Comics Over Time – Details, episodes & analysis

1994 was a crazy year in the comics world, with both DC and Marvel continuing to crank out new books, even as other companies tried to claw their way into the market.  Retailers and fans were nearly helpless as the onslaught of comics overwhelmed them, leading to one of the worst years in the history of modern comics. 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Sales & Industry Information

Eisner Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

It was a pretty rough year at Marvel, both creatively and in terms of sales.  New corporate sales mandates drove a wedge between the staff, and overproduction meant too many books by less talented creators.  Even so, there were some bright spots! 

TOTAL SERIES: 336  TOTAL NEW SERIES: 195  TOTAL ENDING SERIES: 234  THIS YEAR'S EVENT(S):  

• Phalanx Covenant (Generation X Debuts)

BEST SELLING COMICS: Marvels

Events & Happenings

New Titles (Ongoing and Limited)

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen/Passings

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Mike Deodato

Dan's Favorite

Next week: 1994 Part 2 - The year in Daredevil 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

There are arguments to be made that this was the best year in the history of comics.  There are also a number of ways in which it may have been the worst.  In any case, it was not boring. Welcome to 1993, the year everything that has been building for the last decade or so comes to a head. 

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1993.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #312-323, Daredevil Annual #9, Daredevil: Man without Fear #1-5, Fantastic Four #373 and #378, Slapstick #4, What If…? #47, #48 and #55, Ghost Rider #36, Marvel Comics Presents #129 and #136, Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #55, Thor #464, Punisher War Journal #57 and #58, Web of Spider-Man #106, Alpha Flight #127, Marc Spector: Moon Knight #57, Infinity Crusade #1-6, and Marvel Masterworks #25 

Writing: Dan G. Chichester (312-323) 

Pencils: Scott McDaniel (312-315, 317-323), Kevin Kobasic (316) 

Inks: Bud LaRosa (312-317) LaRosa and Greg Adams (318), Hector Collazo and Harry Candelario (319), Michael Avon Oeming (320), Hector Callazo (321), Collazo and Rich Rankin (322-323) 

• The year starts with a mysterious fire at a Hell’s Kitchen pizzeria in which a young man “Marky” is killed and his girlfriend Lisa Rizzo needs to be rescued. After, she gets arrested and goes to court as an apparent arsonist – so Matt Murdock volunteers to be her lawyer. With Lisa not talking, Daredevil looks into the various patrons the day of the fire to figure out what really happened. In the end we find out Lisa is pregnant with Marky’s child and the pizza shop owners set fire to their own store to get the insurance money. 
• In Daredevil Annual #9, We get 3 different stories. In devouring madness, we see Daredevil break up a museum robbery. On the clock shows a typical day in the life of our fearless hero and Resurrection shows Calypso resurrect a zombie to fight Daredevil. 
• Next, Daredevil takes on a new incarnation of Mr. Fear… Shock who is Alan Fagan’s (the original Fear) daughter. The story, however, turns a bit weird as Shock enlists Taskmaster, the Wildboys and Stiltman to go after Daredevil – with the ending in issue 318 that’s played off as silly more than anything. The issue itself has a weird “That’s it folks! The last issue of Daredevil Before… Daredevil #319” on the cover. I had no idea what that meant until… 
• Issue 319 starts the final story arch of the year… Fall from Grace. This year we get a prologue and the first 4 chapters of the story (which appears to go through issue 325 – February 1994). We’ll speak in more detail about this story during our spotlight. 
• In Daredevil: Man without Fear we get a thorough retelling of the Daredevil origin story as well as his relationship with Elektra. This 5-book story was written by Frank Miller and penciled by John Romita Jr (Al Williamson on inks). This story goes into far more detail than what we got originally. We also see how Kingpin came into power as well as introduced to a few new characters (Mickey/Lars). Despite knowing the story well, I really enjoyed this series. It looked amazing. 

This Week's Spotlight: #319 August 1993 “Fall From Grace Prologue: Temptation” through Daredevil #323 December 1993 “Fall From Grace Chapter 4: Conflict”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

Daredevil Rapid Fire Questions

The Takeaway

Garbage in, Garbage out.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

This week we finish up the 80s, and see what another round of Batmania can do to and for the comics world. 

