Well, hell, it seems to me that some time after I stopped reading them, comics boiled down to nothing but superheroes and Archie, because I guess Gold Key and Carleton stopped being a thing. And so did horror, sci-fi, and war comics. Used to love Sgt Rock, House of Mystery, Dark Shadows, Uncle Scrooge, OG Star Trek (ooo, the Kelly Green Planet), etc.
They used to just be fun and maybe a little educational (with actual facts, or stuff pulled from folklore and mythology, not humanities philosophy or political shit.)
Most comic genres died because of the Comics Code Authority. Their censorship was so stringent that only cape shit could squeak by their standards.
It would take a publisher willing to be a loss leader to rehabilitate the image of comics in the mainstream to make the industry profitable again. And I just don't know if that's possible.
I don't think the comics code is really to blame, because the stuff I mentioned was all marked as meeting its standards. The word "hell" was even acceptable. Here, I just found this site a few hours ago. They're all here:
It didn't ban killing, but it banned evil that wasn't paid back or some shit. Which is why a horror comic could have a story about a guy who robs a bank, kills a cop, and winds up in Hell to watch his life on a movie screen over and over again. Or that horrible story that illustrated the difference between "immortality" and "immorbidity" (The Morbidity Factor).
At least now I know how people can come off as fucking experts. Thought they just had awesome memories.
--I do notice that the code thingie is missing from Dark Shadows, but, like the show, I doubt it was intended for kids in the first place, but my mom wasn't much into censorship. Still, unless they made things TIGHTER as the Reagan era went on (which might have happened), it wasn't really that bad (especially considering that comics were considered to be for (pre-teen) kids ...)
Well, hell, it seems to me that some time after I stopped reading them, comics boiled down to nothing but superheroes and Archie, because I guess Gold Key and Carleton stopped being a thing. And so did horror, sci-fi, and war comics. Used to love Sgt Rock, House of Mystery, Dark Shadows, Uncle Scrooge, OG Star Trek (ooo, the Kelly Green Planet), etc.
They used to just be fun and maybe a little educational (with actual facts, or stuff pulled from folklore and mythology, not humanities philosophy or political shit.)
What the hell happened?
Most comic genres died because of the Comics Code Authority. Their censorship was so stringent that only cape shit could squeak by their standards.
It would take a publisher willing to be a loss leader to rehabilitate the image of comics in the mainstream to make the industry profitable again. And I just don't know if that's possible.
I don't think the comics code is really to blame, because the stuff I mentioned was all marked as meeting its standards. The word "hell" was even acceptable. Here, I just found this site a few hours ago. They're all here:
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Sgt-Rock/Issue-304?id=101670
It didn't ban killing, but it banned evil that wasn't paid back or some shit. Which is why a horror comic could have a story about a guy who robs a bank, kills a cop, and winds up in Hell to watch his life on a movie screen over and over again. Or that horrible story that illustrated the difference between "immortality" and "immorbidity" (The Morbidity Factor).
At least now I know how people can come off as fucking experts. Thought they just had awesome memories.
--I do notice that the code thingie is missing from Dark Shadows, but, like the show, I doubt it was intended for kids in the first place, but my mom wasn't much into censorship. Still, unless they made things TIGHTER as the Reagan era went on (which might have happened), it wasn't really that bad (especially considering that comics were considered to be for (pre-teen) kids ...)