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Recommendations For Classic Superhero Comic Collections?
mvdwege (243851) writes "Due to being in a relationship with a comics geek, I have gotten interested in the history of superhero comics. I would like to get a better grounding in the Golden Age (pre-Comics Code) comics, so here's my question to the Slashdot audience: what are your recommendations for essential reading? What collections/omnibus editions of Golden Age comics would you recommend?"
The Flaming Carrot
Dare I share it?
The hero of win
& mega-whisker chin
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Marvel Comics has a Marvel Masterworks line which includes a lot of Golden Age volumes. They are very expensive, but there are also $20 paperback editions that come out 7-8 years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
DC Comics has its DC Archives program, but most of those never get reprinted in paperbacks and the program rarely releases much nowadays.
Also, something about this topic seems to bring out the stupid in Slashdot. No, Flaming Carrot is not a Golden Age comic.
Also, I'd like to take notes while reading those comics.
Which text editor do you recommend? Vim, Notepad or Emacs?
Superhero Comics existed but really were not as popular prior to the Comics Code... There tended to be more of the horror and shock type (in addition to cowboy and funny book types) which inspired the code to be created... Superheroes tended to be more magical than science based and more violent than today... (For instance, Batman had a gun in his earliest comics.) The Golden Age Spectre Archives, Vol. 1 might be a good start...
Boy did you come to the wrong place. Slashdot is all about calm and dispassionate intellectual debate about issues important to science nerds and not frivolous things like comics. Why we have never even had a flamewar around here!
Get DC++, join comics hub. Easy to get access to all the comics you could ever want.
My personal suggestion is to go back where the superhero genre first started. DC Comics released a Superman Omnibus last summer (http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/superman-the-golden-age-omnibus-vol-1).
If you want to read about the golden age, Paul Letvitz (long time DC comics writer and one time President) wrote a great book entitled The Olden Age of DC Comics (Amazon)
It's better to burn out than to fade away
No true scotsman would read that.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Oh please. After you've been a "grownup" for 30 or 40 years, you may realize it's overrated...
Nerd hero non pareil. Fear the lollipop.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
I'm not sure how, but I'd never heard of this "Comics Code" you mentioned in your question.
Wow! That's a hell of a story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Thank god that's dead.
Maybe not commonly associated with 'golden age' comics but published concurrently and extremely influential and well-loved are "Tintin" (orig in french, starting c. 1929) by Herge (the pen name of Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi) and of course, the hilarious "The Adventures of Asterix" by Goscinny and Uderzo (orig in french, starting c. 1959). Enjoy!
With the risk of un-hijacking this thread I notice you didn't specify comic book reading suggestions, just reading suggestions connected with comic books and a certain period of history. There's a couple great histories of the pre-comics code comic book industry: The Ten Cent Plague-- The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America
You can also check out Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book I didn't read the first, but it's supposed to be pretty good. The second focuses on some of the cool and quirky characters that really were the founders of a new industry. I found it entertaining and inspiring.
Why is Slashdot all messed up?
- I checked "disable ads" because I have high karma, but it doesn't disable them. I turn it on and off, nothing.
- I only see 5 messages here, a score 3, a score 2, and a score 1, and the score 1 has two score 1's nested under it
- I expand the score 1 and it shows, then I collapse it and it's two child ones contract into "2 hidden comments" line
Other threads are like this -- one only showed me +5s (regardless of how I dragged the sliders and reloaded and prayed and wept like George Bailey on VE day)
I click "Load all", and it does nothing. I click it again and 400+ messages (other thread) all appear, ALL messages. Which is fine and working properly, I suppose, but what happened to the normal 2-3 level depth I've been seeing for years?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is a great resource for old school comic books: http://comicbookplus.com/
So you want to get into comics she's not into? Great plan.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Because, as it so happens, Golden Age is not to her taste. Now, did you have anything useful to add? No? Then kindly STFU.
