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[misappear]

Key books for key times

Comics could have bought the farm back in 1954 thanks to Dr. Wertham and Senator Keefauver.  Perhaps Superman on TV and the funny animals bought time until Detective 225/Showcase 4 when DC tried to revive its line. 

When Stan Lee produced FF #1, the US comic market had competition.  Which company did you line up with?

Sales, according to everything I've read, started to languish in the late 1960s until Batman happened on TV.  Holy Sh#t, Boy Wonder

That temporary boost bought time until the early 1970s when the new direct market started bringing Bernie Wrightson, Neal Adams, Jim Starlin, Jeff Jones, Mike Kaluta et al. to fans taking notice of the uptick in quality.  A lot of key books:  Green Lantern, Swamp Thing, The Shadow, and the over-rated 4th world

The industry may have imploded again by the late 1970s but for Superman/Star Wars/Star Trek raising the awareness of SF, and comic shops popping up wholesale around the country.  Right in the wheelhouse of GS #1/X-Men 94, The Death of Captain Marvel Graphic Novel, and the aforementioned Raw.

The 10-year run of ever-inflating comic book values guaranteed the industry's survival until November 19, 1993 when it all started falling apart with Superman white bag and Turok #1.  Key in what they caused when retailers couldn't pay for their orders.

Now kids don't read anymore and some of the best storytelling ever is being done.  That's cosmic irony for you.  Look at Berlin, Strangers in Paradise, Bone, American Splendor. 

If we all agree that Action #1 is la gran enchilada, the SECOND most influential key, in chronological order, might be the aforementioned Mad #1.  Its tentacles reached into parody, social comment, higher quality art, and format expansion while becoming a pop culture icon. 

One thing for sure, there's so much comics scholarship in this group that any top 50 (or thereabouts) list generated would be definitive.  Might be a cool winter project (except the southern hemisphere guys might be too busy surfing and grilling!)

--D

[John C]

I guess maybe it's because I'm not a collector in principle that I'm looking at this a little differently.  When I think of a "key book," I can't imagine it being a character's first appearance only because of it (sorry, Punisher!).  I think of the critical books as those that left a lasting industrial change.

Without Action Comics #1, comics might still be reprinting strips and ripping off popular pulp characters.  Without Showcase #4, we might not have continual revivals of older characters.  Without Crisis on Infinite Earths #1, we might not have "summer events" or mass retcons with our revivals (and which, itself, wouldn't have made it without The World of Krypton before it).  As Eric pointed out to begin with, Walt Kelly pioneered a lot of the storytelling devices with Pogo.

Mad, also pointed out, has been almost depressingly influential.  And there are the game-changers like Spider-Man's non-code issues (#96-98) that forced a rewrite in what stories can be told.

I might suggest that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Tick didn't necessarily influence the industry much (except in spurts), but have become the standards by which the outside world views superheroes.

When I think "key," that's where my mind goes.  The first appearance of Iron Man or the Martian Manhunter?  Less so, because they didn't really influence anything--if anything, they rode the existing influences to become core properties for the company.

Of course, I also agree with Dave that some of the "most key" comics...aren't even comics!  They're the things that let Superman and Batman keep some measure of popularity over seventy years, keeping the industry afloat when nobody expected it to survive.

[agentuup]

Animal Comics 001 is uploading to the FTP now. 
I found a better cover at the Heritage site, but included the original cover as a join - since the front and back covers make a wonderful picture.  Enjoy!!

[Yoc]

I think JC didn't catch my meaning when I mentioned ASM129 for the Punisher.
The character himself isn't all that important one way or the other.  BUT his 'type' of character lives on and sadly has turned most other books into the black, depressing, morally obscure heroes they love today.  Punisher beget Wolverine, etc. etc.

-Yoc

[John C]

I did get that, but I'm less convinced it works--but don't count on me as any sort of authority.  I don't write the price guides.

My problems are that there are earlier characters that fit the same general mold of villain-turned-antihero, the Punisher didn't start as anything remotely heroic from an editorial perspective, and I think there was already an editorial shift brewing.

I don't mind it as the collectable "key issue" (which it surely is), but I'd be less sure about laying all of modern nonheroes on a Spidey comic.

[Yoc]

Ok JC, I thought he was the first 'modern' hero to kill his enemies.
I could easily be wrong.

[John C]

To me, in this case, the key is that the Punisher was originally a straw-man so that Spidey could moralize.  He was turned into a "hero" because the editors were already looking at that idea in other cases that, I have to admit, I can't think of except in pre-Code books.

Even so (and by all means, feel free to disagree with me or ignore me, here, because this is an interesting discussion), when I think of a key book, I don't think of a character.  I think of the story that, itself, changed how people worked on comics.  The Punisher was symbolic of change, in my eyes, but his first story didn't really cause anything to happen like the JLA's first appearance, which was also suggested as critical.

Without the JLA, you don't get the Fantastic Four, and without them, you probably don't get much out of Marvel Comics.  That's a huge impact.  Without the Punisher, someone else would've taken his place and we'd blame him, so that book's impact is a bit less overall, as I see it.