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Comics Golden Age

Beginning Of the Atomic/Atom Age547

Collector PovRow private msg quote post Address this user
Many views differ on when the Atom Age (aka Atomic Age) began. I was always partial to 1947, although a case can be made for 1945 and even 1950. So some of my reasons for being partial to 1947 from the perspective of a pre-code horror/sci-fi guy:

1) I feel the cold war, which began in 1947, is representative of the AA paranoia that came into being.

2) 1947 was the year of Roswell, the first real UFO scare in the US.

3) 1947 was the year Bill Gaines inherited EC.

4) The Doomsday Clock was introduced in 1947.

5)In 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee began their investigation into the communist infiltration of Hollywood.

6) The Elizabeth Short murder (aka Black Dahlia) took place in 1947 and really gripped the country with its gruesomeness. It also bore similarity to the later, more graphic PCH stories.

7) Avon's EERIE #1 from 1947: the first independent horror comic (as opposed to earlier things like Classics' Frankenstein etc. that retold stories.)

So let's hear your own choice and reasons.
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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
I vote for 1949 as that's when EC published its first horror stories in Crime Patrol and War Against Crime. The artists EC had were head and shoulders above the rest.
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Collector Dick_Pontoon private msg quote post Address this user
Meh. Considering anything before 1950 - at the earliest! - when giant monsters and flying saucers began to stomp and fly across movie screens with increasing regularity is nonsense.
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Collector PovRow private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stelbert_Stylton
I vote for 1949

Yeah, as I said many views differ and nothing as solid as, say, Action 1 for the start of the GA. I can't, however, discount the significance of Adventures Into The Unknown, the first continuous horror title, starting in 1948.
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Collector PovRow private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick_Pontoon
Meh. Considering anything before 1950 - at the earliest! - when giant monsters and flying saucers began to stomp and fly across movie screens with increasing regularity is nonsense.


Some of the reasons I gave initially I feel hold up well: setting aside Eerie #1 we had the House Un-American Committee investigation into Hollywood communism the creation of the Doomsday Clock, the Roswell UFO incident, and the start of the Cold War - all 1947. I bet without Roswell the movie scape would have looked a bit different.
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Collector Dick_Pontoon private msg quote post Address this user
Gotta go eat, can't defend myself at the moment. : )

Just noticed the previous thread and if not locked I'd add that Atom Age/Atomic Age was a term being used in common parlance plenty before being applied to comics, which doesn't jibe with the some other comments I read.
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Collector PovRow private msg quote post Address this user
I do agree the term Atomic Age long pre-dates its use as applied by hobbyists to comics.
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Collector BLBcomics private msg quote post Address this user
Yup, Atom Age, Atomic Age, Atomic Era, etc were in use by the 1940s for describing the supposed upcoming utopia for all the world

As it applies to comics the terminology re Atomic or Atom Age did not come in to play till the late 1970s when I first began using to when the super hero centrics were using Dark Ages to describe the decade 1946-1956 or so between the two Super Hero eras.

Here Gary Carter uses the term Atom Age on the cover of CBM #46 for my article on nuclear explosion comics as a GENRE to collect which was the first of its kind up until then.

Always meant to write up a FLAME THROWER genre article but never got around to it.

In some other later CBM issue an expansion concept was printed from me by Gary Carter suggesting Atomic Romance to describe that decade as an ERA or AGE since nomenclature was being bandied about a lot back then. Some of us were tired of seeing Dark Ages to describe the richest genre era ever which remains that decade.

Me, I think the entire ball of wax of Gold Silver and especially Bronze and Copper to be asinine on the face of it all.


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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
This board needs a Poll option.

Has anyone besides Bob ever heard the term "Dark Ages" used for the comic period of 1946-1956?
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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLBcomics


Me, I think the entire ball of wax of Gold Silver and especially Bronze and Copper to be asinine on the face of it all.


So the names for Ages you didn't create suck but the Ages with names that you "created" don't suck. Got it.
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COLLECTOR JWKyle private msg quote post Address this user
I've always been a fan of the ages going platinum, gold , Silver, Bronze , copper. I don't really use the term Atomic age to me they are just late golden age books going into silver age.
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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by JWKyle
I've always been a fan of the ages going platinum, gold , Silver, Bronze , copper. I don't really use the term Atomic age to me they are just late golden age books going into silver age.


