How can the Dark Age of comics be averted?

Which Dark Age are we talking about??? The one that came following Wertham's "Seduction of the Innocent", which led to the comics code authority, or the 90's Dark Age, which was created due to trying to be "dark and edgy", (following Watchmen and DKR) and caring more about the artwork than the actual story itself???
 
Which Dark Age are we talking about??? The one that came following Wertham's "Seduction of the Innocent", which led to the comics code authority, or the 90's Dark Age, which was created due to trying to be "dark and edgy", (following Watchmen and DKR) and caring more about the artwork than the actual story itself???

The 'Edgy' one, which is the more common definition--I didn't know it applied to the first.
 
Not inevitable. The Dark Age of comics was created because the industry was taken over by a bunch of investors and business men in the 1980's thanks to the feel good laissez faire of the Reagan era. Those individuals did not care about comics and, looking back at the collect-ability and cost of comic issues past thought "Hey, let's produce a bunch of collector's issues every three days and then people will buy these in droves and the market will be explode because of all these collectible issues". Same junk they did with baseball cards. Problem with that is simple logic. The reason older comics were collectible is that the market was not flooded and the most collectible among them were rare. If you produce a kagillion "X-Men Number One", it isn't worth a damn. Therefore, nobody cared about writing, which sucked or was tired or boring, the artwork sucked thanks to Rob Leifeld and his influence over every artist (which was unrelated to these economic issues, btw, but came at a bad time for the industry because of those), and eventually the bubble collapsed because of those simple economics, just as it did with baseball cards. I believe editors also took power away from writers (which is still an issue today), leading to horrifically bad and/or boring stories.

Just somehow avoid a bunch of old robber barons from annexing the industry for collectible selling, and you avoid the dark age.
 
Not inevitable. The Dark Age of comics was created because the industry was taken over by a bunch of investors and business men in the 1980's thanks to the feel good laissez faire of the Reagan era. Those individuals did not care about comics and, looking back at the collect-ability and cost of comic issues past thought "Hey, let's produce a bunch of collector's issues every three days and then people will buy these in droves and the market will be explode because of all these collectible issues". Same junk they did with baseball cards. Problem with that is simple logic. The reason older comics were collectible is that the market was not flooded and the most collectible among them were rare. If you produce a kagillion "X-Men Number One", it isn't worth a damn. Therefore, nobody cared about writing, which sucked or was tired or boring, the artwork sucked thanks to Rob Leifeld and his influence over every artist (which was unrelated to these economic issues, btw, but came at a bad time for the industry because of those), and eventually the bubble collapsed because of those simple economics, just as it did with baseball cards. I believe editors also took power away from writers (which is still an issue today), leading to horrifically bad and/or boring stories.

Taking a page from Linkara, eh? ;)
 
I guess a way to avert the 90's Dark Age would've been to clarify what constituted as an actual collector's item, (ie: Golden Age, Silver Age and actual IMPORTANT event comics) and what wasn't (brand new comics proclaiming themselves collector's items before their time, or if they were even worth two shits). That and not have too much of an emphasis on style, artwork, and violence as an actual selling point for a story. And perhaps not letting go of the creators of Image Comics, which helped sell the "style over substance" trend with their bloated extravaganzas, as well as push the "Collector's Item" bait trap as well.

That and actually put more of an emphasis on actual deadlines for artwork and scripts for the comics. Something that we STILL have a problem with today, getting all these big super artists/writers who chug along at the speed of tectonic shifts.

*shrugs* That or maybe redefine the Comics Code, (or get rid of it) which alot of companies still worked under during the 90's.

Course alot of this was a result of the customers themselves, buying up a whole buncha comics with cool "edgy" artwork and themes, and/or being suckered into buying a comic that came out two weeks ago because it's being toted as a "Collector's Item", regardless of whether or not the stories were even good to begin with.
 
Marvel could put less emphasis on Wolverine and Punisher, who were important factors in the early days of the "Dark Age".
 
Not a huge comics buff, but didn't Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns start that whole trend, or at least inspire a lot of it?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
No Comic Code might help.
means we'ld probably skip most of the silver age and go straight into Bronze.

Then you end up with less superhero comics and more horror and sci-fi stuff, but that "edginess" crap could still get in.

SirAshfordFanrico said:
And perhaps not letting go of the creators of Image Comics, which helped sell the "style over substance" trend with their bloated extravaganzas, as well as push the "Collector's Item" bait trap as well.

I don't have anything constructive to put forward, but I will say that apart from creating Cable (who's fucking awesome), Rob Liefeld can suck my nuts. He was alright at Marvel, when someone was there to keep the collar on him and keep him contained. Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane were about the only two who had enough self-control to keep putting out comics on their own: WildC.A.T.S, StormWatch, and Spawn did really well and they were all put out on time. But Liefeld might have singlehandedly screwed that company.
 
