Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

A great collage of early Jack Kirby illustrations from the original Fantastic Four volume 1 run #1-102! Below we’ve posted a few  of our favorite covers from various titles and publishers. Enjoy!

To know where we’re going… we have to know where we’ve been.

The Golden Age, the Silver Age, The Bronze Age and … If you have any knowledge of comic book history you know what those terms refer to . The Golden Age of Comics Books officially began in 1938, when Superman appeared in Action Comics # 1 and began monthly publication. During World War II, superheroes and funny animals were the most popular genres. In the 50’s when  superheroes sales began to decline new genres were developed (i.e., western, romance, and science fiction) and reached an increasingly important readership. At the beginning of the 1950s, with the emergence of television, comic books sales began to decline. This event is key!

Other factors such as attacks on their alleged harm to youth also contributed to the falling sales of comic books. In an attempt to stop the freefall in sales, the introduction of the Comics Code Authority required publishers to adhere to high standards in order to bear their stamp of approval. Parents could trust the CCA Stamp on a comic book cover to know their children, the primary audience for comic books at the time, would not be subjected to gratuitous violence or the glorification death, crime or inappropriate sexual overtones. This move saved the industry but not until several publishers had already been forced to shut down.

In 1956 began the Silver Age of Comic Books with the return of the preference for superheroes, such as Flash and Green Lantern by DC Comics. Meanwhile, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko brought us Marvel Comics! Marvel would become the leading publisher of comics in what would be known as the Bronze Age of Comic Books (from the early 1970s to 1985) during which the superhero stories lost most of their traditional representations of the concept of good verses evil opting instead for shades of gray and the birth of the anti-hero. The standards set by the Comics Code Authority were relaxed.

The Modern Age of Comic Books initially seemed to be a new golden age. Writers and artists rebooted classic characters or launched new series that attracted millions of readers. However, it was then marked by a series of crises that threatened the financial stability of the entire industry. Independent comics, which had become more prolific during the initial Black & White boom of the ’80’s inspired by  the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, once again began to be more common.

The dying newspapers, once considered a safe harbor for many cartoonists, were downsizing comics pages. The comic strip experienced a crisis more pronounced in the 2000’s and linked to that of the press as a whole, while at the same time a new American product, the webcomics, appeared.

The first comics to be shared through the Internet were created in the mid-1980s. Services such as CompuServe and Usenet were used before the World Wide Web started to rise in popularity in 1993. Early webcomics were usually derivatives from strips in college newspapers, but when the Web became widely popular in the mid-1990s, more people started creating comics exclusively for this medium. By the year 2000, various webcomic creators were financially successful and webcomics became more artistically recognized. Unique genres and styles became popular during this period.

In the second half of the 2000’s, webcomics became less financially sustainable due to the rise of social media and consumers’ disinterest in certain kinds of merchandise. However, crowdsourcing through Kickstarter and Patreon also became popular in this period, allowing readers to donate money to webcomic creators directly. The 2010’s also saw the rise of webtoons in South Korea, where the form has become very prominent. This decade has also seen an increasingly larger number of successful webcomics being adapted into animated series in China and Japan.

Digital Comics. With the growing use of smartphones, tablets, and desktop screen reading, major publishers begun releasing comics, graphic novels and Manga in digital formats. Declining sales and copyright violation have led some publishers to find new ways to publish their comics, while others are just adapting to the digital age while still having great success with the printed comic format. American publishers’ attempts at creating digital publishing platforms for local comics and Manga have thus far been more successful than attempts with digital Manga publishing in Japan, which have lacked a coherent strategy to create successful digital platforms in which to publish, and had revenue considerations from the impact of illegal scanlation  (fan-made scanning, translation, and editing of comics). Some attempts in Japan have been made, but failed, such as JManga; while others merged with larger worldwide distributors as in the case of Square Enix digital publishing joining the Hachette Book Group for distribution in over 200 countries. Some western notable platforms such as Graphicly have closed down due to the creators getting hired by the self-publishing platform Blurb.

ComiXology is a cloud-based digital comics platform that offers material from over 75 publishers and independent creators, which can be bought or downloaded for free. Its publishers catalog includes both big western publishers such as Marvel Comics and DC; and translations of Manga through publishers such as Tokyopop. In 2014 the platform was bought by Amazon.com.

Marvel Comics launched Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, a subscription service allowing readers to read online many comics from Marvel’s history, on November 13, 2007. The service also includes periodic releases of new comics not available elsewhere. With the release of Avenging Spider-Man, Marvel also became the first publisher to provide free digital copies as part of the print copy of the comic book.

Image Comics launched its ‘Image Digital Comics Store’ in 2013 which is a part of its company website. It got attention for selling comics digitally that are DRM-free, thereby allowing users to download their comics in PDF, EPUB, and the CBR or CBZ Comic Book Archive file formats to their various electronic devices. It also has exclusive digital releases on its website and offers 5-page previews of its comics online. Image Comics was the first big publisher to offer DRM-free digital comics in the U.S., stating that it believes that consumers should be able to own what they have bought in the case of a platform having major technical problems or leaving the market altogether. It also stated that it does not see infringement as a big problem as most consumers will buy comics that are of high quality.

Since 2012, DC Comics has offered to sell its comics through all three major E-book stores: Amazon Kindle Store, iBookstore and Nook Store, as well as through the site www.readdcentertainment.com and through comiXology. DC Comics was the first to offer readers multiple formats to download and digital issues releases on the same day as their printed counterparts. The company stated that it sees the future in digital comics, but its digital sales also help the printed books.

