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Period: 1400 to
ORIGINS & CONTEXT
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1440
Medium of social expression
Visual storytelling evolved and began to explore deeper, more social themes, serving as a platform for satire and criticism. -
1440
Invention of the printing press
The invention of the printing press in Gutenberg on 1440 allowed for more accessible reproduction of images and texts. -
"The Glassgow Looking Glass"
This Scottish publication was considered the first magazine, it popularized the style of vignettes and speech bubbles that are still essential features of contemporary art today. -
Period: to
THE GOLDEN AGE
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Escapism and fantasy
The apperance of Tintín transported readers to exotic locations and thrilling adventures, being the first to provide a welcome relief from the stresses and tenssions provoked by real world discord -
A "giant" is born
A company first concieved as "Action Comics", the influence historical events have had on DC's comic publishing will be worth mentioning -
"The Phantom" and Wall Street
"Phantom" was specifically created by Americans for Americans to escape the horror of the New York stock market crash. One of the first charcters to symbolize ideals such as hope and justice in times of adversity. The first of many "refuges from reality" that people would soon crave -
Jew Inmigrants and the Man of Tomorrow
Following the clear anti-jews policy the Third Reich was encouraging in Germany, two jew inmigrants by the names of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster concived the idea of an outsider that was strong enough to fight back discrimination and proved it's worth.
Since they themselves where highly mistreated on their arrival to America; their idea has since evolved into a symbol of hope and truth for every corner of the world, not just the USA -
The "other giant" is born
The other "mainline" company, originally called Timely Comics. In addition to its rise to popularity in recent years, Marvel Comics has managed to capture quite a gallery of historically relevant events by infusing them into the core of many of their most notable characters -
A true symbol of American patriotism
The USA hadn't formaly entered the war in 1941, but the Axis Power's situation grew in tension and both the government and private industries wanted to keep the population entretained but vigorously aware of the threat in Europe. The creation of Captain America made him the ultimate symbol of American values, using his poularity as a seeling point for war bonuses, seending patriotic messages and spreading anti-Nazi propaganda, like the famous comic cover in where he is seen punching Adolf Hitler -
More heores turned propaganda
When the United States formally joined the war, more of it's iconic heroes turned into selling points for the ever growing war industry. Mostly leaving the values these heroes stood for in second place for as long as the war lasted, prioratizing shameless propaganda -
Postwar and it's impact
After the war ended, the majority of the public which consumed comics became grimm and unsesibilized to trivial stories of classic heores. The craving for dark and serious stories of true crime of horror led to a temporal fall for major comic companies, leaving a place for reinvention and recconection with a new traumatized global society -
Germany defeated, world divided
In the years after the Third Reich's defeat, Germany was divided in half by the four most powerful countries at the time: the Western Allies founded the Federal Republic of Germany, while the Democratic Republic of Germany was proclaimed by the USSR. Creating a true iron curtain that cutted the world in half and starting the Cold War -
Death of one "Man of Steel"
Joseph Stalin died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 5, 1953, after having governed the USSR for almost three decades, spreading a regime of terror and repression. This left the Soviets without a clear leader during this "Cold War" -
Period: to
THE SILVER AGE
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Science creates heroes!
During the 50's scientific breakthough started to light up and illuminate the future, turning people's head around from the disastrous past: the DNA structured was discovered and the vaccine against Polio was invented. Comic series like Barry Allen's "The Flash", gave science based heores and stories a first push as more people embraced this discipline through the mid 20th century -
Uncanny Mystery
The 50's was a decade of rebuild, for the comic indusrty and for the whole world, we weren't yet at an age where illusion and excitement for discovery were at it's peak. We were at and age that today we would consdier "edgy", where more blood and guts meant better -
Posibilities beyond?
