"Comics were read by everyone," John Jackson Miller, a New York Times best-selling author and creator of ComicChron, a site that tracks comic book sales, told me. Crime sagas and Westerns offered things - including images - that the radio couldn't. Stories of men lifting up cars - complete with engaging art - were more fun than expensive hardcover books, ideal for an audience during the Great Depression and World War II. 1, the issue that brought Superman and superheroes into our lives, marked the turn of the industry.įrom 1938 to 1950 - a period historians refer to as comics' Golden Age - comic books flourished without any direct competition. These collections started off in the 1930s, and eventually publishers saw the money available in original content. Publishers wanted to eke out every last drop of profit they could, and comics were a way to keep presses running on weekends. The peak of comic booksĬomic books began as collections of newspaper comic strips. Consequently, that cemented the idea that this was a medium for kids - something we've only recently started disbelieving. What adults thought was best for children ended up censoring and dissolving years of progress and artistry, as well as comics that challenged American views on gender and race. And it was in publishers' best interests to remain compliant. The reaction to the suspected scourge was the Comics Code - a set of rules that spelled out what comics could and couldn't do. But they share the same symptoms of American fear and a harsh, reactive response to it.
This, of course, isn't to say that McCarthyism and the comic book panic were comparable in their human toll. Some 60 years ago, during the era of McCarthyism, comic books became a threat, causing a panic that culminated in a Senate hearing in 1954.
But it's also - often unknown to comics fans - a blunt reminder of one of the worst things to ever happen to comic books. It's a chilling insult that the stuff they read - the stuff they love - never advanced beyond its funny-page beginnings. One of the most hurtful things you can say to a comic book reader is that comic books are for kids.
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