To Market, to Market: Comic Books in the Best of Times, the Worst of Times

TO MARKET, TO MARKET: COMIC BOOKS IN THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES

The End of the Silver Age

The 1960s was a flourishing decade for comic books in the United States, its so-called silver age. Begun by DC Comics in the late 1950s, the silver age of comics was spurred by the impressive successes in the 1960s of Marvel Comics, which revolutionized the medium by introducing characters with realistic personal problems in story lines that continued from issue to issue. But by the end of the decade interest in superheroes, which had driven the silver age, was declining, and it was not obvious what would take its place in the market. For comic books the early 1970s represented the end of one era, and the late 1970s ushered in a comic-book renaissance that continued into the 1980s.

A New Direction

Besides the fact that there was a glut of superheroes during the 1960s, it was hard for many to take such characters seriously after the success of ABC's Batman (1966-1969), whose campy treatment of the character made the superhero appear comic rather than dramatic. After following suit in its own Batman comics, DC reversed direction in the early 1970s thanks to the work of two young creators, writer Denny O'Neil and artist Neal Adams. The team was assigned to DC's Green Lantern (which also featured the character Green Arrow). They quickly began addressing contemporary issues such as drug abuse, prejudice, and ecology, ushering in a new wave of relevance to comics. Marvel soon engaged such topics, leading to a noteworthy showdown between comics publishers and their self-imposed production code in 1971. Both Green Lantern issues 85 and 86 (September-November) and Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man issues 95-97 (April-June) addressed the heretofore forbidden issue of drug abuse. These comics came into conflict with the Comics Code Authority for portraying drug use and its effects despite the fact that the writers came down heavily against drugs. The code was established by the comics industry in the mid 1950s in response to intense criticism about the contents of the magazines, and one thing that the code prohibited was any depiction of drug use. Green Lantern received the Comics Code Authority "stamp," but The Amazing Spider-Man was published without it, the first time a main-stream comic defied the authority of the code. As a result the code was modified so that such topics could be addressed. At the same time the code was revised to allow for more violence and the freer use of horror elements. The year 1972 witnessed a rebirth of the horror comic; the best example was DCs Swamp Thing by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson.

Changes in the Market

Perhaps the most significant development in the comic-book industry during the 1970s had to do not with content but with commerce. The best-selling titles of the major publishers—Archie, Charlton, DC, Gold Key, Harvey, and Marvel—routinely sold hundreds of thousands of copies per issue. There was little competition, however, and by 1974 these six publishers were the only ones left in the industry. A new company, Atlas/Seaboard, was started in 1975, but it folded by the end of the year. This domination would be short-lived. In 1977 Cerebus the Aardvark, begun by Canadian writer and artist Dave Sim as a parody of the successful Conan comics of the 1970s, became the first regularly published comic book to be published and distributed independently. It paved the way for an explosion of independent comics companies in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Such comics were rarely available on newsstands and in drug stores—until this period the most popular places to buy comics—but they could often be found in shops specializing in comics. Such shops constituted another major shift in the comics market. While they made comics more available, they also had the effect of promoting comics collecting, which drove up prices for back issues considerably.

Things to Come

Two other novelties in comic books were introduced in the late 1970s that would have a considerable influence on the market in the years to come. The first "graphic novel"—a book-length comic published in book form—appeared in 1978 with Empire, written by science-fiction author Samuel R. Delany and illustrated by Howard Chaykin. Published by Berkley, the graphic novel appeared in bookstores as well as with more traditional comics. The second new idea, the comic-book miniseries, may have taken its inspiration from the phenomenally successful television miniseries Roots and from Marvel's adaptation of the enormously successful 1977 film Star Wars. DC was first with the three-issue World of Krypton in 1979; many others soon followed. During the 1980s and early 1990s many comics would be published in separate issues as a miniseries and then published in book form as a graphic novel, allowing companies nearly to double their profits for a single comic.

Sources:

Mike Benton, The Comic Book in America: An Illustrated History, revised edition (Dallas: Taylor, 1993);

Will Jacobs and Gerald Jones, The Comic Book Heroes from the Silver Age to the Present (New York: Crown, 1985).