Expert: Brian G. Philbin - 11/4/2007

Question
As part of my research project for my final year of a degree in publishing, I am lookin for sites or articles with a clear, researched history of the industry that i can read and reference, as many i have come across are reasonably amateur/fan accounts,

I would really appreciate your help with links etc

Many Thanks

Tom

Answer
Hi, Tom -

Thanks for your question!

There are really many very well referenced tomes on the industry and its history.  First, the best initial resource that I can point you to is The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.  Every edition provides history that is immeasurably valuable for understanding the history of comics.

Many, many articles exist and the best place for me to point you for easily accessible articles is Gemstone Publishing (who also publishes the Overstreet Guide) and the archives of their weekly E-zine "Scoop" at:

http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/public/
(Use the search function to the left)

Also, there are several books that chronicle the history of the comics industry - most notably, the first history by Jim Steranko (once a major industry writer/artist superstar).  You can find Steranko's History of Comics at Amazon.com or any reputable bookseller.

Gemstone Publishing also used to publish a wonderful historical magazine entitled Comic Book Marketplace, which was immensely successful at researching comics industry history.  If you can find someone who has copies of articles from it, it is absolutely an invaluable resource.

There is also a book entitled "All In Color for a Dime", which has, among it's many features on comics of a by-gone era, an article entitled "The Spawn of MC Gaines", which will allow you to understand how Mr. Gaines and his son, William, made comic book history a few times over.  

What your research should follow from that point on are some significant signposts in Comics Publishing History:

M.C. Gaines had the idea of publishing periodicals in order to keep his presses running and, therefore, requiring less maintenance, and began the Comic Book Publishing industry and what became DC Comics in 1935.  William (or Bill) Gaines is best known nowadays for having headed up Mad Magazine until his death several years back, but he also was the headmaster of EC Comics, an imprint of his father's that he revitalized after his dad's death, and a few years of experimenting, with horror (see "Tales of the Crypt"), war (Frontline Comics, Two Fisted Tales) and humor comics (Mad, Panic, etc.).  The comics remain highly sought-after by fans and are considered a glimpse of what comics could be artistically - Stephen King was a tremendous fan and took many of his own story-telling cues from those comics.

Marvel comics essentially started as "Atlas Comics", publishing their first comics as Movie giveaways and then starting with Marvel Comics (later Marvel Mystery Comics) in 1939, which featured The Human Torch (not the one from the Fantastic Four) and the Sub-Mariner (yes, the same one) and later published Captain America Comics.

Besides Marvel, DC and EC, the only other publisher of note would be Fawcett comics, which featured Captain Marvel, Captain Midnight, Captain Video, Spy-Smasher, etc.  They jumped on the bandwagon a bit late (1940), but were extremely successful - reputedly outselling Superman, although the numbers from back then are inflated by some rather dubious measures (such as counting readers to whom the comics might have been passed on as part of their overall sales readership).

The comics industry experienced something of a rebirth - after flailing in post-war years and experiencing too much negative attention from Congress due to Dr. Frederic Wertham's "Seduction of the Innocent" and subsequent smashing of one of their own (EC) with the Comics Code Authority - in the mid-50s with the appearance of "The Flash", a science-fiction version of the Golden Age super-hero of the same name.  A few more heroes and The Justice League of America followed, which led to the publishing of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man at Marvel.

Not much has changed since then, except that in the past few years, the Comics Code Authority was mostly abandoned by the industry as a whole and comics are mostly read by middle-aged men with no new readers coming in that anyone can quantify in any real sense.  

Sales, overall, are in the gutter compared to what they were from the Golden Age through the late 1980s, due to what is referred to as the "Speculator Crash" of 1994, but is likely  mostly due to publishers becoming shortsighted and placing all of their eggs in direct distribution and taking comics out of the supermarkets, news stands and other impulse-buy locations that used to introduce kids to the pleasures of four-color drawings and word balloons.

Yes, you can still see a comic rack in Borders, and graphic novels/trade paperback collections of comics next to the Manga section at Barnes & Noble and the like, but kids would really have to know what they're looking for in order to come across a comic these days.

If you were to ask someone where to buy a comic book, many adults will reply "They still make those?" and kids will likely respond "What's a comic book?" because they've never seen or heard of one.

Several years ago, the comics industry started what became an annual stunt to "attract new readers" called "Free Comic Book Day" in conjunction with Comic Character Movie Release Dates (Usually early in May), but most retailers are content to give their wares to the same folks already buying weekly and don't really do much to promote the event outside of their normal avenues.  They don't think to market with something as mundane as flyers to surrounding schools.  Perhaps they think that it isn't worth it, or because they, themselves are aging comics fans who don't want people to think of comics as something for kids anymore (not that anyone is truly making efforts to write many comics with that aim, anyway).

There are a novel few retailers - and these will be the ones that people tell you are the norm, rather than the exception - who go out of their way to make sure the entire community is aware of the event.  But those are too few and far between.

Conversely, creativity has never been more diverse than it is currently and the industry is growing in several different directions in an attempt to regain footing lost over the past 13 years.  It remains to be seen whether the publishing arm can catch up to it's former glory.

At any rate, those are the main significant items to look for in Comics Publishing History.

I hope this has been of some assistance - please be sure to ask any more specific questions you might have.

Pax, harmonia,

Brian G. Philbin
www.metropolisplus.com/comics.htm