Dark Horse Comics launched its online digital store in 2011 which supports both computers, iOS and Android devices. The site allows over 2,000 comics to be previewed.

The website Humble Bundle was originally created in 2010 for selling time-limited pay-what-you-want indie game bundles. Since 2012 it has been putting up pay-what-your-want book bundles, which now and then featured comics. The first fully dedicated comic bundle was in April 2014, hosting material from Image Comics. The Humble Comic Bundles are digital rights management-free and support charities. The website has hosted comic bundles from some publisher such as Dark Horse Comics, Top Cow, Oni Press, Boom! Studios and Valiant Comics, among others. The idea behind the bundles from publisher standpoint is to try to find new audiences for their products at heavily discounted prices.

Digital Comic Museum is a digital library of comic books in the public domain, released in 2010. Thousands of titles are available form the Golden and Silver Age of Comic Books.

The Digital Age of Comics is here!

(Sources: Wikipedia)

Mark’s Remarks:

Today’s post should make up for slacking off a bit last week.

Here we’ve done a run down on the history of comic books. Sure we’ve done that some before on previous blogs,  but this is probably the most up to date piece we’ve compiled. It’s amazing how much the industry has changed just in the past few years let alone the past 25!  On a personal note, most of my regular comic book collecting ended in the mid 90’s when my local comics shop went out of  business along with a lot of other shops across the country. It was dark and scary times for comic book fans everywhere! These days I, like a lot of fans, still buy comics but most are digital. Also I buy printed trade paperbacks and larger hard cover collections.

The industry has never fully recovered from the Spectators Market Meltdown of the 90’s and it never will. Don’t let that get you down. It’s ironic that the comic book seems to be a dying art form while at the same time, superhero movies and TV shows, inspired by and based on the comic book heroes are now prolific! So it appears, what we have been seeing is a transition in our culture due to technology advancements.

This is very much like the early days of radio. Radio once had shows much like TV. The Shadow, The Lone Ranger and Doc Savage each were radio shows at one time and there were many more. Dramatized radio shows are non existent these days because that genre shifted to the newer technology of Television and Movies. So it seems comic books are going the same route.

Comic books will continue to exist but the days of selling millions of hard printed copies or even thousands or hundreds may be gone for good.  Comic books will continue in digital format but printed copies will be available only as on-demand printed copies.  Newstand and even comic book specialty shop editions will disappear completely. Collected trade paperbacks and hard cover volumes will continue to be popular, but the regular size 32 page comic book is an endangered species. Digital comics will continue in 20-24 page stories and then be collected for the trade paperbacks and hard cover volumes. The writing is on the wall and we are seeing it come to pass.

Sure we’ll miss the days of printed comic books just like we miss the days of the spinner racks full of comic books in the Mom and Pop Drug Stores and Newstands of the 40’s through the 70’s.  Let’s look back on those memories with fondness but not grief. Let’s embrace the new era we find ourselves and our art form and adapt to the new distribution norms.   Onward! Mark

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Archives Spotlight

Archive’s Spotlight is designed to look at all which has come before and add new comments as well. This posting we are reviewing Project New Man 3 Page 10-13!

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Project: New Man #3 – Page 10-13– We were able to get more page changes related to the background and the use simulated  Duo-Shade for the backgrounds of Project: NewMan #3 this week than we did last week. We are posting a couple of samples here which showed a huge difference in the old and new versions. The originals were too dark and had other flaws as well.

Even though we are only posting two examples here in the ol’ blog, you can  see 4 pages have been updated as you go from page 10 to 11 to 12 and then 13. Hopefully we’ll be able to get even more done next week. As you compare the before and after you can see the 25 year old original art pages Duo-Shade tones had faded some and our scanner could not pick up everything as it was originally produced. Below and to the right you can see the cleaned up, restored art for page 11 of Project NewMan # 3. You can see a big difference. It may not be perfect but it is a lot better. Mark says this is about a 95% restoration to the original. In some ways it’s even better. He also informed us the tones on the original Duo-Shade art boards did not develop as well as it should have when these were first produced.

It could have been some old developer fluid or maybe the art boards were old when purchased but some areas did not develop as clearly as should have. So in that way these are better than the originals.

Check back next week for more pages in PNM #3 will be updated in prepping these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics in the weeks to come.

Speaking of our digital editions at IndyPlanet and DriveThru Comics: Here’s what we have on sale right now. You can still download Project: NewMan #1 and Humants # 1 for absolutely FREE! Project: NewMan # 2 and Humants # 2 can be downloaded now, for immediate gratification, for a mere 99ç each! And if you want actual hard copy prints the Indyplanet will sale those to you for only $2.99 each!

So don’t wait, get you some Mega Comics Group / Legacy Comics goodness today! Check out the cover links to DriveThru Comics and Indy Planet.

CU Next Week!

Fair Use reference to intellectual property of other companies are intended for historical and informational accuracy only. Mega Comics Group™ or Mega Graphics, LLC™ does not represent or have any relationship to any other company or entity or their intellectual property unless otherwise clearly noted. Mega Tales™ and © 2010 Mega Graphics LLC, unless otherwise noted herein.  Project: New Man™ and  Humants™ and © 2010 Freazie White, Jr. D.B.A. Legacy Comics. Tess, the Living Tesseract™ and © Stephen Greg Legat and Mark Poe. All rights reserved. Mega Graphics LLC, licensor.