Happy 31st birthday Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a phenomenon that happens very rarely. It's the story of a pair of amateur comic fans making good on their dreams to get rich and famous through making comics. It's also the story of the independent comics movement in the 80's and 90's.

Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman stand with some of the merchandise of their phenomenally popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

Happy 58th Birthday Frank Miller!

If there had to be one face to represent the Copper Age of comics (the 80's) I'd pick Frank Miller to be it. When he came on the comics scene in the late 70's he brought something that was genuinely unique, and the work he did over that decade were some of the greatest moments in comics history.

Frank Miller, who was born on January 27, 1957 and will be 58 this year, is surrounded by some of his greatest works of the 80's; Elektra  and Daredevil, Batman and Robin (Carrie Kelley) from the Dark Knight Returns, and Ronin.

Get well soon Frank Miller! A tribute.

It appears that Frank has become very sick in recent years. I haven’t found any news about it on line but there are pictures going around of him using canes to walk and even a wheel chair. He is only 57 but he looks old beyond his years.

 

 

Frank, You have brought so much joy to my life and so many others lives that I just want to let you know how much your work has meant to me and wish you all the best, and to...

Get well soon Frank Miller!

Re-thinking the Copper Age of comics

Growing up reading comics in the 80’s, I have a very well rounded point of view of the comics of that time, so when I heard that people wanted to group early 70’s comics with comics from the early to mid 80’s in what would be called 'the Bronze Age of comics', something rang very false to me. It made me stop and consider the whole ‘Bronze Age of comics’ because to me 80's comics were a very different animal to comics of the 70's.

Copper Age of Comics

1978 to 1988

Some significant comics from the 80's from upper left to bottom right - Daredevil #181, Apr 82, Watchmen #1, Sep 86, American Flagg #1, Oct 83, Tales of the Teen Titans annual #3, July 84, Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, May 84, Amazing Spider-Man #250, Mar 84, Batman; the Dark Knight Returns #1, Feb 86, the Mighty Thor #237, Nov 83, Swamp Thing #34, Mar 85

Daredevil, Rebirth of a genre! by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

The brightly colored costume has been a trope of the super hero genre since Superman’s first appearance in 1938. In fact the long johns have defined the entire genre so much so that the publishers wouldn’t publish an issue that didn’t have them wearing the brightly colored skivvies after all, what’s a Superman comic without Superman? On the other hand, to non comic enthusiasts it’s the costumes that make superhero comics so childish and so silly.

Highly Contrasting artists; Steranko; Miller; Sales; Snejbjerg; Risso

My mind has the habit of putting order and classifying everything that it sees.This is true of comic artists and comic styles as well. One style I've recently been thinking about is the high contrast style.

It can be argued that Steranko started this whole style off with his later Film Noir style that he used in his book, Red Tide.

Jim Steranko from Chandler: Red Tide (1976)