Pre-Show 

Letter from Mo

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

• Swamp Thing Movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098193/
• Robert Crumb comic strip with Donald Trump: https://www.openculture.com/2016/06/r-crumb-takes-down-donald-trump-in-a-1989-cartoon.html

Industry Trends

Harvey Awards

Notable Passings

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Titles

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Rob Liefeld

Dan's Favorite

Due to the time it took to get through this and to fully cover Daredevil, we've split 1989 into 2 podcasts. Next week you'll hear the rest of this episode - which will be entirely on Daredevil. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

This week we begin to see what happens when two massive Kaiju go to war in a region.  Everything else either runs away or is destroyed.  Such is the world of comics, circa 1988.

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Series/Limited Titles

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Bryan Hitch

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #250-261, West Coast Avengers #28, Thor #392, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #22, Marvel Masterworks #5, Punisher War Journal #2 along with the Daredevil/Punisher Child’s Play and Hawkeye graphic novels.  

Writing credits: Ann Nocenti (#250-261) 

Pencilers: John Romita Jr (#250-261) 

Inks: Al Williamson (#250-261) 

• The year being with a new artist, John Romita Jr, and the introduction of a new villain (Bullet) who’s been hired by Kelco as we see the continuation of the Tyrone Janson story from late last year. We also meet Bullet’s son, Lance, who is afraid the world will end at any moment. 
• Next Daredevil takes on another new villain in Ammo and the Wild Boys during a blackout caused by the Apocalypse's Horsemen – which is part of the Fall of the Mutants event. Daredevil stops him and he ends up in prison. 
• After being robbed several times, Kingpin hires the robber by offering the dissociative identity disorder alter Typhoid $1 million dollars to make Murdock/Daredevil fall in love with her and then crush him – which she agrees.  When then see Matt Murdock meeting the other alter, Mary. 
• What follows is a brilliant story arch that lasts through the end of the year. Murdock does fall in love with Mary and ends up fighting Typhoid several times (but doesn’t realize the connection).  
• Other subplots going on throughout this arch:  
• Tyrone gets his day in court with Kelco Chemicals – whom is represented by Foggy Nelson – and wins thanks to some ghost lawyering by Murdock 
• Karen Page realizes she’s losing Murdock as he’s sneaking around to meet with Mary 
• Typhoid grows concerned that Mary’s love for Matt is allowing her to grow stronger and could eventually take over. 
• Kingpin falls in love with Typhoid and eventually gets jealous of the Murdock/Mary relationship. 
• After ordering Typhoid to take out Murdock/Daredevil, She assembles a team of Bullet, Ammo, the Wild Boys and Bushwacker to soften him up before she finishes the job. This climatic story is our spotlight story for the week. 
• As the year ends, Daredevil is missing and Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch) has been enlisted to help a desperate Karen find him. Meanwhile Kingpin isn’t exactly happy how Typhoid carried out his order, but sees it as an opportunity to expand in Hell’s Kitchen.  
• Strong year of storytelling and brilliant art throughout the year 

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #260 November 1988 “Vital Signs” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Is it still an industry if there are only two companies?

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

After the wonders of 1986 the comic industry found itself with a glut of new companies, new titles, and new awards shows.  How would it all work out?  Lets go back to ’87 and find out…

PreShow Banter 

• A tweet from Forrest about the Watchmen books.

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Series/Limited Titles

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Mark Bagley

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #238-249, Amazing Spider-Man #284 and #286-288, Marvel Saga the Official History #14-16 and #23, Classic X-Men #6, Marvel Fanfare #31, Spectacular Spider-Man #128, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 and Web of Spider-Man #30 

Writing credits: Ann Nocenti (238-245, 247-249), Jim Owsley (246) 

Pencilers: Sal Bucema (238), Louis Williams (239-240, 243-244), Todd McFarland (241), Keith Pollard (242), Chuck Patton (245), Tom Morgan (246), Keith Giffen (247), Rick Loenardi (248-249) 

Inks: Steve Leiaoha (238), Al Williamson and Geof Isherwood (239), Williamson (240, 248-249), Al Milgrom (241), Danny Bulanadi (242) Williamson and Bulandi (243), Tony DeZuniga (244-246), Dan Hunt (247)