So the relationship is superfluous to question. But we don't/can't know that from your submission. Thus you WILL get a bunch of replies saying ask your partner, and given that the question reads like a relationship advice request ("what can I do to understand my partners interests?") you will get a bunch of replies like the OP, especially given that /. is slowly dying (and I bet net craft can confirm it) and people are trying to hold onto the tech side of things rather than the crap(*) that is being promulgated as submissions.
* Not saying that your submission is crap, just that it is badly worded (especially for this audience.)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I would head over to the Digital Comic Museum, create a free account, and start going through the public domain titles in addition to the Masterworks/Archives listed by others. The DCM will also give you access to stuff like The Spirit, Lev Gleason's Daredevil, Fawcett's Captain Marvel, Whiz (where CM first appeared), and Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, the golden age/western hero Ghost Rider (with the unfortunate outfit), and thousands of others. Follow your interests; the 1930s and 1940s were part of an era when superheroes weren't quite as dominant as they would later become, so you can find piles of romance, comedy, crime, and so forth in the mix.
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com
[Life and Death of Superman] - that's some classic Superman right there. Superman vs Doomsday is literally my favorite fight in comics that I've ever read. It would be wise to not forget [Red Son] which like TDKR tells a what if story, of what if Superman landed in Russia instead of USA. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did in finding [Superman: Blue] I can find evidence it exists it wasn't just a dream I had but I can't find evidence that it's anywhere. To be fair most people seem to dislike it based on the less than 7 reviews I've read but I read the back of the graphic novel and I was intrigued. The idea is that Superman doesn't have his powers and develops new ones. Instead of stopping bullets, They phase right through him. He's still invulnerable but it's harder to protect people when you can't be a body shield anymore....etc etc etc.
[Knightfall] - a fantastic Batman book that introduced someone more powerful than batman. There's [The Killing Joke] which if I have my stories correct is how Batgirl got paralyzed (sorry for the spoiler but there's a lot of good beyond that)
If you're familiar with Batman already then you can't go wrong with [The Dark Knight Returns] there's a reason it's so revered. Again not the typical Batman story but it's awesome.
Static/Static Shock - because that is some freaking hard junk to find. At this point I would literally pay for Static but I can only find the first run of Static first fun of Static Shock and first fun of new 52 Static. Those are the only ones grouped into graphic novels that I can tell. It's only made me hungry for more.
These are kinda the stories of my youth with the exception of Static that I wish I'd known about back then.
I know it's not golden age but I don't read much marvel in part because I'm still stupidly loyal to DC, in part because I have less interest in their characters and in part because I haven't read much comic books lately, but I would greatly recommend [Planet Hulk --> World War Hulk]. It's a fantastic story in one of the few Marvel characters I like. Planet Hulk literally brings a tear to my eye every time I read it. I heard it hugely recommended at the time and eventually I broke down and read it. Best decision ever.
[Identity Crisis] is a cool JLA story. If you've seen Teen Titans the show that'll help just a skosh. But it's a mystery and it's certainly an interesting one. It's been somewhat controversial in the comic book scene for reasons I can't reveal but should be fairly obvious in the end. But it has a lot of great comic elements.
Just another second banana
Hmmm ... several permutations.
Female dating male comic nerd. Male dating female comic nerd. Female dating female comic nerd. Male dating male comic nerd.
Most frightening, one or both could be furries. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Fortunately, by the time I've been a "grownup" for 30-40 years, I should have passed the average lifespan of a human and won't have to find out.
I've been an adult for 25 years or so, but so far being a "grownup" has been something I've avoided. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Have you tried asking your partner what she'd recommend? You don't seem to have the experience with comics to realize it, but your question is extremely loaded. There are so many threads from the Golden Age that you could start reading about and reading through a particular thread and it may wind up having no relevance to what your lady likes. Is she into Dick Tracy? Classic Superman, WonderWoman or Batman? Submariner? Human Torch (not to be confused with Johnny Storm from Fantastic 4)? If you talk with your partner about what she likes from that era, she may be willing to open up to you more and start to take you under her wing.