It also seems to me like the Dark Age was a product of that 80s cultural zeitgeist that brought us Terminator, Rambo, John McClane, the other Schwarzenegger movies of that time, etc. The powers that be wanted comics heroes to fit the image of being the kind of " badass" action hero popularised by the 80s.
 
In my case, prevent "Crisis on Infinite Earths". That was when comics started to go downhill for me. Nothing like watching your favorite characters die (The Flash, and Supergirl) or history rewritten (The Justice Society, and the All-Star Squadron) to kill interest.

Also, as above, keep writers from getting the idea, that "if great stories like "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen" are dark and depressing, If I make the story twice as dark and depressing, it'll be twice as great!"
 
Then you end up with less superhero comics and more horror and sci-fi stuff, but that "edginess" crap could still get in.

maybe, but not nessicarily.
more seperate Horror comics might mean less extremely violent superhero comics.

I don't have anything constructive to put forward, but I will say that apart from creating Cable (who's fucking awesome), Rob Liefeld can suck my nuts.

and Deadpool.
but we have Joe kelly to thank for turning him into the Merc with a mouth and fourth wall awareness.

In my case, prevent "Crisis on Infinite Earths". That was when comics started to go downhill for me. Nothing like watching your favorite characters die (The Flash, and Supergirl) or history rewritten (The Justice Society, and the All-Star Squadron) to kill interest.

That's a good point.
between Crisis, DKR, and Watchmen, that's whan most people consider the start of the dark age.
Prevent them, or make them less successfull, and the Dark age will be affected.
 
Could you have the DC comic's Impact line be much more successful. Impact was original going to be sold through newsstands and drug stores. Which would get around the direct market, and bring in younger readers. DC decided not to do this, and instead sold comics designed for 12-14 year old boys to the direct market(e.i. comicbook shops). Of course, they didn't sell well to older readers. Have Impact be a huge success, bring in a large number of young readers, and no dark age.
 
But do you wanna run the risk of making the comics industry becoming monotonous and stale??? o_O;;

No Watchmen, No DKR, and No Crisis on Infinite Earths means that the comics code would (probably) still be in place, and still be strict as hell.:confused:
 
No Comic Code might help.
means we'ld probably skip most of the silver age and go straight into Bronze.

Well...I think that possibly the lack of a comic code could help the industry basicly move away from super heroes story and possibly move further into title about Horror since a lot of concern were coming from those rather than super heroes story, the comic code necessity of good triumphing over evil (no really its there) made Super Heroes story easier to publish and however for cost reason it was easier to reuse old super heroes character and put them into Sci-Fi or romance story so maybe they might make it

Beside other than the comic code the leaders of the industry were pretty much all believing that they were selling book for kids and you have to consider the overall mindset of the era
 
Personally, here are my PoDs:
1. Dan DiDio stays in animation. DC doesn't hire him, and keeps their more upbeat tone.
2. People pay attention to Hans Blix, Mohammed el Baradei, Scott Ritter, and the late Hussein Kamil in the runup to Iraq...which means people pay attention to Joe Kelly, writer of JLA 83. He stays on the JLA instead of being left to twist in the wind of media criticism.
3. "Identity Crisis" is never published, thus DC doesn't start sliding down the tubes it's in today.
 
No Comic Code might help.
means we'ld probably skip most of the silver age and go straight into Bronze.
Actually the existence of the Comic Code helped put away the dark age... The evidence is that the
dark age only came when the Comic Code lost importance.
Much of the strategy of the so-called "edgy" writing was to fill
the pages with baser, cruder storylines... and trust the readers
baser instincts to keep them interested. With a fully-functional
comic code that strategy would be seriously impaired and
non-edgy, non-hackwriting writers would retain a lot of influence.
 
Actually the existence of the Comic Code helped put away the dark age... The evidence is that the
dark age only came when the Comic Code lost importance.
Much of the strategy of the so-called "edgy" writing was to fill
the pages with baser, cruder storylines... and trust the readers
baser instincts to keep them interested. With a fully-functional
comic code that strategy would be seriously impaired and
non-edgy, non-hackwriting writers would retain a lot of influence.

But alotta people saw the code as an obstacle to telling the stories they wanted to tell. *shrugs*

It really is a double-edged sword. Companies like Image came about because the creators felt they were being held down and kept from telling the kinds of stories they wanted to tell. Yet they helped usher in an era that is almost a bad joke. Yet it helped the industry, more or less, mature and grow up a bit in the process. Almost like a weird "awkward teenager puberty" phase for an industry. (o_O;; ) MAYBE matured a little too much, in regards to some stories, but still. *shrugs*

And again the customers had their hand in it, constantly buying issues that had the stuff they wanted, which was violence and blood and dark edgy themes!!! DUUUUUUUDE!! :p
 
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