A certain spark and wonder for the unkwon was awaken in society with stories of terror and crime, but that soon morphed into the crave for new frontiers. Science was starting to make belive that all was possible, and that slowly was embuded into the collective unconciouss through cinema, TV and of course, comics ansd their storytelling -
Explorers of New Frontier
The 60's were a time of progress; the Space Race concluded by the end of this decade with the USA Moon Landing. Histroies also refeclted that; the invention of the Fantastic Four began as the idea of the first band of people to build a better tomorrow, the first to explore and thrive on a new world of science and technology, an age of illusion that spread on all Capitalist states and influenced men like Walt Disney -
Showing the other side of the coin
The awe of technology and science in the capitalist side of the iron curtain was also heavely brought down by the tought of what this same wonders could do on the "wrong" side of the world, this fear also feed stories on which science (specifically radiation) caused terrible effects on the heores, a nood to the constant global nuclear fear -
Seven minutes to midnight
This crisis was a confrontation between the US and the USSR that occured when it was revealed that the soviets were intending to instal nuclear missiles in Cuba. After negotiations and a naval blockade, it was resolved with the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles if US removed their missiles from Turkey -
Differences in a shared world
During the 60's, specifically on '63, a phenomenon known as gentrification started to occure globaly as an effect of a more connected world. People started to share environments everywhere more suddenly. This, at it's time, led to extreme racism against all sorts of minorities. Coincidentally, one of the most famous teams in fiction arose to popularity with a discourse against discrimination from a mere genetic difference -
Period: to
THE BRONZE AGE
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Finding identity in fusion?
With new branches of independent comics different genres within the medium found new identities in the mixing of their concepts, an experimentation of sorts, similar to the one the movie genre lived, and authors used it to express their own ideals of social and political expression; the Swamp Thing was a horror/hero fusion which had the message of embracing the unknown, intead of fearing it, by the design of it's creators Wrighston and Wein -
A bit of creative independence
In this decade we saw a rise in independent and alternative comic publishing. The rise of publishers like Fantagraphics and the work of artists like Robert Crumb with his magazine "Zap Comix" helped with the diversification of the genre's landscape and opened space for a greater variety of styles and narratives in the medium -
A pointless slaughter is stopped
The Vietnam war had been going on for ten years, after a final communist offensive in the spring of 1975, the communists took Saigon and forced the surrender of the South Vietnamese. Later, the country was reunified under the name of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The USA admitted defeat for the first time in it's history, the most famous of the Cold War's proxy wars was over -
God's devil
One of the greatest comic book authors of all time; Frank Miller, started it's prolific career during this decade, crafting an elaborate story with a profund social comment on the morality of a Catholic man, that carries a burrden provoked only by his own actions. A severe critique to religious fantasim, a problem that would take deeper roots in the 80's -
A sportive boicot
A very curious chapter of the Cold War occured in this decade; the United States led a boycott during the 1980 Moscow Olympics as a protest for the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan in the previous year. There even was a reciprocal Soviet boycott that took place on the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA -
Period: to
THE MODERN AGE
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Stories so we don't forget
One of the most important works ever made through the comic book medium, the initial publishing of Maus by Art Spiegelman introudced us to the story of his father Vladek; his struggle and the cosequences of being a fully Jewish man in Nazi Germany. Reminding us of the million of stories this war left, the ripple effect that such an event can have in the coming decades and all the things it can teach us to build away from it -
The Watchmen
Frank Miller's masterpiece came to light; the first of many critiques and parodies to the heore genre and the idea of putting our faith in symbols, this graphic novel truly explores the idea of power, and how people will unite when someone above them posses it, how power shows us a more true face of mankind; how it affects and elevates ego's beyond recognition, a similar effect of pride to the one at the core of the Cold war and the clash of the famous contrasting ideologies -
Complexity takes power
Established charcters and their stories had been ongoing for decades now, simple stories or propaganda weren't satisfying for general audiences anymore; a general sense and need for complexity had grown on the colective unconciouss, times of peace call for a greater use of reason, greater time of thought; this shaped readers into wanting a deeper meaning, no more good against evil, but true more grays, as they realized it was the true nature of the world. -
The red giant breaks down
The leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus decided to publish a declaration according to which the Soviet Union was dissolved. They thus put an end to a construction that emerged from the Revolution of October 1917. At the end, one of the two giants had to bent the knee -
The "Spawn" of new perspectives
During the 90's artists like Todd McFarlane had the oportunity to look back on the major ups and downs of the second half of the 20th century and express them into their works. War crimes, such as the ones commited in Vietnam are a central point of the "Spawn" stories, and how guilt will hunt those thrown at duty by greater powers; how whims of a few can start a war that will doom thousands -
Death of symbols (Shock value?)
The genre which was built originally in symbols of hope had driffted away from their need; the world lived times of peace in this decade, so those same symbols of hope were debunked, embraced but debunked nontheless, for shock value; they were used to their opposite original purpose, create grim and tragic stories in a time the world could even miss tougher times