Man of the Atom returns with the sequel to his previous enlightening post on the history of American comics.
This time, MotA does a deep dive into the comic book generation gap.
“There was a GENERATION GAP in the comic book industry. There were some people in their 50’s and 60’s, there were a lot of people in their twenties and early 30’s, but not enough in between. Because there had been an extended period of decline when relatively few new people came in, we were missing a generation.
“What that meant is that young guys who should have been assistant editors to a forty-something person were instead editors or editors in chief, even though their main qualification was having read 10,000 comics.”
Roll this bit of information back to 1968. The Marvel staff that remained through 1978 would have been in their 40s and 50s in 1968 by Shooter’s estimation. These folks would be Greatest Generation with some very early Silents. The generation gap that Shooter speaks of would be Silents who were generally unable to break into the industry in the late 50s and the 60s due to the downturn in the industry. Greatest Generation creators hung on to the majority of remaining positions. Those new staff at Marvel would have been in their late teens and early 20s in 1968. Those individuals would be Boomers.
In effect, American comics have a lost generation–the aptly named Silents. Their absence caused a rupture in the comic book tradition that prevented the Greats’ way of making comics from behind handed down to the Boomers.
… [T]he reins of Marvel Comics transitioned from Greatest Generation creators and editors, skipping a moderating influence by Silents, to an almost exclusive editorial rule by Boomers from 1972 to at least 1994. Generation Jones and Gen-X only began exerting an editorial influence at Marvel Comics as of about 1995. Boomers finally abandoned the reins of editorial leadership, essentially after the post-1997 cultural collapse.
Boomers don’t deserve all the blame for setting a bomb in the heart of American pop culture on a 30-year timer; economic forces largely benched the Silents. Yet decades of exclusive Boomer curation had a deep and lasting impact on mainstream storytelling.
Stan, Jack, Steve, Don, and other creators from the Greatest Generation Bullpen had a creation process that looked more like the dials we introduced in the last post. The overarching theme for the series was as at least as important as the adventure within the specific issue.
The Boomer Bullpen and their “Me Generation” sensibilities over time generated stories that were more along the lines of this set of dials, typically eschewing the Greatest Generation sensibilities.
The Boomer Bullpen Model. It’s “Hero Punches Villain, forever.” Enjoy.
And stop paying attention to IPs hollowed out and skinned by Boomers.
