History of Graphic Novels: 1970's

Definition

The comics industry evolved significantly throughout the 1970’s, responding to the amendment of the Comics Code, the rise of cultural relevance in superhero comics, and the contributions of the underground comics movement. The decade also marked the first official appearance of the graphic novel.

Introduction

For comic books, the 1970’s could be seen as a period of both consolidation and refinement of the advances to the medium that were made in the 1960’s. Growing public acceptance of comic books, along with an increasing drive for realism, relevance, and social commentary among the new generation of writers and artists, led to an amendment of the Comics Code and opened up new avenues for mainstream comics stories. In keeping with the desire for relevance, characters such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman, who had remained relatively untouched for decades, were finally updated. New characters from diverse ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds were introduced into mainstream superhero comics, and previously submissive female characters finally found their voices and asserted their independence.

The underground comics movement was fertile soil for the advancement of the comic book form, with notable figures such as Harvey Pekar, Art Spiegelman, and Will Eisner working to explore the form’s potential beyond escapist fantasy, guiding it in the direction of more literary storytelling and urban realism. Although the movement declined in the 1970’s, its focus on experimentation and challenging boundaries provided the basis for the first official appearance of a graphic novel in 1978.

The Social Justice League

At the beginning of the 1970’s, the mainstream comic book industry was becoming stagnant. While DC Comics and Marvel Comics had made some headway in building a mature readership during the 1960’s, they were still hampered by the restrictions of the Comics Code. With many of the original comics creators beginning to retire, a new generation of left-leaning writers and artists began to push for more realism and social commentary in the superhero subgenre.

These writers and artists, along with educators and public officials who were beginning to see the potential of comic books as tools for reaching young adults, successfully lobbied for amendments to the Comics Code. In 1971, for the first time in seventeen years, the Comics Code was revised to allow for more graphic depictions of drug abuse, organizational corruption, and the supernatural, provided these depictions were for the purpose of social commentary or, in the case of supernatural creatures, were in the context of a literary tradition.

Titles such as Green Lantern-Green Arrow (1970-1971) by Dennis J. O’Neil and Neal Adams and The Amazing Spider-Man (1963-1998) by Stan Lee tackled racism, misogyny, state corruption, drug abuse, and other serious issues. Green Arrow’s former sidekick, Speedy, was revealed to be a heroin addict, while Spider-Man’s best friend, Harry Osborne, overdosed on narcotics. These stories brought new credibility to the superhero subgenre as it entered a decade of reinvention and self-examination.

Diverse Heroes

Characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the X-Men were updated during the 1970’s. The X-Men, who had started as a small band of American teenagers, were reinvented as an international team of mutants of varying age and background. Some of the more popular characters introduced during this time include the Canadian Wolverine and the African American Storm. Both of these characters have remained staples of the X-Men series.

For the first time, African American, Native American, Asian, and Jewish characters were introduced into superhero comics as leading characters rather than as sidekicks or members of supporting casts. African American characters such as Blade, Luke Cage, and Green Lantern John Stewart debuted during the 1970’s, although many of these characters were subsequently criticized as overtly stereotypical and akin to characters from the blaxploitation films of the same era.

Seeking to capitalize on the women’s liberation movement, creators attempted to depict female characters as more assertive and independent, to mixed success. Some characters were positive role models, career women and respected leaders, but others tended to veer toward clichéd stereotypes of volatile feminists who erupted into scathing outbursts at the slightest provocation. Wonder Woman was stripped of her powers and transformed into a boutique owner and martial artist for a time before being restored to her former self following a campaign by Ms. editor Gloria Steinem.

The exploration of realistic social issues was introduced through more diverse characters and topical story lines. Many of these updates gave characters much-needed depth and laid the foundations for longer story arcs that were later compiled into graphic novel releases. Characters such as Superman and Wonder Woman eventually became diluted because of their popularity in other media such as film (Christopher Reeve starred as Superman in a string of films beginning in 1978, and Lynda Carter played Wonder Women in a television series that ran from 1975 to 1979). However, O’Neil’s work on Batman during the 1970’s would continue to inform the character in later decades, forming the basis of Frank Miller’s gritty characterization of Batman in his 1986 graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

Ascension from the Underground

The underground comics movement that began during the 1960’s and continued into the 1970’s was an area of avant-garde experimentation and self-exploration. Although the movement eventually waned as a result of distribution problems and antiobscenity laws, it formed the basis of an ongoing alternative comics scene, inspired a new generation of writers and artists, and was the birthplace of two landmark titles in the history of comics and graphic novels: American Splendor (1976-1991; 1993-2008) and Maus (serialized 1980-1991).

