If you’re a long time comic book fan, you’ve probably used the terms “Golden Age”, “Silver Age”, “Bronze Age” and “Modern Age” to talk about different periods in comic publishing history. You probably don’t really think about what they mean most of the time, but you do have a vague distinction in your mind. For people less into comics, perhaps you’ve heard your comic geeks friends say that and assumed they had distinct meanings but didn’t care enough to go beyond that. Or maybe you’ve just never heard of the terms before now, but now you’re thinking “oh, of course there are ages of comics. It only makes sense.” Does it though? It turns out that these distinctions aren’t as hard and fast as we like to pretend they are. They’re not rigidly defined. We’re not even 100% sure exactly how many ages there are. On today’s show, Wayne and Mav sit down with friend of the show John Darowski to talk about the ages of comics, when and how they were defined, why they are (or aren’t useful), and how none of this is as obvious as it sounds.
Citations and Links
- Adapting Superman: Essays on the Transmedia Man of Steel edited by John Darowski
- All in Color for a Dime edited by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson
- Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe
- Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme
- Hear John as a frequent guest on The Protagonist Podcast
- Listen to Mav’s other show, Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! (where both Wayne and John have been guests)
- Follow Mav on Twitter: @chrismaverick
- Follow Wayne on Instagram: @tetroc2017
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