Ages and breakdowns...

azrael

Okay. So I find myself using the CGS terms for the 80s and 90s (Copper Age and Chromium Age) respectively because they're perfectly tuned to describe those eras/ages in relation to the other ages (Golden Age, Silver Age, etc.) with it being almost 2014, though. What should be the term coined for the 00's??? With it being almost 15 years into the 2000's you almost can't even call it 'The Modern Age' anymore because of the time lapsed between 2000 and now, i'd say the "Modern Age" anymore would be about 2010 to now. So what would be a good term for the early 2000s? Thoughts? Opinions? Cake? Somebody should make cake...

playdohsrepublic

I don't know what to call the 2000-2012 period... The Celluliod Age? The Reboot Age?

But the current era is definitely the Nu-Age. New 52, All New Marvel Now, new #1's every 5 minutes. A new inter connectivity and cross pollination between different media.

azrael

Celluloid Age isn't bad...I was thinking maybe the Gloss Age, seems the paper is much glossier, higher quality than older comics...if that makes sense...

Chuck_Melville

What about the New Century Age, or the Y2K era?

CaptShazam

The aluminum age. Trying to resale a bag of the metal and a long box full of current comics will get you roughly the same amount of money. /:)

John_Steed

The digital age.

WetRats

The last gasp before the digital age?

WetRats

The Carbonite Age?

WetRats

The Cubic Zirconium Age?

WetRats

The Patina Age?

DennisCuzinski

…or we could just use the decades…

CaptShazam

DennisCuzinski said:

…or we could just use the decades…

logical....very practical....a common sense approach.

It will NEVER work.
[-X

azrael

CaptShazam said:

The aluminum age. Trying to resale a bag of the metal and a long box full of current comics will get you roughly the same amount of money. /:)

Well. Yeah, but how much could you honestly get for a Golden Age book in the Golden Age, or Silver Age book in the Silver Age, etc. It's just soooo many variables. The idea I think with naming the ages is the name speaks to something within the era. The Copper Age works for the 80s for example because a)We already have Golden, Silver, Bronze. b)Because there is a definate shift in the tone with comics in general from the Bronze Age, with books being much more darker. Great example is Batman in the Bronze Age vs. Batman in the Copper Age. While the Bronze Age Batman books were certainly a darker side of Batman than say the Silver Age intepretation of the character, it still wasn't nearly as 'grim and gritty' as the intepretations of the Copper Age. They go into great detail on this in the Batman spotlights CGS did. So that's also a similar reason as to why the Chromium Age works. It builds on the previous ages, and speaks to something within the age itself. Polybagged foil special edition embossed/stamped covers, less of a focus on story and characters, more focus on money grab stuff, bigger splash pages and more intense focus on the artwork, etc. I mean, that's just very broad strokes.

spid

How about the Age of the Pen or something along those lines. I think of this age as the rise of the writer becoming more important than the art itself.

Torchsong

DennisCuzinski said:

…or we could just use the decades…

This is pretty much what I've always done. It's not too difficult to discern an 80s comic from a 90s one...although there's always a bit of a blend there.

I've never been able to keep the metals straight on my ages. :)

nweathington

DennisCuzinski said:

…or we could just use the decades…

The Ages as they have been defined in the past don’t fit neatly into decades. Most people can’t even agree exactly when the Golden Age ended (late ’40s? early ’50s?) or when the Silver Age started (granted, there is a general consensus that it started with Showcase #4 in 1958, but some would argue otherwise). Or when the Silver Age ended and the Bronze Age began (O’Neil/Adams’ Green Lantern run? the DC Explosion?). Most people agree the Bronze Age ended with Crisis on Infinite Earths (funny how all the ages are defined by what was happening at DC), but did the Chromium Age really start in 1985?

What I’m getting at is that for there to be a new Age, there needs to be some defining moment when the industry changed dramatically. I would say the Chromium Age ended with the near collapse of the industry in the mid-’90s. So what was the biggest change to the industry as a result? Diamond took over as the sole direct-market distributor.

Therefore I suggest that the Diamond Age™ began in 1997. I’m not sure if it’s quite ended yet, but with the rise of digital and Kickstarter, the change is a comin’.

azrael

interesting take on things @nweathington. I think with the previous ages...i think it varies on character to character, more or less the way they breakdown stuff on the shows in the spotlights, but that's just my take.

David_D

I'm 37, but expect a breakdown by 40.


Wait. Did I misunderstand?

RickM

I was out of comics during this time, but the 90s seemed to be a combination of bad comics, Marvel bankruptcy and speculation/collapse. So call it the Dark Age. And then you can refer to the 2000s as the Renaissance.

nweathington

RickM said:

I was out of comics during this time, but the 90s seemed to be a combination of bad comics, Marvel bankruptcy and speculation/collapse. So call it the Dark Age. And then you can refer to the 2000s as the Renaissance.

I don’t mind using “Dark Age” to describe the time between 1986, with the release of Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, and 1996. In fact, I was using the term ten years ago to describe the late ’80s, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one, though I was using it to describe the switch in tone of the books that came out in the aftermath of Watchmen and DKR. But that could still be applied to the first half of the ’90s as well.

I really like using Renaissance to describe the rise of creator-owned titles that’s been building the past few years though. Maybe you could start that in 2003 with the launch of Walking Dead, or a few years later once it became a top seller. I'm not sure.