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(Salon)   Think it was Elvis and rock-n-roll that started the counterculture revolution in the 50s? Nope. It was comic books. Those evil, wicked, deviant comic books   (salon.com) divider line
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6304 clicks; posted to Main » on 24 Mar 2008 at 8:12 PM (15 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



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T.M.S.
2008-03-24 7:23:52 PM  
Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

Elvis was good.

But compaired to jackie Wilson, Elvis wasint shiat.
 
darkhorse23 [OhFark]
2008-03-24 7:43:33 PM  
T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

+1 for the stupidest, most bigoted generalization today.

I got caught in '59, getting a comic book off the rack and sneaking my dime to the drug store cashier while I thought my mom wasn't looking. I had to return it, she took away my dime, and I got spanked and grounded for a week. She was not going to have me go to Hell on her watch.

//southern baptist
 
Norad [TotalFark]
2008-03-24 8:16:05 PM  
I thought it was reefer and Allen Ginsberg.
 
FreeCrime
2008-03-24 8:17:32 PM  
Norad: I thought it was reefer and Allen Ginsberg.

Yeah but what do you think he rolled his jays with?
 
Fart_Machine
2008-03-24 8:19:41 PM  
FreeCrime: Norad: I thought it was reefer and Allen Ginsberg.

Yeah but what do you think he rolled his jays with?

The Bible?
 
KrustAsian
2008-03-24 8:20:15 PM  
But the main difference being the rock and rollers got laid. The comic book geeks...well...
 
dervish16108
2008-03-24 8:20:40 PM  
Robotech comics turned me into the wacky rebel that I am today.
 
rotskyinstitute
2008-03-24 8:20:48 PM  
YOUR'RE DOING IT WRONG WWW.ROTSKYINSTITUTE.COM/ELVIS
 
The Grinch
2008-03-24 8:20:52 PM  
Alan Moore spanks even the best Silver Age comics.

/who watches the watchmen?
 
ArkAngel [TotalFark]
2008-03-24 8:22:40 PM  
T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

Elvis was good.

But compaired to jackie Wilson, Elvis wasint shiat.

Oh there they go. There they go, every time I start talkin 'bout boxing, a white man got to pull Rocky Marciano out their ass. That's their one, that's their one. Rocky Marciano. Rocky Marciano. Let me tell you something once and for all. Rocky Marciano was good, but compared to Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano ain't shiat.
 
JonnyBGoode
2008-03-24 8:23:26 PM  
T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

Elvis was good.

But compaired to jackie Wilson, Elvis wasint shiat.

i31.photobucket.comView Full Size


If it wasn't for the Blues, there would be no Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll is simply twelve-bar blues played cut-time with a back beat emphasis.
 
politics Junkie
2008-03-24 8:23:48 PM  
darkhorse23: T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

+1 for the stupidest, most bigoted generalization today.

I got caught in '59, getting a comic book off the rack and sneaking my dime to the drug store cashier while I thought my mom wasn't looking. I had to return it, she took away my dime, and I got spanked and grounded for a week. She was not going to have me go to Hell on her watch.

//southern baptist

You are on Fark now looks like she failed.
 
kidsizedcoffin
2008-03-24 8:26:26 PM  
img242.imageshack.usView Full Size


img149.imageshack.usView Full Size


I'm torn as to which of these is more family friendly.
 
Solon Isonomia
2008-03-24 8:27:07 PM  
KrustAsian: But the main difference being the rock and rollers got laid. The comic book geeks...well...

This one is happily married and got laid plenty before hand.
 
Basking_lizard
2008-03-24 8:28:21 PM  
Obligatory: (new window)

[image from superdickery.com too old to be available]
 
kidsizedcoffin
2008-03-24 8:28:56 PM  
img182.imageshack.usView Full Size


I forgot this classic.
 
the voices in your head
2008-03-24 8:29:36 PM  
That was a surprisingly informative and objective article.

I'm going to head over to the showbiz tab, before I learn anything.
 
KrustAsian
2008-03-24 8:31:27 PM  
Solon Isonomia: KrustAsian: But the main difference being the rock and rollers got laid. The comic book geeks...well...

This one is happily married and got laid plenty before hand.

Mail order brides don't count.
 
Solon Isonomia
2008-03-24 8:34:52 PM  
KrustAsian: Mail order brides don't count.

Do I need to continue to refute you, or is it enough to say that your generalization doesn't really apply to everyone?
 
Shmoooooo
2008-03-24 8:35:35 PM  
The Grinch: Alan Moore spanks even the best Silver Age comics.

/who watches the watchmen?


That article was not talking about silver age comics ... it was talking about those just before the Silver Age. Specifically the horror/crime era of the 50's. Now have you actually read any of those? Have you actually seen with your own eyes art by Wally Wood?? Or are you just another fanboy who gives uneducated opinions comparing stuff he has read to stuff he doesn't know anything about? My guess is the later.
 
