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Post by kirby101 on Oct 16, 2022 9:58:36 GMT -5
To get very philosophical about this. Is the Medium the Message as Marshal McLuhan said. Would comics, because of the nature of the medium, always found it's large audience? Which also had to do with the social and historical events of that time. Would another creation sparked the growth. Or did it need the unique creation of two teens from Cleveland to ignite the medium? Did comics need superheroes to become the success they were, or would another successful genre cause the same multiplier with other publishers adding on? I don't know the answer, but I do agree with mrp about the importance of S&S in the history that did happen.
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Post by MDG on Oct 16, 2022 10:33:45 GMT -5
To get very philosophical about this. Is the Medium the Message as Marshal McLuhan said. Would comics, because of the nature of the medium, always found it's large audience? Which also had to do with the social and historical events of that time. Would another creation sparked the growth. Or did it need the unique creation of two teens from Cleveland to ignite the medium? Did comics need superheroes to become the success they were, or would another successful genre cause the same multiplier with other publishers adding on? I don't know the answer, but I do agree with mrp about the importance of S&S in the history that did happen. There's a line in Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes where he says something like when Superman appeared, the reaction was less "How original!" than "But of course!"
Which may be true. In other words, combining what was popular about pulps, movies, comics strips, and maybe radio, everything was in place for a colorful, action-oriented character that could right the wrongs people saw in the world. It was a bit much for newspaper strips, but worked in a form aimed at kids.
Think: if it wasn't Elvis, it would've been someone else.
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Post by arfetto on Oct 16, 2022 10:52:12 GMT -5
Some of my personal favorites:
Yudetamago (the combined pen name of Takashi Shimada and Yoshinori Nakai) Riku Sanjo/Koji Inada DeFalco/Frenz Kanigher/Kubert Mantlo/Sal Buscema Evanier/Aragones Shooter/Lapham
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 16, 2022 11:07:51 GMT -5
I am thinking about Marvel and DC in the Silver Age. There are those who were there at the time and those that read these issues decades later. I have seen people say that reading those issues later, there wasn't the continuity at Marvel people say and that there was more at DC than people think. This might be true, but the feel at the time was that all the Marvel heroes shared the same Universe, and even if there were incongruities and loose associations at times, we felt like we were reading one big adventure. DC titles felt like they were each a separate entity, whether there were efforts to keep things congruous or not. What I am saying is, I wonder how it was for people at the dawn of comics, did they see Superman as this Super Nova, or was it just a big part of a larger tableau?
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 16, 2022 11:22:53 GMT -5
I asked about S&S and Action #1 of Bob Beerbohm on Facebook. He is an historian of the comics bussiness and opened the first comic book store in San Francisco.
Here is his reply
And this answer.
So Superman was responsible for the explosion, but whether another genre could have done the same is an open question. As is if super heroes were inevitable.
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Post by tonebone on Oct 16, 2022 15:45:13 GMT -5
Who's to say some other pair wouldn't have created the superhero genre? It's not as though Seigel and Shuster reinvented the wheel. Methinks you may not understand the meaning of that phrase. In the history of the world, I believe Siegel and Shuster are one of the FEW teams who indeed "reinvented the wheel"... or actually just plain INVENTED the wheel. I mean, alien posing as human? Secret identity? Two-Person love triangle? Strongman suit? Cape? Underwear on the outside? Incredible strength? Sure most of these concepts may have existed before, but not in a combination that, within two years' time, would be the most recognizable fictional character in the world.
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Post by tonebone on Oct 16, 2022 15:48:12 GMT -5
I've seen Evanier/Aragones on the list a couple of times, but one of my favorite pairings is
Evanier/Spiegle
Their pairing on Blackhawk and Crossfire remain two of my all-time favorite series.
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Post by commond on Oct 16, 2022 18:07:22 GMT -5
Who's to say some other pair wouldn't have created the superhero genre? It's not as though Seigel and Shuster reinvented the wheel. Methinks you may not understand the meaning of that phrase. In the history of the world, I believe Siegel and Shuster are one of the FEW teams who indeed "reinvented the wheel"... or actually just plain INVENTED the wheel. I mean, alien posing as human? Secret identity? Two-Person love triangle? Strongman suit? Cape? Underwear on the outside? Incredible strength? Sure most of these concepts may have existed before, but not in a combination that, within two years' time, would be the most recognizable fictional character in the world. Every aspect of Superman was lifted from somewhere else. That's not to say that they weren't combined in an original way, or that Superman wasn't a tremendous success, but the elements were already in place. The technology was already in place. The means of distribution were already in place. The biggest hurdle Siegel and Shuster faced was trying to sell the idea to publishers, who hadn't quite cottoned onto the idea of selling comics to kids. Some publisher, at some point, would have latched onto that idea, and I don't think the concept of a superhero was such an original idea that another art team couldn't have thought of it. Would it have been as successful as Superman? Who knows. I'm not entirely sure that Superman was the most recognized fictional character in the world in 1941. How far did the distribution of comics, radio shows and animated shorts reach in 1941? I suspect the most recognized fictional character in the world in 1941 was from a novel not a comic book. Comics would have existed in some form or another without Siegel and Shuster, a superhero character would have likely been created at some point, the Golden Age superhero boom eventually died out, as most genres do, and the Silver Age creators would every bit as important in making the genre a lasting fixture. Not to mention all the other creators who came along and revitalized superhero comics when they were flagging. I don't think it's fair to say the conversation of greatest writer and artist team begins and ends with Siegel and Shuster.
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Post by MDG on Oct 17, 2022 10:21:21 GMT -5
Just a note that Evanier/Aragones should be Aragones/Evanier
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 17, 2022 11:34:25 GMT -5
Just a note that Evanier/Aragones should be Aragones/Evanier True, but it should be Kirby/Lee and Ditko/Lee as well
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Post by arfetto on Oct 17, 2022 11:43:21 GMT -5
Just a note that Evanier/Aragones should be Aragones/Evanier I originally had it as this, but then I realized I don't know how a few of the people on my list worked their comics out, so switched it for simplicity.
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Post by Rob Allen on Oct 17, 2022 12:49:48 GMT -5
Simon & Kirby were a great team, but they weren't a writer/artist team.
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Post by tonebone on Oct 18, 2022 8:37:41 GMT -5
Just a note that Evanier/Aragones should be Aragones/Evanier True, but it should be Kirby/Lee and Ditko/Lee as well
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 18, 2022 8:58:09 GMT -5
What emotion is RDJ conveying here? And my point was for many of those FF and Thor books, and especially on Spider-Man, the stories were done before Lee saw them. Lee was the scripter more than the writer. As Evanier is to Aragones.
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Post by Batflunkie on Oct 18, 2022 9:04:02 GMT -5
I'll toss out J. M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck
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