• Nerdist top Daredevil comic runs: https://nerdist.com/article/10-greatest-daredevil-comic-book-runs-of-all-time-ranked/ 
• The year begins with the Daredevil befriending a group of kids called the Fatboys – who we’ll see many more times throughout the year – and Daredevil save a girl from Sabretooth 
• We then get a series of stories from Nocenti featuring a new villain – First is Rot-Gut a Jack-the Ripper style villain who doesn’t have powers – just likes to cut up people, Next we had the Trixster who’s causing problems for the city of New York over Christmas, An everyday man accidently kills his boss and becomes the Caviar killer, and finally a drug dealer who uses voodoo to control things that incurs the wrath of a real voodoo creature. 
• We then get likely the best story of the year and it guest stars the Black Panther. This will be our spotlight story for the week. 
• As the year continues, we have more solo book stories that feel similar in scope and impact to the character as the ones before the spotlight book. We do see the return of Black Widow for an issue as the pair take down a deranged super soldier. Karen tries to get Matt back into office work by surprising him with new offices  
• There is a short-lived subplot where Karen Page starts to be frightened by the violence Daredevil dishes out, but she came to see it as fine after an issue or two. 
• The year ends with a two-book story arc involving another new villain, Bushwacker, who has an arm he can convert into a gun that sees the return of Wolverine to aid him in tracking the villain – which leads to a battle between the two over how justice should be handled. In this story we also meet Tyrone Janson – who is blinded by chemicals dumped in the Hudson River. 

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #245 August 1987 “Burn”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Bills come due.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

If you are every arguing with friends about what was the best year in the history of comics, you could do worse than arguing for 1986.  With a ton of interesting independent books, vibrant small-press publishers popping up everywhere, and four of the most beloved stories in the history of comics, ’86 was definitely a banner year!

This is part 2 of the podcast. that will feature the year in Daredevil, the Spotlight story and the Takeaway for 1986.

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #226-237, Spectacular Spider-Man #110, Amazing Spider-Man #277, Marvel Age Annual #2, Avengers Annual #15, Marvel Fanfare #27, Elektra: Assassin #1 and 4, Marvel Saga the Official History #13, and Marvel Graphic Novel: Daredevil Love and War 

Writing credits: Frank Miller and Denny O’Neil (226), Frank Miller (227-233), Mark Gruenwald (234), Danny Fingeroth (235), Ann Nocenti (236), “John Harkness” (237)  

Pencilers: David Mazzucchelli (226-233), Steve Ditko (234-235), Barry Windsor-Smith (236), Lois Williams (237) 

Inks: Dennis Janke (226), David Mazzucchelli (227-233), Klaus Jansen (234), Danny Bulanadi (235), Windsor-Smith and Bob Wiacek (236), Al Williamson and Bulandi (237) 

• The year begins Frank Miller returning to the title and a story where Daredevil helps Gladiator save Betsy Beatty after confronting him stealing from a museum 
• Next, Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli start an iconic run of books that you’ve probably heard of “Born Again” that starts with book 227 and finishes with 233. This incredible will be the spotlight for this week. 
• After Born Again, we get four stand-alone stories by four different writers to finish out the year. The first against a weird “hero” named Mad Cap who spouts nonsense and seemly can’t be killed. Next Daredevil takes on Mr. Hyde yet again. Then Daredevil and the Black Widow team up to track down another deranged member of the Super Soldier Project. Finally, Daredevil takes on the Klaw who’s looking to re-establish himself by taking him down. 
• Issue #237 was initially going to be the start of Steve Engelhart’s run on DD, but he was replaced by Ann Nocenti after writing just one issue, which he had his name taken off of, and the pen name “John Harkness” was credited 
• Daredevil: Love and War GN told the story of how the Kingpin kidnapped a psychiatrist’s wife to coerce him to help his wife, who was not recovering well from her accident and her captivity in the sewers.  By the end of the story we find out Vanessa only wants to escape from Fisk, and he sends her away to Europe with the doctor and his wife so she can heal and start a new life. 
• Elektra: Assassin is completely batshit.  Fully painted by Bill S., it is wildly experimental and confusing.  Elektra and a cyborg who is obsessed with her try to stop a presidential candidate who looks kind of like Dan Quayle from doing the will of “the beast” and causing a nuclear holocaust. 

