The Golden Age of Comics

[Spandex]

So I found this website - Comic Books Plus - with thousands of out of copywrite Golden Age Comics. Some are great, some are terrible, loads are formulaic, many are offensive in some way, but delving into them has been an education. Obviously the big names - DC Comics, EC Comics, the early superheros like Captain America that are now owned by Marvel - are absent, but that leaves the ocean of lesser known Comics that poured out of numerous publishers throughout the Golden Age.

A definition of what I mean by the Golden Age of Comics...

The idea of sequential illustrated narratives goes back a long way and you can pick your favourite 'first comic ever': the Bayeux Tapestry, Rodolphe Topffer's 1837 The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, Chinese Lianhuanhua from the late 19thC, Richard Fenton Outcault's 1896 The Yellow Kid. But most people put the start of the Golden Age of Comics as June 1938 with the publication of Action Comics #1:



The introduction of Superman caught the public's imagination with tales of a superpowered hero fighting on the side of the little guys and an explosion of comic books followed, the biggest names selling in their millions to mainly young (up to mid-20s) people. While superhero comics are what many people think of there was a wide range of genres throughout the Golden Age - romance, adventure, sci-fi, crime, horror. These were where most of the interesting stories were.

The biggest selling comic was Fawcett Comic's Captain Marvel, who outsold Superman throughout the 1940s:



An obvious Superman rip-off, with his cry of Shazam! he turned from homeless orphan boy Billy Baston into superhero Captain Marvel. His reign came to an end in 1953, partly as a result of a copywrite lawsuit by DC Comics and partly because of the declining popularity of superheros after 1945ish. Fawcett Comic's licenced the character to DC in 1971 and since then he has been a minor character in the DC universe.

The Golden Age of Comics came to an end around 1954, following the publication of Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent in April 1954. This book tapped into pre-existing fears about the content of comic books and triggered a moral panic blaming comics for juvenile deliquency, which lead to the creation of the Comics Book Code in the same year. This forced comic publishers to release only tamer content suitable for the youngest kids. Loads of publishers folded and the comics industry struggled for a few years before the resurgence of superheros and the start of the Silver Age of comics.

 

[RainbowTown]

Loving this website. Thanks for the link.

 

[Spandex]

One of the first things that's obvious about Golden Age comics are the 'of their time attitudes'; that is racism and sexism.

The industry was overwhelmingly white and male and, in general, reflected the attitudes of the US in the period.

On race, many comics avoided the issue by not having any black characters, save the occasional porter or cleaner in an incidental role. But when black characters did appear they were often stereotyped and caricatured in ways that are shocking to a modern reader. And after 1941 depictions of Japanese became astonishingly racist.

Then there's the whole genre of jungle adventures. This popular style of adventure, derivative of Tarzan, would usually see a white hero battle a white villain in an exotic African/Pacific/South American jungle location with savage natives, often reliant on supernatural powers, as one of the hazards they face. Essentially the whole premise is inherently racist. For example:



The US being the openly racist society it was at the time black writers found themselves shut out of the industry. All Negro Comics was founded in 1947 by an all-black team, they published one issue, but found when they tried to order paper for the second issue, no-one would sell to them.



There were exceptions. EC Comics, best known for Tales from the Crypt and Weird Tales (and later MAD Magazine) ran some progressive stories, described as 'a preachy'. Most famous is probably Judgment Day in Weird Fantasy #18 from 1953, where a human has to judge a robot world's fitness to join the Galactic Empire and despite looking like a good fit he notices the treatment of the blue robots and declines the application. In the last panel the human removes his helmet...

But that is an outlier and a lot of Golden Age comics need some acceptance of horrific attitudes to get past the racism.

 

[DotCommunist]

the majority of the contributions to this site- the really wtf ones anyway- seem to come from this era:

Superman is a Dick - Superdickery - Be sure to catch Avengers 4: The Unsnappening

superdickery.com

 

[Spandex]

The sexism is an interesting one. US society's attitude towards women changed from the 1930s to the 50s and this is reflected in how women are depicted.

Obviously the first thing to note is that the industry was male dominated (something which is still true, even if women are now getting a look in), so all female characters are written and drawn by men. Wonder Woman is a popular strong female character, but with the skimpy costume, whips and frequently getting tied up by villains she was a fantasy of BDSM loving creator William Moulton Marston.