On the other hand... if she looks at you with a highbrow "you're not worthy" sort of look and seems to be annoyed with you learning this world, she may want to keep this world to herself for her own private enjoyment.
Or, the poster is going for more of a 'classical' education where you learn what came before, understand the roots and origins of it, and then have a greater context for what came after.
For instance, if all these smarmy teenagers would stop pretending that their cool punk rock clothes have never been done before and realize there are people old enough to be their parents who used to wear the same things, they'd stop acting like they invented this stuff.
And, anybody who still acts like the 80s was cool. Those of us who lived through it would mostly like to forget large chunks of it. (Well, technically, some of us already have ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, you're asking the wrong guy, because I'm not at all into comics. But since you asked, I do have fond memories of reading Astérix as a kid. Astérix was translated into English and many other languages, so even if you don't speak french, it shouldn't be a problem for you.
What? You were hoping for a suggestion involving some sort of masked, tight-wearing super-hero that obtained their superpowers because of a bite from an irradiated insect? Oh, please. Astérix may not be masked or tight-wearing, but he has a winged hat, a fantastic moustache, and is absolutely fearless in battle. Furthermore, his friend Obélisk does wear tights (or at least some kind of tightly fitting, blue and white striped half-body-tube thing), and I challenge you to find another super-hero that is as strong as him, as funny as him and who has as voracious an appetite as him. Seriously, all those DC comics are for chumps; you should read Astérix, or at the very least, buy the comics for your kids so that at least they will grow up having known a real hero....
*ducks*
If you really want to understand comics, get and read "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America". It's a part of American literary history that shouldn't be forgotten, and is indispensable for understanding the evolution of comic books. And then get a hold of every Justice Society of America comic, omnibus, and reprint that you can and starting reading from there through the 60s and 70s related titles. You will never look at modern comic books the same way again.
Not going to be much help, since Golden age Comics is a specialized market.... Check out the EC comics, especially "Tales From the Crypt" and "Weird Tales" These are the comics that caused the comic book code to be put in place. I also liked the little bit of plastic man I read. ++ on Tintin, although I wouldn't think of it as Golden age per-se. Still worth reading. Finally, check out your local library. Mine at least has a large collection of graphic novels. Could help you save some money.
"Wow! That's a great question. Tough one, though I mean, what does one gauge his response on? Physical prowess? Keen detection skills? The ability to banter well with super villians?"
These are an excellent resource for those of us who may never be able to afford older comics... The Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books It comes in three volumes... http://www.amazon.com/Photo-Jo...
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
http://comicbookplus.com/
You are all welcome :)
is what you're looking for:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Grea...
I'm no expert on American comics, but I know that the term "Golden Age" tends to be a little loosely defined. I'm going to make an assumption and suggest that you are interested in more than just the early super hero comics. If this is the case, then I would make the following points: (1) The golden Age is best remembered for the birth of the super heroe genre, but at the time Disney character comics out sold those by a wide margin. (2) During the Golden age there was a plethora of other genres avaible, including Detectivce, romance and western. (3) Towards the end of the "Golden Age" super heroes began to fall out of favour and crime and horror became more popularity. It was the rise of these which led to the comics code. With this in mind, it's immediately clear that there are a huge number of possibilities for exploring the "Golden Age". My recommendation would be to look at some of the most notable writers / artists whose work has been widely collected and is easy to get hold of. So specifically I would consider: (1) "The Carl Barks Library" - A series of books collecting all the Donald Duck stories by Carl barks, arguably the greatest golden age "Funny animals" artist. (2) "The Spirit Archives" - DC's reprinting of Will Esiners ground breaking Detective series. The Spirit covered a wide variety of genres from comedy to horror from action adventure to crime drama. (3) "The Ditko Archives" - Ditko came in at the end of the Golden era, and much of his early work was in the horror and mystery comics. There are of course many many other options, but these are soem of my favourites, and I think they give you a good flavour of the variety of the Golden Age!