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #227 February 1986 “Apocalypse” through Daredevil #233 August 1986 “Armageddon”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

It was the Best of Times, but it led to the Worst of Times. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

If you are every arguing with friends about what was the best year in the history of comics, you could do worse than arguing for 1986.  With a ton of interesting independent books, vibrant small-press publishers popping up everywhere, and four of the most beloved stories in the history of comics, ’86 was definitely a banner year!

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

Kirby Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Titles

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Alan Davis

Dan's Favorite

Due to the time it took to get through this and to fully cover Daredevil, we've split 1986 into 2 podcasts. Next week you'll hear the rest of this episode - which will be entirely on Daredevil. 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

This year Marvel is all about the cash grab, and so we get Secret Wars II, a bunch of vaguely copyright-infringing kids books, and some fantastic Bill Sienkiewicz art that makes everything else worth it.  Let’s talk 1985 in comics, Marvel and Daredevil.

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

• Comics and Sequential Art: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33476.Comics_and_Sequential_Art

Industry Trends

Eagle/Kirby Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Titles

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Peter David

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #214-225, Fantastic Four #281, Marvel Tales #181, Spectacular Spider-Man #108-109, Marvel Fanfare #23  

Writing credits: Denny O’Neil (214-18, 220-222, 225), Frank Miller (219), O’Neil and Jim Shooter (223), Jim Owsley (224) 

Pencilers: David Mazzucchelli (214-17, 220-223, 225), Sal Buscema (218), John Buscema (219), Dan Jurgens and Geof Isherwood (224) 

Inks: David Mazzucchelli (214-17, 220-221, 225), Ian Akin and Brian Garvey (218), Gerry Talaoc (219), Kim DeMulder (222-223), Mel Candido and Bruce Patterson (224) 

• The year starts with the conclusion of the Micah Synn story that took most of 1984. Synn is weakened and running for his life. Daredevil saves Synn from Kingpin’s men and some homeless men before himself asking for help. 
• Next was an interesting if not confusing western inspired story taking place in two different places and times that seemed to have a connection to Daredevil 
• We learn in a story with the Gael that Glorianna works for the I.R.A. as the Old Woman of Beare 
• We get another story with the Jester who breaks out of prison just so he can kidnap a noted actor and take his place for a tv production of Cyranno De Bergerac. In that story we see Daredevil dress up as the Jester and lead police around as a distraction allowing the Jester to finish his flawless performance. 
• We got a really fascinating story from Frank Miller in which Matt Murdock doesn't appear as Daredevil at all nor does he even speak. 
• Next, we get a tragic end to a long-time character. This will be our spotlight for this week. 
• The follow-up to that story takes Daredevil/Murdock to Venice, Italy in which he succeeds in getting the patents back – but it doesn’t help his feelings of guilt. 
• The Mudd Brothers kidnap Glorianna and Daredevil and Black Widow come to her rescue. 
• We get a tie-in to Secret Wars with a character called the Beyonder that…in all honesty… Didn’t make much sense.  
• The year ends with Daredevil taking down a new villain, the Saturion, and returning a locket to a blind man and then taking on another Spider-Man villain – the Vulture. There is also an epilogue with Black Crow was never followed on. 

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #220 July 1985 “Fog”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

Quality counts less than we’d like.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

This week we enter continue with the massive expansion era for Marvel and the Direct Market, with important new creators, new companies, and a whole lot of turtles…its 1984! 

