Geeks logo

Rise of Adult Comics

More complex themes and a darker take on human nature have led adult comics to expand a previously kid-centric industry.

By Geeks StaffPublished 8 years ago 7 min read
Like

Those Batman fans lucky enough to have arrived early on the third day of New York City’s 2015 Comic Con were treated to a preview of the thirtieth anniversary celebration of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Despite the long lines and confusion, fans eagerly awaited the arrival of Miller onstage to discuss his work. As he stepped under the lights, the air became charged with the excitement of those who witnessed the monumental 80s comic hit stands during their childhood. The crowd was full of men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, meaning that the comic had stuck with them over the years. Miller’s story is certainly special in its staying power, but it also speaks to the nature of adult comics as an industry.

The Dark Knight Returns to Comics

However, The Dark Knight Returns is timeless perhaps even more so due to the long-term effects of the revisionist story about one of the most popular superheroes in history. It’s not a popular opinion now thanks to movie adaptations, but once upon a time comic books were trivialized in popular culture. There was a notion that reading comic books made you immature. However, this changed greatly thanks to the Dark Age or Modern Age of comic books. Specifically, in the 1980s and beyond, there was a rise of anti-heroes who were less the plastic one-note morally straightforward characters, and more realistic morally ambiguous characters. This rise of more adult comics catapulted comic books into the respect that it has grabbed (and continues to grab) in pop culture today. The Dark Knight Returns came after decades of Batman camp, courtesy of the 1960s TV series by Adam West. The contrast was immediate, as the Bruce Wayne that meets fans in Miller’s 1986 mini-series is fifty-five years old and has been forced to retire due to the deterioration of his body.

Unfortunately, Gotham has also deteriorated in that time, and become corrupt thanks to both criminals and Superman’s subservience to a witless government. Because of the complexity of the corruption, Batman reaches a level of desperation that pushes him to compromise on certain ethics for the greater good. In particular, there is the violent encounter with the Joker and (of course) Batman’s conflict with Superman, who tries to remove Batman when the US Government feels threatened by Batman (and his vigilante Sons of Batman group). Miller’s masterpiece wasn’t the only adult comic of the era that is responsible for the artistic shift in comics in the 1980s to more complex and more adult themes. Other notables include The Watchmen, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, and Alan Moore’s take on one of the most famous villains in comics, The Killing Joke.

The Killing Joke Murders Child Friendly Superhero Comics

The Killing Joke is particularly important because of the way it creates empathy for a villain that was once considered one-dimensionally evil. Moore contrasts this perception by giving the Joker a tragic background in which he is made a villain by a combination of failing at his dream to be a comedian and being used by criminals. Most importantly, Moore uses Batman and the Joker as foils of each other. As Critic Geoff Klock explains,

"Both Batman and the Joker are creations of a random and tragic 'one bad day.' Batman spends his life forging meaning from the random tragedy, whereas the Joker reflects the absurdity of life, and all its random injustice."

By changing what once was considered a despicable criminal into a person that could have (in theory) been just like one of the most looked up to superheroes, Moore added an impressive level of complexity to comics. It is that complexity that made the comic books much more appealing to older audiences, as the story was no longer a simple one of good versus evil.

Rise of the Adult Comic Auteur

Image via Deviant Art user Cyber-Kun

Speaking of the evolving complexity of comic book characters, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is one of the most complex graphic novels of the beginning of the Modern Age of Comic Books. Not only did the series blend the genres of horror, fantasy, and mythology, but it also used personification of certain concepts like dreams, despair, and destruction. By sheer references and literary skill, Sandman certainly cannot be considered something for a juvenile audience. Add in the horror elements, like the Faustian deal from issue number one, and Gaiman’s graphic novel paved the way for comics with horror themes to enter the popular consciousness.

While Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (and Daredevil) opened the door for complex superheroes and villains, Gaiman’s Sandman appears to have offered the chance for horror-themed comic books to make a comeback. Thanks to Comics Code Authority banning “horror” and “terror” from comic titles in 1954, it wasn’t until Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Gaiman's Sandman that horror made a comeback. Without those two titles, it’s pretty fair to say that the current climate of popular horror comics wouldn’t exist.

Specifically, without Sandman there would be no The Walking Dead, Saga, or East of West.

Perhaps due to the success of Moore’s Swamp Thing and Gaiman’s Sandman, DC’s Vertigo continued to churn out comics in the horror and fantasy genres. Basically, the comic series proved that there was not a necessity to appeal to supposed safety of less complex and less dark subjects that might prove to be too much for younger comic book audiences. But you could also say that comics grew up with their major consumers. After all, Frank Miller allegedly wrote The Dark Knight Returns after realizing that for the first time in his life he was older than all the previous iterations of Batman.

Dawn of the Modern Age

Image via Comic Book Critic

The surge of darker, complex comics began in what is considerably the beginning of the Modern Age of Comics. The complexity and subsequent wider age appeal made comic books seemingly the new frontier for film and or TV adaptations. According to comic book sales by the early 2000s, there was definitely a demand for the style that had originated in the 80s. Add in the recent demands for more diversity in terms of race, sexuality, and gender and the perfect storm for Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples’s Saga was born.

Following the Romeo and Juliet styled love story between warring races, Saga was released in March 2012 by Image comics. It’s first printing sold out and the series has continued to be one of the best-selling series of recent years. As mentioned before, the series has been particularly popular because of its diversity. Or as Nadia Bauman explains, “Saga gives a promise of freedom to be whoever we want and make our own choices without fear of being judged or punished.” Basically, Saga chose characters and a world that is so completely beyond typical binary thinking, (i.e. male, female, black, white, etc.) that readers are offered an adult comic that has texturized the once simplistic worlds of other comics.

Saga is definitely a representative of what the Modern Age of Comics has become thanks to influences of both current culture and the 1980s complex, gritty, revisionist works. But perhaps there’s no greater example of what comics have become since then than the success of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

Comics Dominate Television

Photo via Screenrant

Storming onto the scene right at the beginning of the era of comic book to film adaptations, The Walking Dead was released in 2003 by Image Comics. In that way, you could say Kirkman’s zombie apocalypse story paved the way for Saga’s success. The series has received several awards and much critical acclaim. This is all (seemingly) in spite of its rather gore-ridden, violent, and emotionally mature content. That is to say, the requirement of blunt trauma to the head of what used to be a human being in order to survive, is not exactly the same as 1960's Batman taking down bank robbers in hand to hand combat.

Maybe 15 years before it was released, The Walking Dead may not have thrived for the perception that comic books and graphic novels were something simplistic for only the children to enjoy. Now, however, the increased presence of comic books in the popular consciousness requires both diversity and complexity such that it appeals to both younger and adult audiences.

Thinking back on the works of Miller, Moore, and Gaiman, and it’s hard to imagine the current climate of considerably high-brow comic book works without their risky explorations of what comics could be if they dropped the campiness of its history.

Audience for Comics Expands

Photo via heraldextra

Moreover, it’s also impossible to ignore the way in comic books have seemed to grow (as other artistic mediums) with both the culture and the creators themselves. Those adult comic book fans who remember comics as the first things they read on their own have likely noticed the way the they have never felt truly alienated from them. Essentially, while other mediums may have fans trading YA for Adult or Rated G for Rated R, Batman is and always will be for everyone. Additionally, the belief that adult comic books are just adult picture books is now all but non-existent because to say so would be to ignore the remarkably intelligent and well-executed stories that grew out of the 1980s. In short, comic books may have once been seen as just for kids, but now they’re as rich, complex, diverse, and mature as most people are.

comicsindustrypop culture
Like

About the Creator

Geeks Staff

The biggest bunch of geeks gathered in one 12,000 sqft warehouse in Northern New Jersey who spend their whole day just being geeks.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.