Download this.
I have heard a rumor that there may be comics available on Bittorrent in this format.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The Golden Age may be awful, but it's interesting to some people just because it was the beginning of the medium. The first movies mostly suck, but they're still interesting because they're the first movies. James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans" is an awful book, it would never sell if someone wrote it today, but it's notable because at that time and place adventure novels were rare. etc... etc...
Very helpful linking, there. The words "new trend" appear once, entirely unexplained.
You have to give him credit. He actually provided an answer that answers the original question. (The boundary for "Golden Age" is fuzzy, but EC in the New Trend period is pre-code and fits the original request. The most recent full reprints of EC are the Russ Cochran color "EC Archives" from 2006 to 2008 which are expensive, but at least they are available.) And they are definitely very influential comics in pre-code history.
And before anyone asks, "New Trend" and "New Direction" are not the same thing.
... some of the best work in illustrated fiction can be found in the early "Conan the Barbarian" comics, penned by Barry Smith. Additionally, the earlier editions of Heavy Metal magazine, and its forebearer, Metal Hurlant, rank as some of the best such art and writing to ever meet a sheet of paper.
The GF is mostly a late Silver Age Marvel fan, so willing to help she may bey, she knows just as much as I do of this particular period. From what I've seen so far it would be closer to my tastes; I read her comics and enjoy them, but the enjoyment is just a bit off.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Rather than read what somebody think is a classic, why don't you strive to get a better understanding of the medium of comics in general? For that, there is no better resource than Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It's not a book about comics, it is a comic about comics!
That being said, I haven't read any superhero stuff since I was 12, but in my ripe old age, I still enjoy Prince Valiant
22,000 free and legal... go here: http://comicbookplus.com/
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Fox wrote for a ton of different titles through the Golden Age. He was one of the best for stories back then so it might be wise to try his story lines.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
The thing about Golden Age comics is that they are generally not very good - and pretty often unreadable. They were made on the quich and the cheap by people too young or not talented enough to make it in the newspaper comics business. That said, you should try to find the Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Comics, which has great reprints of a number of stories. The Golden Age stories that hold up best for me feature Plastic Man, the Spirit and Captain Marvel (the Shazam! guy). DC has reprinted some of these in their Archive series, but avoid the earlier volumes in the series which are from before they got good. Captain Marvel, especially, are pretty delightful and whimsical. The best Captain Marvel stories are fun for me, even now as I'm getting to the end of my 40's. DC and Marvel have done Archive and Masterworks editions of some of their Golden Age stuff. Your library might have them, and you'll enjoy them more if you don't pay for them, because most of that stuff is pretty amateurish and aimed at 8 year boys from 70 years ago. Someone did a reprint of Captain Marvel's "Monster Society of Evil" 25 part story, which I'd love to read but it's going for more than $200 on Amazon. You might try and find both volumes of the Steranko History of Comics for some background. Or All In Color For A Dime. Hope this helps. dale
You fixed nothing and came off as either a pedantic or misinformed troll.
The person I replied to, mvdwege, happens to be the OP that asked the initial question and has very much stated that the partner in question is a woman in the statement I replied to. If you got yourself a /. account and lowered your threshold to 0 you'd see it since mvdwege has been inappropriately modded offtopic, but here's the text of the post for your reference:
It's all a matter of taste and what we can relate to. I've not been able to get into any of the Gold Age stories that I've found, and the Silver Age still tends to have too much camp. Being a child of the 80's and teen of the 90's I guess it makes sense that my tastes tend to travel along the trenches of the Bronze and Modern ages.
Or, if you had a clue, you'd realize those were presented as two separate things.
