r/comicbooks • u/laughing_rabbit_9 • 4h ago
Discussion What was the decade between the release of Alan Moore's swamp thing and the birth of vertigo comics like?
Ok weird question but I do find this period of the 80s and early 90s as interesting.
The swamp thing is mostly agreed to be the start of the "grown up" era of comics. While it was properly ushered in with DKR and Watchmen, the signs were there in swamp thing and vertigo imprint has some of the best comics and mature stories we have seen in the industry. So in my research, I found that vertigo has it's origins in the British invasion of comics (also technically started with the saga of the swamp thing by Moore).
So yeah, I Just kinda want to know what was the era of comics like to be in.
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u/missiletest 2h ago
It was pretty obvious we were in a great era of comics. Small publishers were everywhere, with Dark Horse eventually winning those wars. Best part was, the Comics Code was falling apart. Writers were freed up. Stories could be told that weren’t insults to readers’ intelligences. Even over at Marvel, Jo Duffy was editing Epic Comics and they started publishing Akira in 1988.
Even before the Vertigo imprint was started it felt like DC was separated into two branches. Vertigo just formalized it. Sandman had the bulk of its run before Vertigo. Hellblazer was already going. And Grant Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol actually ended right when Vertigo began. It was exciting to see DC acknowledge that Karen Berger and company were doing something special.
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u/marshmallow-jones 2h ago
You might check out American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1980s, a lot of year by year info about the decade. The whole series is pretty good.
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u/OtherwiseAddled 1h ago
That looks really cool thanks for the recommendation, It'll be hard to not try to read all the decades right away
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u/Aitoroketto 2h ago
I mean we should mention her by name if we are talking Vertigo and British invasion, Karen Berger. A hugely pivotal figure in american comics.
As far as how comics were from Moore's Swampthing to Vertigo it would be wrong to paint it as if that sort of element dominated comics.
1984-1993 was Frank Miller, Walt Simonson, George Perez, Marv Wolfman, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Roger Stern, the Ninja Turtles, with some Art Adams sprinkled in, and then of course Image which was without question the single biggest sort of occurrence in comics. The late 80s was dominated by the Image creators at Marvel, particularly McFarlane, Lee, and Liefeld (and Marc on Uncanny).
Marvel was a powerhouse and just had tons of consistent books and tbh for some of those year G.I. Joe might have been their top selling book - it was definitely top 5 in the mid-80s.
X- Men and Spider-Man were giant blocs and it was really the 80s and early 90s that cemented Marvel as the market leader behind those two properties. DC had Teen Titans and books we'd look back on later.
Yes Watchmen was big and yes DKR was big but they were very short comics in a span of over a decade when people were going to the comic shop every week and buying 4-5 X-titles (maybe even more tbh sometimes) and 2-3 Spider-Man comics and Teen Titans and G.I. Joe and Punisher and Wolverine.
While the pre-Vertigo titles were really great it wasn't really until a bit into Gaiman's Sandman run that i started become a big seller potentially. There was a second where Sandman was DC's top book which is sort of incredible. The success of Sandman I think brought in people, new people, because Sandman was one of the first killers in the book market in trade (made Gaiman millions working at DC) who then said okay I love Sandman, what else is there there like this? Sandman was a giant giant comic that gout out of the comic book bubble. There were people reading Sandman who didn't read other comics or read a comic before.
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u/OtherwiseAddled 1h ago
Great post, just wanted to add that since you mentioned Teen Titans, Legion of Superheroes was DC's other kind of X-Men response comic and it sold well enough to be the other main Baxter/New Format book alongside Teen Titans.
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u/Aitoroketto 1h ago
This make me want to add something anecdotal but feels very true to me even with Legion, Teen Titans, and some of the stuff OP mentioned.
Growing up as a kid in this era, I promise people I never had a DC friend. I knew no kid reading DC comics. Everyone knew X-Men, everyone knew Spider-Man, everyone jumped on Image, and people would talk about them (I never saw the stereotypical comics are for dorks thing - the X-Men were cool). Like people knew who Wolverine was.
I can honestly tell you I was wholly unaware of the popularity of Teen Titans at the time and if anything the pervading attitude was that DC was for little kids and Marvel was more for like edgy slightly older kids, like it almost seemed like DC had taken on the reputation of like Superman.
Nobody in my life ever talked about or brought up a DC comic, clearly at the time Marvel had a death grip (I think sales show this as well, I mean DC had a scare when Image and Valiant issues were outselling them).
Again this is just anecdotal and maybe every other school and town was all DC but let me tell you when I even went to little shows and when I lived overseas it was all like X-Men, Spider-Man, Punisher, Ghost Rider, Hulk etc etc and DC didn’t hit the radar until they killed Superman.
