver Centurion Iron Man of Armor Wars, but felt that I missed out on directly reading the more iconic era featured in Demon in a Bottle. X-Men was "cool" to my limited pre-teen tastes*, but the then current stories paled in comparison to Claremont/Byrne at their creative peaks.
This all changed after I read the Lee/Kirby FF, Lee/Kirby Thor, Lee/Ditko Doctor Strange and the Lee/Ditko/Romita Spider-Man runs, in full, years later thanks to Marvel Masterworks and the short lived Marvel DVD ROMS. Beyond the fact that these were creative milestones and the dawn of the Marvel Age, they stood up as runs that were arguably never equaled or surpassed.
*I can laugh at it now, but it's still hard to grasp how someone who later fell in love with The Beatles, James Brown, Brian Eno, Talking Heads, Roxy Music, Led Zeppelin, Prince etc. could have been so obsessed, albeit briefly, with Vanilla Ice and Rob Liefeld's X-Force. I don't think some of you older ladies and gents fully appreciate how Nirvana saved my generations soul circa 1991...
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Post by String on Jan 21, 2020 21:46:00 GMT -5
I chose the 70s.
I was born in the 70s but didn't start reading comics seriously until the 80s. Of course, back then, they had wonderful little things called footnotes to point you in the right direction for past stories along with letter columns and their responses. The advent of the Interweb along with the growing number of reprint collections allowed me to go back and read some of these stories and runs that I had missed out on. That combined with the discussions and highlights I found here on stories, characters, and titles I had never heard of only added to the fun.
That being said, I find the 70s to be a wild and creative ride in comics. There was still a spark of Silver Age fun to be found but also the stories and characters were starting to mature and have more depth. The variety of titles and genres that were being offered was equally entertaining. Reading these era's books makes me smile.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 21, 2020 22:01:53 GMT -5
I thought that the 80's would win by a blowout assuming that many of the members here were growing up in the 60's-70's. Count me surprised to see that the 80's had zero votes. I'm casting the first one on the strength of the Crisis, Alan Moores books, The Michelinie, Layton Iron Man, Byrne on the FF and Superman and many other great books. But I was tempted to vote for the 90's. It was a fun age to collect with all the new comic companies emerging. I liked Topps comics, DH's Comics Greatest world , Image, Valiant. Just so many new and exciting ventures.
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Post by Mister Spaceman on Jan 21, 2020 22:31:50 GMT -5
1960s. Birth and rise of Marvel (Lee and Kirby on the FF alone - c'mon!); fun times over at DC (from Composite Superman to Metamorpho, DC had the market cornered on wholesome weirdness); the arrival of a new generation of artists who expanded what comics could look like (from mainstream guys like Neal Adams and Jim Steranko to the slew of underground artists like Robert Crumb and Spain Rodriguez); the arrival of Warren. And Herbie Popnecker!  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2020 22:52:03 GMT -5
I voted for 1950's because comics back then were just fun and meant for kids...or the young at heart.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jan 21, 2020 23:38:52 GMT -5
I never grew up so I don't know how to vote.  |
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Post by Duragizer on Jan 21, 2020 23:54:19 GMT -5
I'm gonna say late '70s-mid '80s. Superhero comics from that time seem the most balanced tone-&-storywise.
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Post by berkley on Jan 22, 2020 1:30:58 GMT -5
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so I voted 90s, because I enjoyed a lot of the independent comics of that decade - the Hernandezes, Clowes, Julie Doucet, Seth, Moore ... I missed all the Vertigo stuff but have read some of it after the fact and plan to do more. The Marvel/DC product of the era never appealed to me, apart from a few isolated exceptions that I read later on as back-issues: the Moench/Gulacy Batman miniseries (pl), for example.
I would like to say the 50s, but really haven't read enough to have any strong feeling for the decade's comic books. I have been reading some good stuff from the early 50s the last year or so, but it's mostly French BD and American news-strip collections. I'll start getting into the early MAD soon, though.
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