The punk rock kiddies are just recycling old ideas. The people who still think the 80s were awesome are recycling old bad ideas.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Back in the days when gas was 20 cents a gallon (and gas station attendent(s) pumped the gas for you plus check tire pressure, oil, and water levels), and also when Stan Lee created Spiderman, X-men, and The Avengers for the Marvel Comics group (yep, if they were real-life characters, they'd be old enough to collect social security).
Another character in Marvel "universe" was Patsy Walker. She didn't have superpowers but she had lots of beautiful dresses and unlimited budget to buy them all. Not created at Marvel but adopted from earlier comic publishers, Marvel series by artist Al Hartley, Al and Stan featured Patsy wearing various fashions submitted by readers. Probably real exciting because that was "internet forums" at the time. Examples here, http://marlendy.wordpress.com/...
Another cultural interest is this #106 April 1963 issue has lots of bouffant dress fashions popular at the time. Consider that shortly after in next year or two, this fashion was dead. http://static.comicvine.com/up...
While Stan Lee developed large male readership with Spiderman, X-men, etc. he also probably developed large female readership with Patsy Walker by engaging readers to submit fashion ideas. Though able to capitalize on movies nowadays using comic characters from more than 50 years ago, except for Patsy Walker, how many women dress up for occasions these days anyway?
Like many of early Marvel characters, Patsy Walker evolved into another form. No longer in the fancy gowns but out fighting bad guys with ferocity of a Navy SEAL as "Hellcat."
mfwright@batnet.com
I like the campy fun of the Silver Age, and the Bronze age has its highlights (isn't Spider-Man more or less the #1 Bronze Age Superhero?); it's the needless 'Darker and Edgier' hype of the later ages that put me off comics for a long time, they were nothing like I remembered from the few volumes I read as a child.
Now I'm getting into it a bit more, I just want to round out my experience with a genre that feels closer to my tastes, hence the question.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Opera mini on my phone currently. Will see if full Chrome on PC at home has same issues. Did they just "flip the switch" for everyone? I was using classic exclusively but can't seem to find a way to get to it anymore.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
JackKirby.
The art is often really basic, and the stories are often not up to much, because the writers weren't paid very much, so they just made up random stuff each month. Ooh, let's send Batman into space again, to fight crime on the planet of the Celery-heads.
You want to see what the medium can really do, go by author, not characters. Anything by Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Lost Girls, Necronomicon, Marvelman), Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Garth Ennis (Punisher, War Stories), Warren Ellis (late Stormwatch, early Authority, Nextwave), Grant Morrison (Animal Man, WE3, the Invisibles). These authors can all, on a good day, push the boundaries of the medium.
The Golden Age is useful to understand some of the later parodies and homages. You need to read some very early Batman with the Bill Finger/Dick Sprang artwork to appreciate the beautiful pastiche in the 4th season episode of the animated Batman. You need to read some 50's Superman/Superboy to get the whole gist of Alan Moore's run on Supreme. The Silver Age is where comics start to get properly readable - the socially relevant Green Lanterns of the early 70's where Speedy does heroin, or the gorgeously gothic Neal Adams/Dick Giordano early 70's Batman. Before that there's a bit too much Bat-Mite, Mr Myxyzptlk and Streaky the Supercat for my liking.
My Grandparents used to buy me comics at flea markets for a couple dollars for a whole box in the 1960s. I actually read quite a few of the old Tales of the Crypt and Vault of Horrors books. I also read Doctor Fate, Sub-mariner, Captain America and the Justice Society books as well as the original Captain Marvel and Shazzam comics.
I have one question. If the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture is not in charge of Gundam, then who is?
I've just come across ComicResearch.org. Looks to have many references that could be useful to you. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud may also be of some help for understanding the art of comics in general. I would also strongly recommend checking out your local comic shop. Hopefully you have a decent one nearby. Any good one will have knowledgeable staff to help you out. Most importantly, find something that YOU enjoy!
And a match.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT