[InsertMedia]

So, I'm a long time comic fan, but have little to no experience with the golden age. What should I be looking at first to establish a solid foundational understanding of the era?

Tips? Pointers?

[narfstar]

Well Insert it depends on what you like. The earlier stuff is much different from the later. If you get the pre-1940 Centaurs you will find a variety of small odd features. After Superman made such a splash superheroes took over. The different companies have different "feels" Quality's name is pretty accurate. I guess the GA can be summed up best by variety. Most comics had more than one feature. Many were not even of one type of feature. You could have superhero and western in the same book. Sample a little of everything.

[builderboy]

Narfstar touched on it, Insert, but I would say that a study of Golden Age comics would involve a big focus on genres (as opposed to specific characters like Superman).

You can watch it wash over the various publishers like waves as they responded to the sales numbers and the public's tastes as they moved from Funny Animal features to Crime, War, Jungle-themed, Horror and supernatural...then publication of 'The Seduction of the Innocent' and the Senate hearings on censorship, and the crash of the industry (in some sectors).

Most publishers had a foot in each genre, and responded to business trends to stay afloat. Ultimately, some didn't, and sold their intellectual properties to others. You will see titles from Quality and Charlton that ended up in DC's holdings (Plastic Man, Blue Beetle (originally a Fox Features title), Captain Atom, and others).  Most publishers also had titles that would shift to meet the market demands. That is why you will see some titles who's numbering doesn't start at issue #1.  Just this morning, I was looking at Charleton's 'Lawbreakers' (crime), which became 'Lawbreakers Suspense Stories' for issues 10 - 15, then 'Strange Suspense Stories' for issues 16 - 77 (with a period of being called 'This Is Suspense' in there), then finally becoming 'Captain Atom' (superhero).  It is helpful to keep a bookmark on the website Grand Comic Database (or a copy of Overstreets) for navigating the changes.

The crash of Martin Goodman's Timely and Atlas empires eventually would make room for former employee Stan Lee's foundation of Marvel Comics. It is fascinating to follow the progression from the start to the present.

I would suggest Fiction House or Quality as being fine starting points. Ultimately, it takes a long time to piece the whole thing together, and there is no 'wrong' starting point. It just requires curiosity and a good deal of reading time.

[Astaldo711]

I personally like MLJ and Better/Nedor stuff. Everyone has their favorites.

[narfstar]

There is such a wide variety here that would allow you to draw some of your own conclusions. Great fun

[Jedifish]

It really depends on your interests. I'd say Fawcett might have some of the better material, with all the Marvel Family stuff (especially Mac Raboy's art) and Jack Cole's Plastic Man (in Police Comics).

Popular Comics by Dell reprinted a lot of classic comic strips, if your interested in that stuff, like Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Terry & the Pirates, etc.

Animal Comics (Dell) has a lot of Walt Kelly work, including the beginnings of the Pogo strip.

[narfstar]

Walt Kelly is very popular and everywhere. Now I really dislike the comic strip reprint books. It was a good gimmick because you get to get a long string of issues to get a complete story and still had to buy to get the rest of other stories. Now unless we have a long string that you would be interested you may never get "the rest of the story." as Paul Harvey used to say

[Astaldo711]

Super hero, sci-fi, horro, western, romance, funny animal, it's all here!

[Astaldo711]

How could I forget? Probably because I was at work and typing rather quickly. 
We just need some cross genre books; "The Romantic Adventures of the Super Cowboy during the Space Wars versus The Zombie Bunnies from Hell"

[Astaldo711]

Good one! 

[narfstar]

gave me a chuckle

[Poztron]

So, I'm a long time comic fan, but have little to no experience with the golden age. What should I be looking at first to establish a solid foundational understanding of the era?

Tips? Pointers?

I think there are two ways to go about gaining a foundational understanding of the era. 1) Read up on it. Back issues of Alter Ego (now published by TwoMorrows) are a great resource for gaining a handle on the various companies and artists. Jules Feiffer's book on Golden Age comics is helpful. Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow is also helpful. And there are other resources, some of them on the web.  2) Dip into a variety of titles from different companies. My personal favorite publishers include Quality, Fiction House, Fox, Prize, Lev Gleason, Hillman, and St. John. But there are little surprises to be had from many of the smaller publishers, even if they are sometimes of the "this is so bad it's great" school of comics.

I personally divide the Golden Age up into two eras: Up through WWII and post-WWII. In the first era comic books were still finding their way and the visual language of comics was developing and evolving. This means that sometimes comics from that era seem pretty crude and even ugly by our more sophisticated standards. But if you read enough of them you can begin to see the language of comics grow before your eyes. In the post-war era, super-heroes were soon eclipsed by other genres and the art and writing became much better (IMHO).

I'm not exactly sure what the present consensus is on when the Golden Age ended and the Silver Age began. My long-time assumption was that the Golden Age ran from the late 30's until the early 50's, and that the Silver Age was basically from about '52 to the start of Marvel's new superhero era circa '62 or so. If that is the case, there was plenty published in the Silver Age that was actually of better quality than _some_ from the Golden Age. (And despite this site's name, there is a good amount of Silver Age material here.)

[narfstar]

Good sources Poztron and back issues of Comic Book Marketplace have a lot of good knowledge. I think the SA started with different issues of different books at different companies. I do not think that it can be pin pointed.

[Poztron]

I think the SA started with different issues of different books at different companies. I do not think that it can be pin pointed.

