What caused the shift to darker themes in comics during the 1980’s onward?
The modern age of comics began in 1986, and these included darker characters and more mature stories and themes. My question is, what caused this shift from the more innocent comics and heroes to the modern ones. Is it a specific change in culture, or changes which resulted in audiences favoring these types of comics?
The shift began well before that but came to fruition in many ways during the eighties.
In the sixties you had the slow death of the comics code, which I would rant about if I wasn’t so tired, and also the commercial success, in this pre-internet age, of the Undergrounds, which used the cheapness of reproduction technologies to produce creator owned and uncensored comic books which certainly involved graphic sex and drugs (Zap 4 had Mr Peanut mutate into Mr. P***s thanks to Victor Moscoso bur also touched on issues like Socialism and Biker Culture in Spain Rodriguez’s Trashman of the Sixth International, gender identity in many of Vaughan Bode’s late books and ecology in Slow Death and Last Gasp Ecofunnies, which gave Rich Corben his first exposure.
By the eighties the Industry had reestablished their hegenomy through pyrrhic victory ("Another such victory and we are finished," said Pyrrhus). But you still had this demand for adult and more thoughtful products. They had some old Underground people like Tom Veitch working for them, and they had British writers like Alan Moore, and finally they had this new generation of people like Frank Miller and Walter Simonson, believe it or not, who were early examples of talents influenced by Manga. Japan is a whole different culture than ours. I like to joke that I have no interest in self-proclaimed "Otaku" who don’t know Hanae Mori or Commes des Garcons (two EXCELLENT Japanese Fashion houses. I’m really just being obnoxious, though). Japanese Pop culture has always been a little darker than American. Lone Wolf and Cub ends with Lone Wolf being killed by his enemy, who then submits to Cub killing him — though Cub as a little boy in Medieval Japan stands no chance of growing up without parents or a home. That series was a HUGE influence on Frank Miller, who apparently helped find it a publisher as well as doing gorgeous covers for it. Simonson’s interest in Mecha can be seen in his explosions, superhero costumes (look at his Paul Kirk Manhunter designs from the Brave and Bold series in the seventies with Archie Goodwin) and so forth.
In essence, the eighties — well were a dark time for progressives which led to the disinvestment in the people of America so most opportunities have been paid as dividends to shareholders, and they were a triumph of monopoly capitaltists. And the big companies in the Industry had been through a period where they had felt threatened by these thoughtful but dark subversive comics like the ones I mentioned, and didn’t want it to happen again. So they coopted the themes in an attempt to hold on to the older audience.
The modern age of comics didn’t begin in 1986, believe me.
Well, people became more liberal and open minded, and less things like murder and crime were suppressed (even glorified by the news) and people became bored with clean cut heroes and story lines. Most will tell you that Frank Miller started the movement with "The Dark Knight Returns" (im guessing you know this because you said 1986), but all forms of media were edgier back than (although meak in todays standards). I suppose that they were just grittier times. Times change.
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The most likely reason for this is the success of deconstructions like Watchmen and the Killing Joke (Batman).
After that, the floodgates opened and dozens of imitators sprang up…
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The shift began well before that but came to fruition in many ways during the eighties.
In the sixties you had the slow death of the comics code, which I would rant about if I wasn’t so tired, and also the commercial success, in this pre-internet age, of the Undergrounds, which used the cheapness of reproduction technologies to produce creator owned and uncensored comic books which certainly involved graphic sex and drugs (Zap 4 had Mr Peanut mutate into Mr. P***s thanks to Victor Moscoso bur also touched on issues like Socialism and Biker Culture in Spain Rodriguez’s Trashman of the Sixth International, gender identity in many of Vaughan Bode’s late books and ecology in Slow Death and Last Gasp Ecofunnies, which gave Rich Corben his first exposure.
By the eighties the Industry had reestablished their hegenomy through pyrrhic victory ("Another such victory and we are finished," said Pyrrhus). But you still had this demand for adult and more thoughtful products. They had some old Underground people like Tom Veitch working for them, and they had British writers like Alan Moore, and finally they had this new generation of people like Frank Miller and Walter Simonson, believe it or not, who were early examples of talents influenced by Manga. Japan is a whole different culture than ours. I like to joke that I have no interest in self-proclaimed "Otaku" who don’t know Hanae Mori or Commes des Garcons (two EXCELLENT Japanese Fashion houses. I’m really just being obnoxious, though). Japanese Pop culture has always been a little darker than American. Lone Wolf and Cub ends with Lone Wolf being killed by his enemy, who then submits to Cub killing him — though Cub as a little boy in Medieval Japan stands no chance of growing up without parents or a home. That series was a HUGE influence on Frank Miller, who apparently helped find it a publisher as well as doing gorgeous covers for it. Simonson’s interest in Mecha can be seen in his explosions, superhero costumes (look at his Paul Kirk Manhunter designs from the Brave and Bold series in the seventies with Archie Goodwin) and so forth.
In essence, the eighties — well were a dark time for progressives which led to the disinvestment in the people of America so most opportunities have been paid as dividends to shareholders, and they were a triumph of monopoly capitaltists. And the big companies in the Industry had been through a period where they had felt threatened by these thoughtful but dark subversive comics like the ones I mentioned, and didn’t want it to happen again. So they coopted the themes in an attempt to hold on to the older audience.
The modern age of comics didn’t begin in 1986, believe me.
References :