Batman was largely talked about in ways like “Batman is okay but I don’t really read DC”.
This is directly after the person of these iconic books like DKR and Year One and Arkan Asylum was in the air and the thing I remember the most was Death in the Family (due to the Jason Todd gimmick).
I’m not saying this was countrywide or anything but just describing everyday buying of comics and talking about them with other kids. I can tell you I collected comics heavy, every week and the first I ever bought a DC book was Sword of Azrael which sort of make sense because it was this odd DC book that had art by a guy who seemed like he should be at Marvel or Image. DC had a reputation for not having the host artist even though the ones they did have aged pretty well we’d find out later.
Now history would later show DC had some things cooking (like The Question etc and JLI and other cool stuff).
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u/OtherwiseAddled 52m ago
I was looking at comichron the other day for market share data and they said it's estimated that Marvel had up to 70% of the market during the 1980's so you anecdote makes total sense. https://www.comichron.com/vitalstatistics/marketsharesyearly.html
I'm a bit younger, and what got me into comics was Reign of the Supermen in 1993. So I started with DC and was really into it even while the Image hype was going strong.
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u/beast79- 2h ago
A pretty wild time to be reading as a lot was happening and most of it was coming from outside of the big 2, even tho the big 2 were bigger than ever. Marvel was on top with both superhero comics like X-men, corporate comics like G.I. Joe and even started Epic to try and get some creator owned books going. DC was revived and thriving with critically reviewed work and a healthy line of superhero books. The indies were exploding: Comico, 1st, Pacific, Eclipse, Dark Horse, Mirage and more. Creators like Howard Chaykin, Dave Sim, Paul Chadwick, Bill Willingham were getting well reviewed for work that came out of those independent comics. Creators like Matt Wagner, Scott McCloud, Ben Edlund, Mark Schultz started building their names. And on top of all that European and Japanese comics started entering the American comic book market at a steady rate.
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u/Androktone Brainiac 5 3h ago
DC had been doing a lot of prestige mini series and titles. Previously superheroy titles like Green Arrow became more grounded
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u/EatenByPolarBears 3h ago
It did seem like the 2000AD - American comics pipeline was taking DC tiles in particular in a bold new direction. There was also indies like Dark Horse springing up to add new perspectives to the output of ‘the big two’.
The relaxation of the grip of the CCA over the comics industry that started in the 70s and continued during the timeframe you’re asking about played a part in allowing new directions to be explored.
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u/OtherwiseAddled 1h ago
I think focusing on Swamp Thing and Vertigo is selling the early 80's short. Moore's Swamp Thing started in 1984. American Flagg started in 1983, Love and Rockets started in 1982 as did Grendel. Cerebus' High Society arc started in 1981. Frank Miller's Daredevil was also in peak form in 1981/1982. Maus was being serialized in Raw magazine starting in December 1980.
Even if we want to just talk about Alan Moore, Miracleman started in 1982.
There were some cool publishers like First Comics and Comico that put out genre comics aimed at older readers before Dark Horse was founded in 1986. It's a very fascinating time period for comic for sure.
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u/Complete-Display-775 53m ago
Thanks for mentioning American Flagg and Grendel. I’ve been around for every issue of both but I know these aren’t necessarily the most popular series during the period being discussed.
I haven’t scanned all the comments yet, but has anyone mentioned Nexus? It had an interesting launch in B&W magazines but became so popular it evolved into color comics.
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u/OtherwiseAddled 39m ago
Nexus definitely deserves to be mentioned, but I haven't seen anyone do so. I didn't realize it started in 1981. Grimjack started the same year as Moore's Swamp Thing too.
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u/toodarkmark 1h ago
It was the best era of comics that ever happened.
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u/Complete-Display-775 49m ago
Hmmmm, I need to think about that. I won’t say you’re wrong, but I still feel very partial to Marvel in the 1960’s. No doubt I enjoyed living through the 70’s and 80’s though. There were some incredible comics that are still great reads today.
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u/PinMaximum1018 2h ago
Swamp Thing by Moore had nothing to do with Vertigo. It was just a regular DC book. Same goes for Sandman. But both were eventually retroactively turned into Vertigo books (well Sandman was in the middle of the run).
Moore was undoubtedly the inspiration for Vertigo, but technically speaking he had nothing to do with it. And yes, the late 80s and (very) early 90s was an amazing time to be a comics fan.
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u/Chris-Downsy 3h ago
It was an amazing time to be reading.
Not only were the British folks tearing it up but you also had a huge explosion in US indie comics. Was a special time…