I just don't like having my ECs lumped in with Golden Age. If I didn't collect ECs I'd be right there with you.
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Collector BLBcomics private msg quote post Address this user
Now you got me "creating" Gold and Silver but not Bronze and Copper. SS, You have got a definite hard on. You really need to deal with it before coming out in to public with your under educated psycho babble

I have never been a "fan" of any of the metallic age nomenclature. We have a 170+ unbroken history of comic strip books in America from 1842 on-wards. Research has shown America's first comic strip book published Sept 14 1842 was in print still as late as 1904 according to The New York Times.
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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLBcomics
Now you got me "creating" Gold and Silver but not Bronze and Copper. SS,


Put on your glasses and read it again, Bob. I clearly stated you did not create any of those titles.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BLBcomics
You have got a definite hard on. You really need to deal with it before coming out in to public with your under educated psycho babble


How embarrassing for you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BLBcomics
I have never been a "fan" of any of the metallic age nomenclature. We have a 170+ unbroken history of comic strip books in America from 1842 on-wards. Research has shown America's first comic strip book published Sept 14 1842 was in print still as late as 1904 according to The New York Times.


Your research shows that. There was a huge thread about Obidiah Oldbuck and I think the only person who agreed with you was the guy you suckered into buying 2 copies of OO.

But how do you suggest we define the eras? By decade? I could go for that.
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Collector BLBcomics private msg quote post Address this user
Oh, the comics world ONLY exists if there is was ever twas a CGC thread about some thing? After all it tis the center of the known comics universe, right?

Nothing exists before CGC and obviously nothing since so what are you doing hanging around in here?

Steve Meyer hammered on me to sell my copies of Obadiah Oldbuck, not the other way around. He also bought up a couple other guy's copies hammering them with high offers at the same time. Now you enter the realm of being Class A Liar.
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Collector BLBcomics private msg quote post Address this user
Oh, as for your real actual query:

By the decade. yes.

All else is marketing PR BS
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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLBcomics
Oh, the comics world ONLY exists if there is was ever twas a CGC thread about some thing? After all it tis the center of the known comics universe, right?

Nothing exists before CGC and obviously nothing since so what are you doing hanging around in here?


Take your meds Bob, you're getting delusional. There's so much twas wrong with these statements I can't even begin to address them. Alack, tis too much. But having a thread on CGC is more than you have. How about a link to these so-called "Dark Ages" discussions? I'll give you a link if you give me one.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BLBcomics
Steve Meyer hammered on me to sell my copies of Obadiah Oldbuck, not the other way around. He also bought up a couple other guy's copies hammering them with high offers at the same time. Now you enter the realm of being Class A Liar.


If anybody's lying it's Steve Meyer. Maybe you were banned from the CGC before this happened, but Meyer finally realized how much you had taken him for, and said so himself. IIRC it was after he sold a copy for a big loss.
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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by BLBcomics
Oh, as for your real actual query:

By the decade. yes.

All else is marketing PR BS


Does this bold part include Platinum, Victorian, and Atomic Romance?
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-Our Odin-
Rest in Peace
Jesse_O private msg quote post Address this user
@Stelbert_Stylton @BLBcomics

Ok guys, one thread was already locked because you two locked horns and it totally derailed the thread. Let's quit this squabble now before it gets really out of hand. If it continues, I will suspend the offending party. You both have a part in this so I'm holding you both accountable from this post on. This is the only warning I will provide.
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Collector Stelbert_Stylton private msg quote post Address this user
Cool beans.
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Collector PovRow private msg quote post Address this user
Quote:
Originally Posted by JWKyle
I've always been a fan of the ages going platinum, gold , Silver, Bronze , copper. I don't really use the term Atomic age to me they are just late golden age books going into silver age.


I see them very differently. Comics went through some big changes after the war with the decrease in superhero books (with the notable exception of DC) and many titles from various publishers shifting to horror themes. We also have Wertham and the Senate subcommittee hearing on the impact of comic books on juvenile delinquency, which led to the code and the shift, eventually, back to superheros. If you calculate (as I tend to) the Atom Age from 1947 - 1955, it ran 8 years, which is almost the same amount of time the GA ran from 1938-1947.
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