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Post by berkley on Nov 9, 2014 0:21:18 GMT -5
The New Gods suggestion was another I thought hard about. The introduction of Darkseid may be DCs most significant character introduction in 30 years, and for 40 odd years since. I considered Watchmen, but remember being underwhelmed when it came out, whereas Swamp-Thing was a quantum leap from almost everything available then (especially mainstream, and even more so DC at the time). It certainly was, in terms of the quality of the writing, but at the same time it felt to me like a natural progression from the kind of writing produced by people like Gerber and Englehart in the early 70s, whereas Watchmen felt like something new in the way it was telling not only a superhero story, but also a story about superheroes as a concept and as a genre, its history, and its nature. But you'll get no argument from me against the excellence of Moore's Swamp Thing. It was head and shoulders above pretty much anything else happening in mainstream American comics at the time, as was everything else Moore was coming out with, as far as I'm concerned. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 9, 2014 22:49:45 GMT -5
Okay, here's my take:
1930s: New Fun Comics #1.
There wouldn't have been anything else without it.
1940s: Four Color #1.
Dell/Gold Key was an essential component of comics surviving through the late 1940s and 1950s, and Four Color was the heart of that. Much like my reason for picking New Fun Comics #1, there might not have been a Silver Age of comicdom if Dell/Gold Key hadn't been there to keep the racks warm when superheroes were on the outs and Seduction of the Innocent had wiped out the Pre-Code horror and crime titles to boot.
1950s: Showcase #4.
Rebirth of the superhero.
1960s: Fantastic Four #1
The Marvel Age ensures that the rebirth of the superhero lasts.
1970s: (2000 A.D. #1
Much as I wanted to give this one to Conan #1 for ushering in a greater diversity of content in comics, I see 2000 AD #1 as more vital because the title would ultimately assemble the great British creators who would infiltrate American comics in the 1980s and change their course forever, most notably bringing us Alan Moore (who would redefine the popular notion of the superhero) and Neil Gaiman (who would establish a credible mainstream alternative to superheroes in comics).
1980s: The Dark Knight Returns
Much as I feel the book is overrated, it brought mainstream attention back to comics in a way that comparable books like Watchmen and American Flagg couldn't. It's success caused others in the industry to take note and begin writing their comics on a more adult level, for better and for worse.
1990s: Spider-Man #1
Much of the speculation boom and bust that were the signature of this era can be traced back to the success of this single issue. It's reasonably possible there never would have been an Image Comics without its success either.
2000s: Identity Crisis
I think this was the series that finally took the then present trajectory of the superhero comic book too far, snapping readers out of the delusion that shocking deaths and jaded anti-heroes were desirable. Long term, I think negative reaction to this series pushed publishers to start producing more quality written books that weren't trying to outdo Watchmen anymore, though I'm not sure the publishers fully received that message until after the subsequent negative reaction to Infinite Crisis.
2010s: Flashpoint and the Nu 52
Whether it was a good or bad concept in the long run, it brought sales figures back out of the slump they'd been in since the late 1990s.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Nov 10, 2014 22:51:11 GMT -5
Shaxper as much as I hate to agree with your assessment of DKR in the 80s, as Watchmen or American Flagg had to sell the entire content of the book and not just a name, Batman, like Miller did, your probably right. Not that I'll ever agree that it was a positive significance to comics, just a significance in people taking notice.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 10, 2014 22:53:31 GMT -5
Shaxper as much as I hate to agree with your assessment of DKR in the 80s, as Watchmen or American Flagg had to sell the entire content of the book and not just a name, Batman, like Miller did, your probably right. Not that I'll ever agree that it was a positive significance to comics, just a significance in people taking notice. I concur with all that you've said here, actually. I wish DKR hadn't gotten all the attention that it did or significantly changed people's perception of Batman in the way that it did, but it was likely the most significant comic of the decade. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Nov 10, 2014 23:00:18 GMT -5
Shaxper as much as I hate to agree with your assessment of DKR in the 80s, as Watchmen or American Flagg had to sell the entire content of the book and not just a name, Batman, like Miller did, your probably right. Not that I'll ever agree that it was a positive significance to comics, just a significance in people taking notice. I concur with all that you've said here, actually. I wish DKR hadn't gotten all the attention that it did or significantly changed people's perception of Batman in the way that it did, but it was likely the most significant comic of the decade. Just for the sake of conversation (and I wasn't in comics in the 80s) did The Killing Joke not have a significant cultural impact due to its far more controversial content than DKR? Even though it's not a top ten favorite for me I think it's a better piece of Batman fiction. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 10, 2014 23:02:22 GMT -5
I concur with all that you've said here, actually. I wish DKR hadn't gotten all the attention that it did or significantly changed people's perception of Batman in the way that it did, but it was likely the most significant comic of the decade. Just for the sake of conversation (and I wasn't in comics in the 80s) did The Killing Joke not have a significant cultural impact due to its far more controversial content than DKR? Even though it's not a top ten favorite for me I think it's a better piece of Batman fiction. I just don't think it garnered the same level of attention. DKR got people who weren't comic people to pay attention in a way that they hadn't before. Stephen King read DKR and raved about it. For people who hadn't been paying attention, DKR led people to believe comic books had grown up from The Silver Age to the Modern Age with a single limited series, especially as the common perception of Batman in the wider public prior to DKR was Adam West doing the Watusi. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2014 23:13:00 GMT -5
DKR was also one of the first comics to get collected in a trade and sold in bookstores so it reached a wider audience than a lot of comics. I remember buying the trade (still have that copy from Warner books not DC comics) even though I had the originals, and aside from the Fireside books I had in the 70s, it was really one of the first times I could take a comic as a book somewhere and read it (unfortunately a lot of times it was read was in a hospital waiting room after my dad had a stroke in '87 and I was spending tons of time at the hospital).
Killing Joke may have gotten as much buzz within comic fandom and within the industry as DKR, but it didn't cross-over into the mass pop culture the way DKR did. Of course if you are just measuring cross-over pop culture recognition for significance, Turtles blows both of them away in terms of how big it got. The Batman movie triggered Batmania, but not all of it was tied back to DKR, some of the cultural awareness of Batman links back to Adam West and Super-friends too both of which obviously pre-date DKR, Turtlemania however hit big with the animated series but can be traced directly back to the comics which debuted in the 80s. However, cross-over success is not the only measure of significance. DKR changed the tone and approach to comics. TMNT #1 changed the way people made, published, and sold comics. Killing Joke had none of that going for it.
-M
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Nov 10, 2014 23:25:18 GMT -5
DKR was also one of the first comics to get collected in a trade and sold in bookstores so it reached a wider audience than a lot of comics. I remember buying the trade (still have that copy from Warner books not DC comics) even though I had the originals, and aside from the Fireside books I had in the 70s, it was really one of the first times I could take a comic as a book somewhere and read it (unfortunately a lot of times it was read was in a hospital waiting room after my dad had a stroke in '87 and I was spending tons of time at the hospital). Killing Joke may have gotten as much buzz within comic fandom and within the industry as DKR, but it didn't cross-over into the mass pop culture the way DKR did. Of course if you are just measuring cross-over pop culture recognition for significance, Turtles blows both of them away in terms of how big it got. The Batman movie triggered Batmania, but not all of it was tied back to DKR, some of the cultural awareness of Batman links back to Adam West and Super-friends too both of which obviously pre-date DKR, Turtlemania however hit big with the animated series but can be traced directly back to the comics which debuted in the 80s. However, cross-over success is not the only measure of significance. DKR changed the tone and approach to comics. TMNT #1 changed the way people made, published, and sold comics. Killing Joke had none of that going for it. -M Also, while Turtles got a lot of mainstream attention, it didn't get a lot of non-comic readers reading it. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2014 23:54:37 GMT -5
I would argue that those First Comics trades brought in a lot of readers and the TMNT rpg of the 80s certainly did, it well outsold the Mayfair Games DC Role Playing Game (though not the TSR Marvel Super Heroes rpg) reaching out to a different segment of the then in closet but burgeoning geek culture and bringing them into the comics fold. But moreso, I would argue that the Archie series of TMNT comics sprung from the original Mirage series in the wake of the animated series got as widespread distribution into mainstream outlets as DKR (if not more than)via Archie's distribution channels and probably had a greater readership at the time of non-traditional comics readers (i.e. those not going to comic shops for their weekly fix) than DKR did.
Also, those early issues Mirage issues also triggered and fueled the black and white boom and bust, which laid the ground work for the speculator boom and bust of the 90s, which does add to the significance of the Turtles book too in a way DKR didn't do. If you look at it as ripples, DKR made a big splash that was certainly noticed and felt, and garnered a lot of attention, but the splash made by TMNT was just as big, spread wider, and affected more of the body of water and the travelers on it than DKR did.
-M
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 11, 2014 0:03:25 GMT -5
1930s: More Fun (or was it New Fun?) # 1. First original material comic books. This seems more important than Superman and et. al to me.
1940s: Young Romance # 1: Significantly broadened and changed the market for American comics.
1950s: Mad # 1. (I'd argue the most important American comic of all time in terms of cultural impact.)
1960s: Zap # 0 Completely changed the paradigm for what content was allowed in comics, what their target audience could be, and how they were sold.
1970s: Heavy Metal # 1. See above.
1980s: Raw # 1. The first American attempt to treat comics as a legitimate adult art form, arguing they should have the same respect here as they do in Eurpoe.
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Post by MDG on Nov 11, 2014 10:32:05 GMT -5
1980s: Raw # 1. The first American attempt to treat comics as a legitimate adult art form, arguing they should have the same respect here as they do in Eurpoe. I almost picked RAW for the 80s, but more for the debut of Maus in #2. I don't think Maus has been mentioned here yet, but it probably did as much or more than Watchmen and Dark Knight to push comics into the mainstream. I don't know, though, whether this would've happened if it hadn't been collected into a book. The impact of RAW itself was probably limited by the low print runs and almost hand-crafted aesthetic of the issues. When it became a mass-market book, it didn't last. |
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Nov 11, 2014 11:17:23 GMT -5
Just for the sake of conversation (and I wasn't in comics in the 80s) did The Killing Joke not have a significant cultural impact due to its far more controversial content than DKR? Even though it's not a top ten favorite for me I think it's a better piece of Batman fiction. I just don't think it garnered the same level of attention. DKR got people who weren't comic people to pay attention in a way that they hadn't before. Stephen King read DKR and raved about it. For people who hadn't been paying attention, DKR led people to believe comic books had grown up from The Silver Age to the Modern Age with a single limited series, especially as the common perception of Batman in the wider public prior to DKR was Adam West doing the Watusi. DKR was also one of the first comics to get collected in a trade and sold in bookstores so it reached a wider audience than a lot of comics. I remember buying the trade (still have that copy from Warner books not DC comics) even though I had the originals, and aside from the Fireside books I had in the 70s, it was really one of the first times I could take a comic as a book somewhere and read it (unfortunately a lot of times it was read was in a hospital waiting room after my dad had a stroke in '87 and I was spending tons of time at the hospital). Killing Joke may have gotten as much buzz within comic fandom and within the industry as DKR, but it didn't cross-over into the mass pop culture the way DKR did. Of course if you are just measuring cross-over pop culture recognition for significance, Turtles blows both of them away in terms of how big it got. The Batman movie triggered Batmania, but not all of it was tied back to DKR, some of the cultural awareness of Batman links back to Adam West and Super-friends too both of which obviously pre-date DKR, Turtlemania however hit big with the animated series but can be traced directly back to the comics which debuted in the 80s. However, cross-over success is not the only measure of significance. DKR changed the tone and approach to comics. TMNT #1 changed the way people made, published, and sold comics. Killing Joke had none of that going for it. -M I can see where DKR would have the advantage being on the shelves of something other than comic book stores. Even in the mid 90's when I started buying, comics were still in spinner racks usually with the magazines and hardly close to "books" on the shelves. I don't remember if there were a whole lot of TPB on book store shelves at the time, since they weren't my primary source for buying comics. I went to book stores to buy books and comic book stores to buy comics. At least at that time it didn't seem like either store crossed over in product too much. I could see where that would get it a whole lot more attention, whether it be the best example to use to get comics "legitimate" attention from non comic readers. |
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Post by hondobrode on Nov 11, 2014 14:36:38 GMT -5
 1931 - The first Shadow pulp magazine, heavily influencing the Batman later to come. Also one of the earliest pulp heroes, direct predecessors to our beloved Golden Age comic book characters.  1941 - First appearance of Wonder Woman, the first major super heroine.  1954 - The publication of the book that led to a Congressional hearing and the creation of the Comic Code Authority, effectively neutering the industry for decades.  1961 - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby shift gears and take a shot at imperfect heroes with feet of clay, ushering in the Marvel Age of Comics.  1977 - Inspired by the French Metal Hurlant, National Lampoon publishes an Americanized version with slick production values and stories outside of the realm of the Comics Code Authority. The artwork featured raised the bar of what was possible in the graphic story medium and brought a more "adult" aesthetic to the mainstream.  1980 - Educomics releases the legendary Japanese epic of Barefoot Gen in the American "Gen of Hiroshima". It is the first English translation of Japanese manga in America, and an extremely powerful biography of a boy and his family's experience of having the atomic bomb drop in 1945. This is the stepping stone for the tidal wave of manga and manga-influenced media that will change American culture.  1992 - One of Marvel's biggest stars, Todd McFarlane wants more control over stories and characters than Marvel will allow. McFarlane rounds up 6 other superstar artists and defects from the House of Ideas to shake the industry to its core with the formation of Image Comics. Spawn # 1 sells over 200K copies and in May of 1992, with Image's launch, bumps off industry giant DC as the # 2 best selling publisher.  2003 - Robert Kirkman's Skybound imprint releases The Walking Dead # 1 and ushers in a pop culture phenomenon radiating not only from comics and collected editions but including its own television show which is the # 1 show in the nation. It also helps to strengthen the Image brand as the # 3 publisher and reinforces what Image was founded on : a platform for not only being able to express the story you have, but to own the concept. THD also helps to reinvigorate genre comics with blended genres presentations like TWD's own zombie western, opening the field to more offerings than merely superheroes heavily dominated by Marvel & DC.  2013 - Brian K. Vaughn & Marcos Martin release The Private Eye through their direct-to-reader Panel Syndicate as a DRM-free name your own price digital download. "Even though readers can still pay whatever they want for our DRM-free files (including nothing!), artist Marcos Martin, colorist Muntsa Vicente and I are proud to reveal that The Private Eye is already well into the six figures for both issues downloaded AND dollars earned… and that’s without advertising, corporate backers, Comixology-like distributors, or even a Kickstarter campaign. It’s all because of small contributions from readers around the world, so sincere thanks again for your coverage of our ongoing experiment." |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 11, 2014 15:28:30 GMT -5
1980s: Raw # 1. The first American attempt to treat comics as a legitimate adult art form, arguing they should have the same respect here as they do in Eurpoe. I almost picked RAW for the 80s, but more for the debut of Maus in #2. I don't think Maus has been mentioned here yet, but it probably did as much or more than Watchmen and Dark Knight to push comics into the mainstream. I don't know, though, whether this would've happened if it hadn't been collected into a book. The impact of RAW itself was probably limited by the low print runs and almost hand-crafted aesthetic of the issues. When it became a mass-market book, it didn't last. Yeah, it's a symbolic choice mostly, but it does mean to me that "literary" (to use a completely wrong term because I can't think of anything better) comics were possible in America. Also I couldn't think of anything else for the '80s. I could be swayed by Hondobrobe's Japanese reprints, but all the "important" '80s comics just felt like they were appealing to a nichier and slightly older version of the same audience that always bought mainstream comics. Raw at least was trying for a different crowd than was reading John Byrne's Fantastic Four or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or even Watchmen. I'm not sure that Maus is quite as mainstream as Watchmen, but it did do a lot to make comics acceptable to academia. It's really the only comic that's a significant work in an academic field (in this case Jewish/Holocaust.) |
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Post by hondobrode on Nov 11, 2014 23:18:48 GMT -5
I almost picked RAW for the 80s, but more for the debut of Maus in #2. I don't think Maus has been mentioned here yet, but it probably did as much or more than Watchmen and Dark Knight to push comics into the mainstream. I don't know, though, whether this would've happened if it hadn't been collected into a book. The impact of RAW itself was probably limited by the low print runs and almost hand-crafted aesthetic of the issues. When it became a mass-market book, it didn't last. Yeah, it's a symbolic choice mostly, but it does mean to me that "literary" (to use a completely wrong term because I can't think of anything better) comics were possible in America. Also I couldn't think of anything else for the '80s. I could be swayed by Hondobrobe's Japanese reprints, but all the "important" '80s comics just felt like they were appealing to a nichier and slightly older version of the same audience that always bought mainstream comics. Raw at least was trying for a different crowd than was reading John Byrne's Fantastic Four or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or even Watchmen. I'm not sure that Maus is quite as mainstream as Watchmen, but it did do a lot to make comics acceptable to academia. It's really the only comic that's a significant work in an academic field (in this case Jewish/Holocaust.) Like you, Raw and Maus crossed my mind for the same reasons. I was was very torn on the 70's pick with 2000 A.D. # 1, as Shaxper rightfully points out. |
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