OscarTamerz
2008-03-24 8:38:42 PM  
Nice theory but the big comic book boom started a generation earlier, anybody ever hear of Superman? Every new medium whether it is comics, rock n roll, or the internet is always portrayed as the new evil. Read Little Women and see how people thought novels were the devil's tool. You should be reading the Bible instead.
 
ragsthetiger
2008-03-24 8:41:23 PM  
I still remember that dark day--sometime in the late '50s, as I recall--when comic books went from 10 cents each to 12. Suddenly, my 50 cent a week allowance was no longer adequate to buy me five comic books. It was my first experience with inflation, and remains one of the most bitter.

That said, I really think that in the case of my generation at least, it wasn't comic books that created the generation gap, but the civil rights movement. All of a sudden, as we watched what was unfolding on the TV news every night, we were brought face to face with the realization that everything we had been taught in school about America by our teachers, and everything we had been told by our parents, was a big fat lie. We had never been taught about segregation, never been informed that there were people who couldn't vote or attend schools or sit down in a diner because of their race. That, more than anything else, made us suspicious of what our elders were saying to us, and set the stage for the 1960's.
Comic books don't create generation gaps. Lies and deceptions do.
 
Solon Isonomia
2008-03-24 8:46:16 PM  
OscarTamerz: Nice theory but the big comic book boom started a generation earlier, anybody ever hear of Superman? Every new medium whether it is comics, rock n roll, or the internet is always portrayed as the new evil. Read Little Women and see how people thought novels were the devil's tool. You should be reading the Bible instead.

You're talking about the Golden Age of comics; slightly different.
 
Gunny Highway
2008-03-24 8:49:21 PM  
ragsthetiger: I still remember that dark day--sometime in the late '50s, as I recall--when comic books went from 10 cents each to 12.

I shell out 3 or 4 bucks now. It is truly a crime.

Also i would try not to pin the change in mindset of an entire generation to one thing. Cultural shifts are usually a little more complicated than that. But i did enjoy the article.
 
Fluffball
2008-03-24 8:51:35 PM  
Quite topical and reasonable given the manure storm that's going to probably hit within the next 5-years or so regarding video games.
 
Potsmaster
2008-03-24 8:54:18 PM  
This reminded me of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon, a great novel about comics, and it goes pretty in depth on the whole congressional investigation in the 50s. Interesting stuff, and a good read too.
 
ragsthetiger
2008-03-24 8:55:47 PM  
Gunny Highway: I shell out 3 or 4 bucks now.

Yeah, me too. But at least the paper and printing are better now, and the artwork has improved since the 1950's as well.

/still buys comic books
//gets them via the innartubes now
 
The Grinch
2008-03-24 8:58:40 PM  
Shmoooooo:

That article was not talking about silver age comics ... it was talking about those just before the Silver Age. Specifically the horror/crime era of the 50's. Now have you actually read any of those? Have you actually seen with your own eyes art by Wally Wood?? Or are you just another fanboy who gives uneducated opinions comparing stuff he has read to stuff he doesn't know anything about? My guess is the later.

Really wasn't impressed with the transition stuff between the Golden and Silver Ages. Most of it was just pulpy crap. (More so than normal for comic books, anyway.) Perhaps I should've been clearer: Alan Moore is the best comics writer since the Golden Age typefied the modern superhero.
 
Solon Isonomia
2008-03-24 9:01:35 PM  
The Grinch: Alan Moore is the best comics writer since the Golden Age typefied the modern superhero.

Frank Miller and especially Kurt Busiek have something to say about that.
 
98K514
2008-03-24 9:03:24 PM  
Potsmaster: This reminded me of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" by Michael Chabon, a great novel about comics, and it goes pretty in depth on the whole congressional investigation in the 50s. Interesting stuff, and a good read too.

This. It won a Pulitzer too.
 
dereksmalls
2008-03-24 9:07:05 PM  
A reaction to post WWII life in the USA, specifically the Cold War, bomb shelters , etc. plus reefer, bebop and a few good writers, including Ginsberg, Kerouac, et al
 
j4s0n
2008-03-24 9:10:32 PM  
bongonews.comView Full Size


yesbutnobutyes.comView Full Size
 
Squidgilum
2008-03-24 9:14:57 PM  
Frank Miller is a jackass, plain 'n' simple. He needs to go unemployed.

/Can't stand whiny heroes, anti-heroes, cynical "angst" stories, "grownup comics," or expensive comics.
//Can't stand this generation that had to drag comics with them into their adulthood and ruin them
///Would take a time machine back to 1970 any ol' day of the week.
 
T.rex
2008-03-24 9:20:39 PM  
Squidgilum

and your own post doesn't reek at all of being whiny and cynical from a grownup, unemployed jackass. not one bit.
 
syzygy whizz
2008-03-24 9:30:35 PM  
What!?

