Over on his blog Steven Bissette, artist on Swamp Thing, Tyrant and publisher of Taboo is currently chronicling the trials and tribulations of the comic industry circa 1986. It’s fascinating stuff from an era when a lot of important things were just beginning to develop across the industry. Bissette’s subtitle to the series of posts summarises it all nicely:
“How Angry Freelancers Made It Possible for A New Mainstream Comics Era (Including Vertigo) to Exist“
It all starts off looking at the moment in 1986 where comic publishers began to get a little twitchy over the content of their increasingly adult books – remember 1986, we’re in Maus, Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen territory, the era of “comics aren’t just for kids” and a real move on the part of major publishers (particularly DC) to embrace a new wave of writers and artists wanting to tell far more serious stories.
So far Bissette’s looked at the infamous Friendly Franks bust, the on-cover ratings that both Marvel and DC threatened to bring in, Words & Pictures magazine, Diamond Comics Distributors, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Miracleman, Jack Kirby, Marv Wolfman, lawsuits galore, and much, much more…..
There’s an awful lot of reading there, together with a lot of original documents from the time from Bissette’s archives. Fascinating stuff. Part 1 is here, the latest is Part 7. But Bissette has more to come.
(Creator’s letter from 1986 and a Frank Miller cartoon of the same vintage)
Sat, Mar 20, 2010
Comics and cartoons