Expect a few postings in the next few days from me. I have an extended break from school/work, and I have a number of topics I want to discuss that I just haven’t had time to write out in the last few weeks.
First off, I just watched the Ryan Reynolds-narrated Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics DVD that was released in early November.
As documentaries go, this one was great. The part that stands out the most to me, after watching it twice, is the way the history of the comics follows history in general. We see how the comics changed in storytelling during World War II, and how the end of the war–which falls in with the Golden Age–signified a low point in comics. This was also in part to the publication of Seduction of the Innocent by Frederic Wertham during that same time period.
Then comes the Silver Age, and the first generation of creators who were, as someone (I can’t remember who) proclaimed, getting into the business because that’s what they really wanted to do. These were the same creators who grew up reading the adventures of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman and decided that they wanted to do that when they grew up.
