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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4887
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 8:58am | IP Logged | 1
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JB - A lot of us who grew up in the 1970's also had the benefit of reading plenty of monthly reprints, so many of us were getting the 1960's stories for the first time as well.
So for every Black Goliath there was a Romita Spider-Man.
Certainly, I would agree that the overall quality suffered (beginning at the point where Marvel expanded in 1968), and it seemed like they were throwing shit against the wall to see what would stick, but there was also a lot of that going on in the 1950's, except it was romance, westerns, monsters and science fiction.
Many of the titles that sprung out of the fads of the 1970's were easily forgettable, but there were also some like MASTER OF KUNG FU and TOMB OF DRACULA which still hold up today.
Edited by Robert Bradley on 05 October 2012 at 8:59am
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Bill Guerra
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Joined: 29 March 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 1072
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 10:26am | IP Logged | 2
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I read that excerpt from the book and....holy moley! It seemed it was just about everyone dropping acid, eating 'shrooms, and smoking pot. I had no idea the "new wave" of creators were so heavy into drugs! Yeesh...I'm surprised they got anything done!
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Mike Norris
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 10:28am | IP Logged | 3
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Well, it was the 70s.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 10:30am | IP Logged | 4
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I read that excerpt from the book and....holy moley! It seemed it was just about everyone dropping acid, eating 'shrooms, and smoking pot. I had no idea the "new wave" of creators were so heavy into drugs!•• Yet, none of the people I worked with used ANY kind of "artificial stimulants". Well, an occasional beer, maybe. (And for me, not even that!)
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Mike Norris
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 11:58am | IP Logged | 5
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Funny that Gerber was the "straight" one.
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Bill Guerra
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 March 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 1072
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | 6
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"Yet, none of the people I worked with used ANY kind of "artificial stimulants". Well, an occasional beer, maybe. (And for me, not even that!)" JB, I think thats says everything right there! I've never been able to understand any of the stories mentioned in the book excerpt and now I understand why! I guess it all made sense to them when they were high as a kite? To an average reader like myself...it was just a confused mess. However, on the flip sode of the coin, I've very much enjoyed the stuff you and the non-artificial stimulants crew worked on. Very entertaining stuff! I've always felt that true creativity and talent doesn't need artificial "boosts".
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | 7
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I think it was all summed up for me back in Art College, when one of the biggest stoners I knew flipped thru my sketch book, put it down, pushed away from the table and said "Byrne, I would not want to spend ten minutes in your head!"
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Lars Johansson
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Joined: 04 June 2004
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | 8
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Well, an occasional beer, maybe. (And for me, not even that!)
*****
Not even when it's a Marvel Christmas?
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Brian Skelley
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | 9
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John Byrne wrote:
| When I started at Marvel, we were in the middle of the Seventies, and most of us who had been reading for a longish while considered that period something of a Dark Age. We were starting to see the blatant tie-ins to current fads, for instance (monsters, kung fu, etc), and the art in many of the books was very much sub-par. As years went by, I was surprised to see more and more people coming in who had "cut their teeth" on Marvel of the Seventies, and thought that stuff was GREAT. It underscored for me that what was really great was those CHARACTERS. Spider-Man, the FF, Iron Man, Thor… they were so good in concept that they could survive just about anything dumped on them. Just about. |
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Funny that Marvel seems to be repeating history with the chasing after fads, the obsession with Twilight’s marketing (team vs team) use of vampires in the X-men, now Hunger Games with Avengers Arena. While Marvel has a history of chasing fads this time feels like it’s worse than it has been in quite a while.
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Robert Bradley
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | 10
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I think the comics in the '70s are a little underrated. Certainly they don't hold up to the work that Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Romita, Heck, Ayers, etc. cranked out in the '60s, but it did include some significant work -
Jim Stalin's Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck. ManThing and Defenders Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's Tomb of Dracula JB's Iron Fist Kirby's Eternals and Machine Man Rick Buckler and Doug Moench's Deathlok Don McGregor and P. Craig Russell's Killraven Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy's Master of Kung Fu Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith's Conan the Barbarian Don McGregor, Rick Buckler and Billy Graham's Black Panther Steve Englehart's Captain America, Avengers & Doctor Strange Len Wein, Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum and JB's new X-Men
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | 11
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Marvel was publishing something like 40 titles. Impressive as is your list, it kinda dims against that bulk. Not for nothing did Starlin, in WARLOCK, coin the phrase "diamonds in the garbage".
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Neil Brauer
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| Posted: 05 October 2012 at 5:22pm | IP Logged | 12
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I think the comics in the '70s are a little underrated ............... I agree with this. Some of my favorite stories are from the 70's. I think the Avengers was better, for example, in the 70's and early 80's than the mid-80's, until I quit reading comics. The FF had some great runs in the 70's as well, IMHO, same with Spider-Man. There were some really good characters created also--Morbius for example. There was some bad stuff as well, but I think creatively the 70's was a little more wide open. The creators could try things that wouldn't be allowed in later decades and some brilliant stuff came together. Maybe things weren't quite so corporate at that point. The 70's are my "Golden Age" so I'm being subjective.
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Topic Closed)