Did nobody catch the name of the sainted William Gaines??
FARKers, I'm ashamed of you!

He was the founder of MAD magazine!

Check out Dick DeBartolo's Good Times and MAD for a nostalgic look back at what it was like to be an original member of 'one of the usual gang of idiots'.
Apparently, Bill Gaines took very good care of his people.
 
Ghastly [TotalFark]
2008-03-24 9:32:31 PM  
Man... imagine the fun a guy like me could have had back then.
 
yotta
2008-03-24 9:36:47 PM  
I call bullshiat! The generation gap is a function of something known as puberty. There has always been one.
 
Chastain86
2008-03-24 9:37:11 PM  
T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

Elvis was good.

But compaired to jackie Wilson, Elvis wasint shiat.

bradlaidman.comView Full Size
 
Pvt. Party
2008-03-24 9:52:44 PM  
img264.imageshack.usView Full Size


[image from img409.imageshack.us too old to be available]

[image from img245.imageshack.us too old to be available]
 
tb tibbles
2008-03-24 9:58:39 PM  
James Dean and Marlon Brando unavailable for comment.

/Get off my turf
 
whizbang
2008-03-24 10:00:41 PM  
Headline misleads:
Hajdu & TFA tie comics to the generation gap's first emergence, not the whole friggin' counterculture revolution.
For the overall scene, neither rock nor the blues originated the anti-establishment scene (they joined later); see rather, Hajdu's "Positively 4th Street," as TFA states, history of the folk music movement in New York.
/ was there
// jazz poetry & folk music cross-fertilized
/// bongos, + u snap fingers instead of clap
 
Dead_Pool_82
2008-03-24 10:12:23 PM  
[image from images.comiccollectorlive.com too old to be available]

A good book for the kids.
 
Shadooby
2008-03-24 10:21:48 PM  
Hurm.
 
Johnny Chicago
2008-03-24 10:47:54 PM  
marvelmasterworks.comView Full Size

I CAN HAZ GAY ZEX 2?
 
Mole Man
2008-03-24 10:48:40 PM  
buddy-holly.comView Full Size


/bigger influence than Elvis
 
The Flexecutioner
2008-03-24 10:50:40 PM  
I managed a comic store for many years (the one our beloved Drew frequented) and i'm getting a kick out of these responses.

Superhero books were never looked at intensely until Gaines' horror comics came out. For 20 years hero books were fine. Then superhero rags got lumped in with them. And most of this was prompted by superhero comic publishers because EC was raping them in sales in the industry. They thought 'if we can get them shut down, we're in the clear'. They weren't too happy when they got lumped in with them afterward. But other book publisher's didn't mind one bit.

And for the record, Showcase #4 (the first appearance of Flash) was in 1956, and is the unanimously agreed upon first book of the Silver Age. In the last 20 years, the comic industry has added a whole slew of 'Ages', Bronze, Marvel, Modern, etc. It's only a matter of time before an official collectible is deemed the origination of the Digital Comic Age. Stupid Ageism.

/wrote college papers on this
//pondered a dissertation on it
///surprised no one started a 'who's stronger--hulk or thing?' thread
 
dangelder
2008-03-24 10:53:40 PM  
cdn-www.cracked.comView Full Size


Aww Damn!!
 
T.M.S.
2008-03-24 11:05:28 PM  
darkhorse23: T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

+1 for the stupidest, most bigoted generalization today.

I got caught in '59, getting a comic book off the rack and sneaking my dime to the drug store cashier while I thought my mom wasn't looking. I had to return it, she took away my dime, and I got spanked and grounded for a week. She was not going to have me go to Hell on her watch.

//southern baptist

-1 for missing the point.

Oh, and Elvis still sucked.
 
T.M.S.
2008-03-24 11:31:06 PM  
JonnyBGoode: T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

Elvis was good.

But compaired to jackie Wilson, Elvis wasint shiat.

If it wasn't for the Blues, there would be no Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll is simply twelve-bar blues played cut-time with a back beat emphasis.

Did you figure that out by yourself?JonnyBGoode: T.M.S.: Every time you talk about Rock and Roll some white guy brings up Elvis.

Elvis was good.

But compaired to jackie Wilson, Elvis wasint shiat.

If it wasn't for the Blues, there would be no Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll is simply twelve-bar blues played cut-time with a back beat emphasis.


Whom are you trying to educate?
 
Agent Paper
2008-03-25 12:15:59 AM  
Ghastly: Man... imagine the fun a guy like me could have had back then.

You know we all love you here and you're a wonderfuly twisted freak. But sugar you would have been shipped off to the nearest asylum for some shock treatment.
Sex is still verboten (sp?) and penises are even worse. One of the comics I get quite often has the heroine batteling evil naked, in all of her outragous boob glory but you show one penis and it's an x rating. :(
 
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