The change over time is well shown by Lois Lane's character in Superman. In the 30s she's a go-getting, hard-nosed career woman, even if she is mainly there as Superman's love interest:



Earlier Golden Age comics are full of such strong women. After the WW2 women were expected to return to domesticity after their wartime role doing 'men's work' and this is reflected in Lois Lane's changing role:



The depiction of women is also often just an excuse for showing scantily clad women, whether in positions of strength:



Or as victims in peril:




The 1954 Comics Code was specific in prohibiting this:

• Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable.

 

[Spandex]

But mostly, I'm enjoying the horror comics.

They were a particular target for the Comics Code:

• No comic magazine shall use the words "horror" or "terror" in its title.
• All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted.
• All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated.
• Inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used or shall be published only where the intent is to illustrate a moral issue and in no case shall evil be presented alluringly, nor so as to injure the sensibilities of the reader.
• Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.

I love the weirdness of the tales in Voodoo:



The tale of the killer pajamas is excellent

 

[Spandex]

Comic fact!

Swamp Thing is a well known DC character, especially after Alan Moore's run as writer and the films. Swamp Thing was created in 1971 by Len Wein.



Wein shared a room at the time with Roy Thomas, creator of Marvel's mighty Man Thing, also created in 1971.



Man Thing debuted a couple of months before Swamp Thing and was probably created first. Wein denied knowing about or copying Thomas' idea, but with the DC/Marvel rivalry being what it was at the time a copywrite lawsuit might have been expected. Except it couldn't, because both monsters bore an uncanny resemblance to The Heap, who first appeared in 1941.



I liked the Airboy comic revival in the 80s, so it’s been great to read the original Golden Age Airboy comics, even if they are mostly inctedibly simplistic WW2 nonsense.

 

[tommers]

Loving this.

 

[Spandex]

Some love for Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates.

Perhaps slightly off topic, as it was mostly a newspaper comic strip starting in 1934 but it ran as a comic book series from 1947 to 1951, so maybe not.

In the mid-30s Terry is a wise-cracking teen accompanied by tough Pat Ryan and his (racist caricature) sidekick Connie on adventures in the far east, getting kidnapped by pirates, mixed up with the nefarious Dragon Queen, in trouble with unscrupulous western businessmen, on and on. As the series continues the characters (including Connie) get more rounded, the stories more complex and the art gets better and better.

These two frames sum up the adventure, romance and Chinese stereotypes in the 30s:

Caniff followed Chinese events for inspiration and as the Sino-Japanese war heated up he introduced the war to the strip, but as his syndicate was run by non-interventionists he was prevented from identifying "the invaders" until Pearl Harbour, when he could call them who they were: Japanese. During the war Terry joins the airforce and continues his adventures, coming up against French Axis spy Sanjak, a rare Golden Age lesbian character.

The death of regular character Raven Sherman in 1941 caused a minor outcry, being so hard hitting for a syndicated comic strip:

Caniff left the strip in 1946 in a payment dispute and it carried on until 1973.

If you can put up with the Chinese stereotypes it's a fantastic adventure comic. It was reprinted a decade or so ago in trade paperbacks but they cost £££ now, however there's loads here: Terry and the Pirates

 

[AverageJoe]

This is a most excellent thread. I'm learning stuff I never even knew about. Top work Spandex

 

[DaveCinzano]

Plenty to interest the UK fan too - a wide selection of story papers (including DC Thomson's Big 5, and AP's own heavy hitters like The Gem and The Magnet), and a large if non-compehensive bunch of strip comics from more minor publishers like Swan, Boardman and - of course! - Alan Class!

British Story Papers - Comic Book Plus

British Story Papers as the name suggests is a uniquely British institution. A Story Paper is a publication aimed at young boys and girls

comicbookplus.com

UK Comic Books - Comic Book Plus

The premier site for legally available Golden and Silver Age comic books, with free downloads, online viewing plus a friendly and lively forum, and more ...

comicbookplus.com

 

[stuff_it]

Another good site is readcomiconline.li. Great for all eras of comic and graphic novel.

 

[Spandex]

Dr Wertham was particularly bothered about crime comics in Seduction of the Innocent. He specifically mentions Crime Does Not Pay a number of times:


(Love that cover)

He argued that crime comics glorified crime and caused readers to become criminal's. tbf, he had a point with that first one. Often based on 'true' crimes (with lots of artistic licence), they were presented in the most shocking, salacious and titillating way possible, usually with the criminal as the protagonist. The justification was that they were morality tales, with the criminal always caught or killed at the end (often in the final frame or two, after lingering on the crime). If you kidnap women, cut off their heads and put them in a freezer you will go to prison.

There's misogyny galore with jealous or greedy women frequently at the centre of the crime and scantily clad women in peril a regular occurrence.

At their best, however, there's some cool trashy crime stories.

A couple of the more trashy covers:





And remember kids, drugs are bad:

 

[Spandex]

You might notice in Crime SuspenStories in the last post that there's a Ray Bradbury adaptation. EC Comics adapted 28 Ray Bradbury stories into comic form between 1951 and 54.

The partnership started when Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines plagiarised two Bradbury stories for Weird Science comic. Bradbury, a comic fan, noticed and wrote to Gaines saying:

“Just a note to remind you of an oversight. You have not as yet sent on the check for $50.00 to cover the use of secondary rights on my two stories ‘The Rocket Man’ and ‘Kaleidoscope.’ . . . I feel this was probably overlooked in the general confusion of office work, and look forward to your payment in the near future.”

Gaines paid him quickly and they agreed an ongoing series of Bradbury adaptations that appeared in a range of EC comics. There's some classics amongst them.

Here (if the link works) is Bradbury's story of an automated house on Mars going about its daily business after the occupants have been killed in a nuclear war, from Weird Fantasy #17: There Will Come Soft Rains...

 

[DaveCinzano]

Here (if the link works) is Bradbury's story of an automated house on Mars going about its daily business after the occupants have been killed in a nuclear war, from Weird Fantasy #17: There Will Come Soft Rains...

Less than three years to go

 

[Spandex]

From 1947 to 50 the biggest selling US comics were romance titles. With the declining popularity of superheros after the end of WW2 there was an explosion of romance comics.

The first was Young Romance in 1947, created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon (who'd created Captain America in 1941; Kirby becoming a massively famous artist for Marvel in the 60s - his work on Silver Surfer still talked about today). It set the template for the romance comics to follow.



Written and drawn exclusively by men and aimed at teenage girls the stories are generally either women faced with a choice between a nice boy or a bad boy women fighting to get their man against a rival or overcoming her 'shortcomings' to get her man. They're white, middle class and entirely heterosexual, instruction manuals on post-war gender role expectations. Women exist in relation to men and that relationship is submission. If women are too strong, too independent, too hard working, too dowdy they risk losing their man and have to correct themselves to win him back. Women's primary purpose is to win a man, get married and settle into a life of domesticity.

Of course, the path of true love is never smooth (otherwise where is the story?), but if women conform to society's expectations they'll succeed in getting a ring on their finger (or keep it there).

By 1950 there were well over 100 different romance comics being published.





In 1950 the market became saturated, there wasn't room on newsstands for all the different titles, readers had got the idea and sales halved.

Despite their function telling women their place, Dr Wertham still found plenty of space in Seduction of the Innocent to criticise in romance comics - too racey, the stories too overwrought, some stories too close to his hated crime genre. After 1954 the romance stories were tamed down, as can be seen from this frame of a comic originally printed pre-code and reprinted post-code with changes to meet the new standards:

Romance comics remained a popular genre throughout the rest of the 50s and through the 60s, Archie Comics probably being the best known. With more relationships appearing in Marvel superhero comics in the 60s rendering separate romance titles unnecessary, competition from soap operas on TV, the rise of underground comics and feminism the romance genre all but died out in the early 70s.

 

[Spandex]

Some unadulterated love for the best genre of the Golden Age: horror comics.

Probably the first horror story appeared in December 1940 in Prize Comics #7 amongst the superheros, like Power Nelson and Green Lama, when Frankenstein was introduced:



Other tellings of classic tales, such as Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were published by Gilberton Publications in 1943 and the first dedicated horror comic was Avon Publications Eeire #1, hitting news stands in late 1946. But the big explosion of horror comics came with EC Comics.

Originally founded in 1944 by Maxwell Gaines as Educational Comics, it put out child friendly comics such as Picture Stories from the Bible. When Maxwell died in a boating accident in 1947 his son Bill Gaines inherited the company, renamed it Entertaining Comics and took it in a different direction with sci-fi, suspence and horror titles, such as Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear.



With superior artwork and well told creepy stories often featuring a twist at the end they led to a boom in horror comics which lasted until they were banned by the Comics Code in 1954. EC tried to limp on without code approval, but couldn't get distributors to carry them and they folded in 1956. These stories, being generally awesome, have continued to find new audiences ever since and you can find reprints and collections in any comic shop today.

But being popular, other publishers jumped on the horror bandwagon and there were loads of titles from 1947 to 1954. While quality is more variable than with EC there's an ocean of fantastic tales of ghosts, monsters, mad scientists and dishonest people getting a supernatural comeuppance.

These remain some of the best comic stories printed onto pulpy paper with cheap ink.

 

[Dom Traynor]

Another good site is readcomiconline.li. Great for all eras of comic and graphic novel.

comicextra.com can be a more reliable mirror of that site I find.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Tangentially related, the Pulitzer-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is set during the rise of the Golden Age of comics and takes inspiration from many of the most well-known names of that era. It's a fantastic book, I highly recommend it.

 

[Spandex]

Tangentially related, the Pulitzer-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is set during the rise of the Golden Age of comics and takes inspiration from many of the most well-known names of that era. It's a fantastic book, I highly recommend it.

I read that about 20 years ago, remember liking it but can't remember anything else about it. I think I'll make that my next book to read

 

[Spandex]

If Superman's appearance triggered the start of the Golden Age of comics was he the first superhero? Of course not.

Picking the first superhero depends very much on your definition. If you take the broadest definition the first is Sumerian demigod Gilgamesh with his superhuman strength, dating back to 2100 BC. But if you focus on comics, then the meaning of superhero is what counts. Before the superpowered hero explosion following Superman's introduction a superhero referred to any extraordinary hero, so you can include Tarzan and Buck Rogers (both first appearing in comic form in 1929).

The first to appear in a comic strip with superhuman powers and a distinctive costume was Mandrake the Magician (1934).



The first masked hero in a comic book was The Clock (1937) with his hypnotic powers.



As for the first superpowered woman in a comic strip there's Olga Mesmer with her X Ray vision (1937).



But whoever came first, it was Superman who brought it all together in 1938 and set off the massive popularity of superheros for the next 7 years.

 

[Spandex]

Some less remembered superheros from the early years of the Golden Age...

The Shield (Jan 1940). The all-American hero with super-strength, who inspired Captain America a year later.



Cat•Man and his sidekick/niece Kitty (Sept 1940)



Brilliant scientist The Skyman (May 1940)



Firing lightening bolts from his hands, Blue Bolt (June 1940)



I could just keep going, as there's absolutely loads of them.

 

[DotCommunist]

I remember reading about a character from this era called the Submariner, I remember thinking 'well hows that an exciting hero, a dude with a submarine. Nemo did it already' but given the era I realize that submarines were a new tech and subject of fascination. Google says he was in marvel in 1939

 

[Spandex]

I remember reading about a character from this era called the Submariner, I remember thinking 'well hows that an exciting hero, a dude with a submarine. Nemo did it already' but given the era I realize that submarines were a new tech and subject of fascination. Google says he was in marvel in 1939

Here's his first cover feature.

 

[tommers]

He's more of an Aquaman than a submarine captain. I used to have a Fantastic Four book that collected the first however many issues.

Part of the bit with him in is here:

I remember the bit where the Human Torch gives him a haircut

He's heavy on the "this evil species called mankind!"

 

[tommers]

I like Michael Kupperman's pisstake though

 

[Spandex]

There's an interesting piece here (video or text, take your pick) on The Political Influence of Comics in America During WWII.

tldr: they were a major propaganda tool aimed at the young.



And remember: Insure the 4th of July! Buy war bonds and stamps!

 

[DaveCinzano]

There's an interesting piece here (video or text, take your pick) on The Political Influence of Comics in America During WWII.

tldr: they were a major propaganda tool aimed at the young.

View attachment 339099

And remember: Insure the 4th of July! Buy war bonds and stamps!

View attachment 339103

Cf The Beano's 'Musso The Wop' and The Dandy's 'Addy & Hermy'

 

[Spandex]

Not Golden Age, but Comic Books Plus has a load of Skywald Publications from the early 70s, which for some reason were never copywrited.

After the Comic Book Code was introduced in 1954 all the horror and crime titles had been forced out of business by 1956. Horror comics were dead. For a bit...

In 1963 Warren, a magazine publisher, tried out putting some monster comic strips in their Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. As it was a magazine they found they weren't covered by the Code, so they released the bi-monthly Creepy magazine, which carried on the EC horror tradition. As it was magazine size, on the magazine shelf at the news stand, in black & white and cost 35c instead of the 12c a comic book cost they found they were free to do this as it wasn't technically a comic book. They released a number of magazine size horror comic magazines, most famously sexy vampire comic Vampirella from 1969.

Then in 1970 they faced their first serious competition when Skywald launched. Founded by Marvel's former Production Manager Sol Brodsky and Isreal Waldman, who'd made his name in comics with IW Comics in the late 50s/early 60s re-releasing a random jumble of Golden Age comics from defunct publishers without regard for intellectual property. They dived into the market with Nightmare, Psycho and Scream.



At first Skywald was similar to Warren, but then they bought in a load of Spanish artists, who had a different tradition of comic art heavily influence by Argentinian comic artist Alberto Breccia. Their style was influential on early 70s comic art in the US.



Their comics were weird and creepy and featured many a scantily clad woman.

Then in 1971 the dam of the Comic Book Code was finally breached. It had been erroded by the rise of Underground Comix in the 60s, DIY comics sold in headshops to the freaks, and Warren dodging the Code. Then the Nixon administration, as part of the War on Drugs, asked Marvel boss Stan Lee to run an anti-drugs story. Lee obliged with The Green Goblin Reborn story in Amazing Spiderman #96 to 98. As all mention of drugs was banned by the Code the comics were denied Code approval, but Lee published anyway and commercial force won out. The Code was revisited and softened, including allowing some horror in comics. This led to the 'Bronze Age' of comics with more mature (but not too mature) content allowed in comic books.

There followed a boom in horror comics from Marvel, often directly lifted from Skywald stories. Psycho magazine had revived Golden Age swamp monster The Heap and a year later Marvel and DC followed with Man Thing and Swamp Thing. Skywald created Hell Rider, a demonic biker, and Marvel followed with Ghost Rider, a demonic biker. The glut of Marvel horror titles saw their distributor force Skywald titles off the shelf and the company folded in 1975.

There's some great art, interesting page layout and cool horror stories in these comic magazines and their influence echoed throughout the Bronze Age of comics.

 

[Spandex]

Tangentially related, the Pulitzer-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is set during the rise of the Golden Age of comics and takes inspiration from many of the most well-known names of that era. It's a fantastic book, I highly recommend it.

I just finished reading this. It's not that tangentially related as it's absolutely a history of the Golden Age of comics, being mostly set in the comics world between 1938 and 1954, drawing on conversations with key comic figures from the time and, as you say, is based on real people and events. It's also a fucking fantastic book. Just thinking about Sam & Tracy makes me sad and angry. My only criticism is that it's so good I kept going to sleep really late because I didn't want to stop reading and now I'm knackered.

It made me want to know more about those inspirations, so i had a dig and...

SPOILERS AHEAD! STOP READING AND JUST LOOK AT THE PICTURES IF THAT BOTHERS YOU!

Jerry Siegel and Joseph Shuster were two Jewish teenagers when they invented Superman and sold the rights for $100.

Jack Kirby was a young Jewish comic writer who invented Captain America and had him battling the Nazis long before the US entered the war. Captain America #1 is the inspiration for Kavalier & Clay's first comic cover:


Charles Brio was another comic writer who used his stories to fantasise about fighting Nazis before the US was at war. The success of his Daredevil Battles Hitler led to him being given a weekend to produce issue 2, so he called on a group of comics people he knew and rushed it together, inspiring a key scene in the book.


Similar to Kavalier, Silver Age comic artist Jim Steranko was a professional escape artist before turning to comics. He did my favourite single issue of a Marvel comic from the 60s:


Like Kavalier, creator of The Spirit Will Eisner believed that comic books were capable of being much more than trash for kids, of being literature, and his 1978 A Contract With God is arguably the first graphic novel:


So, thanks for reminding me of this book. It's really got in my head