American Splendor began as a collaborative project between Pekar and underground comics pioneer Robert Crumb but eventually involved a host of other artists. First appearing in The People’s Comics in 1972 and then as its own title in 1976, American Splendor was an autobiographical series that drew upon the daily drudgeries of Pekar’s life and his experiences as a file clerk at the Cleveland Veterans Administration hospital. American Splendor’s realistic portrayal of a mundane working-class lifestyle won Pekar an American Book Award (1987) and earned a fan following that would last for decades. American Splendor is considered one of the first exemplars of the “literary” potential of the comic book. Pekar’s contribution to the comic book and graphic novel medium was that of stark realism, without the support of satire or fantasy.

Spiegelman tested the boundaries of the medium’s potential throughout the 1970’s, and he also showcased the “comix” of other artists as the coeditor of the anthology Arcade (1975-1976). In 1972, an early incarnation of Spiegelman’s critically acclaimed Maus appeared in the pages of Funny Aminals, as did “Prisoner on the Hell Planet,” a short piece about the impact of his mother’s suicide, a topic later covered in Maus. As the creator of the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize (1992), Spiegelman is a pivotal figure in the history of graphic novels. His work during the 1970’s as both a writer and an editor laid much of the groundwork for the medium’s success in the following decades.

Introducing the “Graphic Novel”

The introduction of the graphic novel is commonly credited to Eisner, who published A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories in 1978. Eisner was said to have coined the term while pitching the project to publishers who were anxious about printing a “comic book.” These are both somewhat contentious issues among comics historians; the term “graphic novel” is commonly accepted to have been coined as early as 1964 by Richard Kyle in an Amateur Press Association newsletter, and many historians consider A Contract with God to be not a graphic novel but an anthology of comics stories.

What cannot be debated is that Eisner successfully used the term graphic novel to alter perceptions of the comic book medium and guide it toward the legitimacy that it would enjoy in later decades. Best known in the mainstream comics industry for having created The Spirit in 1940, Eisner nevertheless drew a great deal of inspiration from the more avant-garde world of underground comics. After meeting Spiegelman and several other comix artists at conventions in the early 1970’s, Eisner is said to have been inspired by their dedication to advancing the comics medium and set out on his own mission to showcase the literary possibilities of comic book storytelling.

In A Contract with God, Eisner taps into the autobiographical style made famous by the underground comics movement to write about the hardships of life as a Jewish immigrant in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The graphic novel is divided into four vignettes about different residents of the Bronx tenement in which Eisner grew up, and it would later form part of a trilogy about Jewish life in the United States. A Contract with God is considered to be one of the first comics to combine the techniques of mainstream comics with the stark realism and social commentary of the underground to create a new direction for the medium.

Impact

The years 1970 through 1979 form the core of what is referred to as the Bronze Age of comics, an era of self-examination, experimentation, and reinvention of the characters, the creative teams, and the medium itself. As the Golden Age writers and artists began to retire, a new generation sought to assert its own influence on the medium and continue the work its mentors had pioneered. Many notable graphic novel writers and artists began their careers during the 1970’s, including Alan Moore and Frank Miller, who both went on to write landmark superhero graphic novels during the 1980’s.

Underground comics, which began as protests against the restrictions of the Comics Code, became a source of inspiration to writers and artists who saw that the potential of the comics medium surpassed the escapist fantasy of superhero stories. Writers and artists such as Pekar, Eisner, and Spiegelman injected the realism of urban life and recaptured the interest of a generation of former comic book readers. Experimentation with the form, which had been in progress since the 1960’s, culminated in the creation of the first official graphic novels. By the 1970’s, the comics medium had finally progressed to the point that it could produce meaningful, relevant stories that showcased the potential of the comic book form. Readers who had been raised on increasingly sophisticated comics were ready to embrace the next step in the evolution of comic books, in the form of graphic novels.

Bibliography

Gardner, Jared. “Autobiography’s Biography, 1972-2007.” Biography 31, no. 1 (2008): 1-26. Provides an overview of some of the autobiographical comics artists of the 1970’s, including Justin Green, Pekar, and Spiegelman, along with visual examples of their work.

Madrid, Mike. The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, and the History of Comic Book Heroines. Ashland, Oreg.: Exterminating Angel Press, 2009. Devotes an entire chapter to female superheroes during the 1970’s, examining the shortcomings and successes of the character changes made during the decade.

Weiner, Stephen. Faster than a Speeding Bullet: The Rise of the Graphic Novel. New York: NBM, 2003. Follows the development of the graphic novel and devotes a chapter to Eisner’s A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories.