Gold and Silver Age Comics Are For Old People and Losers

[Iambaytor]

Okay, so this is basically me being a good little forum denizen and moving a conversation from an unrelated thread over here.

 

So in the True Grit thread I mocked ASC for past comments about how Gold and Silver Age (possibly even bronze age) comic books A) Suck and B) Have bad art. To which he replied.

 

As far as your comics crack (well played), can you please point me to the good story arcs pre 1980? Books that rival V For Vendetta, Watchmen, Year One (I'm not being a dick here, I really would love to read these)

 

So you've given me quite a challenge here as I now have to find classic comics that somehow live up to standards of three of the most postmodern books in existence. This is a task not unlike figuring out which Howard Hughes films live up to Pulp Fiction. But I'll try.

 

Now the pre-80s books were filled with some truly fucking stupid plots and ideas, DC comics was guilty of more than half of these as evidenced in the Superman is a Dick thread. However, to denounce 3 entire decades of comics simply due to printing limitations (most of the "bad art" was due to the limits of printing presses at the time, particuarly the bled colors. If you ever see pencils by Joe Schuster, Jack Kirby, and Will Eisner they're all vastly superior to the best works of Frank Miller.) and the fecking comics code.

 

First, I'll suggest probably the best example of classic comic art/storytelling: this being Will Eisner's The Spirit. Probably one of the best crime/superhero books to ever exist. Torrents and trades abound for this series, so you'll figure it out.

 

I don't know if you've ever tried it, but classic Spider-Man, particularly when Steve Ditko was writing, was actually quite good and often lot better than a lot convoluted of the shit Peter Parker got up to in the 80s and 90s *cough*Clone Wars*cough*

 

There's also Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth by Jack Kirby. It's kind of a Planet of the Apes type comic but I enjoyed it. The original 16-issue of run of Etrigan the Demon is another good example of Kirby's work so long as you can ignore Morgan Le Fay's afro.

 

The classic Thor comics were all pretty entertaining as well.

 

But if you're into violent and dark, then read the early Batman comics before Kane was forced to make them more "family friendly" (See:gay)

 

Any of Marvel's 1970s horror comics (particularly Werewolf by Night and Man-Thing) are great and classic Moon Knight was awesome.

 

 

I'm writing this at work so I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton, so I'm sure I'm not the only fan of the classics here, suggest your favorites.

[Reverend Jax]

Tales from the Crypt? Does Fritz the Cat count?

[Visitant]

See above comment. I obsessively collected EC Comics from Tales to Crime Suspense when I was younger.