I'm sure that there is probably no single consensus on when the Silver Age started. And it is probable that the notion of "when the Silver Age was" has shifted over the years. Back at the beginning of the comics fandom that developed in the early 60s, I think there was the notion that the Golden Age was in the 40s and the Silver Age was in the 50s. However, decades later, I've sometimes gotten the impression that some people consider the classic Marvel era (starting roughly from the advent of the Fantastic Four and peaking in the mid-60s) as the Silver Era. But splitting things up into across-the-board time periods is misleading, as you imply. A period that was a highpoint for, say, Atlas, was not necessarily a highpoint for DC - whether it is considered pre-Silver or Silver or whatever.

[boox909]

I think the SA started with different issues of different books at different companies. I do not think that it can be pin pointed.

I'm sure that there is probably no single consensus on when the Silver Age started. And it is probable that the notion of "when the Silver Age was" has shifted over the years. Back at the beginning of the comics fandom that developed in the early 60s, I think there was the notion that the Golden Age was in the 40s and the Silver Age was in the 50s. However, decades later, I've sometimes gotten the impression that some people consider the classic Marvel era (starting roughly from the advent of the Fantastic Four and peaking in the mid-60s) as the Silver Era. But splitting things up into across-the-board time periods is misleading, as you imply. A period that was a highpoint for, say, Atlas, was not necessarily a highpoint for DC - whether it is considered pre-Silver or Silver or whatever.

I generally consider the Golden Age effectively over with the last appearances of Johnny Quick and The Shining Knight. Silver Age begins with Showcase #4 and reaches its height with Stan Lee's House of Borrowed Ideas in the 1960s. Just my two pennies.

B.

[Poztron]

I generally consider the Golden Age effectively over with the last appearances of Johnny Quick and The Shining Knight. Silver Age begins with Showcase #4 and reaches its height with Stan Lee's House of Borrowed Ideas in the 1960s. Just my two pennies.

B.

Hmm. Well, that's a DC-centric way of looking at it, but that's your right. We all look at it uniquely.

But if I am correct in what I hear you saying, effectively you think the Golden Age ended circa 1951 and the Silver Age began around late 1956. And, from my perspective, that may indeed be true for DC comics.

But I think there were a boatload of comics published between '51 and '56 that were the equal of (or better than) anything published post-1956. The primary EC output was in this apparent limbo period as was that of Atlas. (And there were others who had some fine stuff during that period, including Quality comics.) So I lean toward considering the comics in that '51 to '56 period as the Silver Age, with comics subsequently languishing in a kind of tarnished Silver period until the advent of comics like The Atom at DC or the FF at Marvel in the early '60s.

As a veteran of early comics fandom, I recall that the label of "Golden Age Comics" as it was originally invoked at that time (early '60s) referred to the comics of Jerry Bails' (and others') youth - those super-hero comics, largely of the '40s, that turned them into fans and collectors. Thus, the Golden Age at the inception of comics fandom was already years back...in the nostalgic '40s...indeed, prior to when MLJ, DC, and others largely abandoned super-heroes for the newly arising genres: romance, westerns, horror, sci-fi, etc.

And Skybandit wrote:

I'd date the Gold-Solver-Bronze Ages by the Comics Code Authority, which severely altered the world of comics.  From 1936 (the first appearance of the Clock) to 1954 (Creation of the CCA) would be the Golden Age, and from 1954 to 1971 (when the Code was first updated) would be the Silver Age.  From 1971 to 1986 (The publication start for the Watchmen, sans CCA seal) would be the Bronze Age, and 1986 to 2001 (When Marvel announced that it would no longer abide by the Code) would be the Iron Age.  Obviously, we're in the Copper Age!

That is a great way to map it out. The only problem is that it requires a post-2001 perspective and people were identifying Golden and Silver ages well before then.    I'm searching for some middle ground that can accommodate both present and early definitions of those ages.

[OtherEric]

That's pretty close to my personal division, skybandit.  Not exactly, but close enough since all eras have some overlap.  I just don't force my ideas onto others.  Silver/Bronze, in particular, has almost too many points I can point to.  At Marvel I'll stick the flag in as the 25c giant month but could go earlier to the 1st Conan or last Kirby issues.  At DC I would probably pick the last issue of Showcase as the marker this week but there are at least a dozen others I might pick depending on my mood; I think I could almost go title by title listing the cut-offs.  Last Showcase, last Sugar & Spike, Superman 233, 4th world titles, 1st Jonah Hex, GL/GA 76, Action 392 (Last LSH in that title, I think it was the last Weisinger issue), the Non-Batman run on World's Finest, and on and on and on.  Heck, in a lot of ways just the loss of the old-style Superman-DC-National Comics bullet is almost a catch all marker on the subject.

I think that's why I'm not a fan of the new DC logo:  It's not a bullet.  If your logo is a bullet for most of 60 years, you stick with the basic idea!

[Astaldo711]

I think everyone has their own opinion as to when the golden age/silver age/bronze age/platinum age/aluminum foil age began and ended. Some consider it with Action #1 through when All Star Comics became All Star Western. Some consider the silver age beginning with Showcase #4, others with Fantastic Four #1 I guess it depends on what publisher you like. I think the lines are blurred for the most part.

[narfstar]

My way of looking at it is pretty much like OtherE and goes issue by issue and I would probably go along with most of his issue splits.

[bchat]

I think that's why I'm not a fan of the new DC logo:  It's not a bullet.  If your logo is a bullet for most of 60 years, you stick with the basic idea!

I like the current DC logo, but think that they could still make use of the old logo on Archive collections & reprints.

[DennyWilson]

I miss the old DC "Dynamic Bullet" logo - I often wondered what determined what color it would be on a particular title each month. Black,Blue,Red,Green were the main colors - i'm guessing it was based on the cover's color - what logo color looked best that month - I'm not sure DC even had an 'offical' logo color.