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

• Cartoon Art Museum: https://www.cartoonart.org/

Eagle Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

• Box Brown’s “The He-Man Effect”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250261403/thehemaneffect 

New Titles

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Arthur Adams

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #202-213, Incredible Hulk #291 and 293, Defenders #127, Spider-Man and Daredevil Special Edition #1, Marvel Team-up #140-141, Elektra Saga #3-4, Marvel Age #17 

Writing credits: Denny O’Neill (202, 204-207, 211-213), Steven Grant (203), Harlan Ellison and Arthur Byron Cover (208), Arthur Byron Cover (209), Denny O’Neill and David Mazzucchelli (210) 

Pencilers: William Johnson (202, 205, 207), Geof Isherwood (203), Luke McDonnell (204), David Mazzucchelli (206, 208-13) 

Inks: Danny Bulanadi (202-206, 208-11, 213), Bulanadi and Mel Candido (207), Bulanadi and Pat Redding (212) 

• The year starts and ends with Micah Synn – Chief of an East African Kingorge Tribe who are also descendants of British explorers who have been isolated until very recently. Synn, his two wives and a group of other followers have traveled to the United States. Many of the books this year chronicle Synn turning from a media darling to a wanted criminal hunted by Daredevil and Kingpin. 
• It starts off in Assistant Editor’s month where we meet Micah Synn, his group and Professor Horactio Piper who wants to Enlist Nelson & Murdock to help with legal documents for Synn and company. Synn gets arrested for stealing food and then attacking a store owner as well as 3 police officers, upon release one of Micah’s wives walks into the street and is hit by a car. At the hospital, Synn attacks another office before Daredevil intervenes.  
• One of the few detours from the Synn story, Daredevil takes on a new foe – The Trump – whom has one of Daredevil’s childhood bullies is accused of helping. Daredevil stops Trump from taking a shipment of weapons. After being confronted by Foggy, Murdock drops Schmidt as a client. 
• Back to Synn, An assassination attempt on the chief that has ties to his family is thwarted by Daredevil and Debbie Harris throws a party and becomes infatuated with the Synn. 
• Next we meet Glorianna O’Breen, Debbie Harris’ niece from Ireland, who is in New York over concerns she’s in danger after her father is killed. Which turns out to be true. Daredevil saves her from being abducted and then saves her from a friend of her father’s that turns out to be a killer called the Gael. 
• Micah Synn and company crash a Christmas Party and Matt Murdock’s house which leads to a stolen kiss with Debbie Harris and another battle between Daredevil (aided by Kingpin no less) and Synn. 
• Another side story, As Daredevil must find a Russian defector and stolen microchip for Hydra in order to save a captured Black Widow. Daredevil finds the defector but not the chip and instead saves widow without it and the pair take down the Hydra agents who captured her. 
• Next Daredevil stumbles into a murder house trap set by the mother of a former villain. This story will be our spotlight story for the week. 
• Back to Synn, Chief Micah files a restraining order against Daredevil and his men have a run-in with Kingpin. During yet another battle between Synn and Daredevil, Synn learns of Murdock’s secret.  
• Micah captures Becky and Vanessa for a human sacrifice to his god; DD intervenes, but Vanessa is killed; Kingpin reveals that Vanessa was really an actress he hired to keep his wife safe; DD and Kingpin team-up to take down Micah. 
• Matt Murdock holds a press conference to get the word out on Micah Synn, but his and Becky Blake’s account is called into question by Foggy Nelson (at the urging of his wife Debbie). Harris then goes to Synn and professes her love to him and it’s met with indifference and a needless slap to the face sending her to the ground. 
• As the year ends, the story with Synn is still going. Harris remains captive by Synn. Professor Piper seems able to look the other way on Synn until a friend and colleague of his is inadvertently killed. Piper creates a diversion and frees Harris who returns home and tells him what happened with Synn. When Foggy goes to confront Synn, he finds Piper dead and Synn’s men looking to fight. Daredevil arrives and makes quick work of the tribesmen, but they aren’t able to find Micah Synn. 

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #208 July 1984 “The Deadliest Night of My Life”

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

This is a golden age.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation. 

This year things really start to accelerate in the comics world, as the direct market kicks into high gear. Marvel leads the way again, with a truly astounding number of new books. Welcome to the crazy years, folks. Its time to talk 1983. 

Convergence Con: https://www.convergence-con.org/

The Year in Comics 

Notable and Newsworthy

Industry Trends

Eagle Awards

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Marvel

Events & Happenings

New Titles

New Characters

Series Ending

Who's in the Bullpen

• ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Paul Neary

Dan's Favorite

The Year in Daredevil 

Appearances: Daredevil #190-201, Incredible Hulk #279, Marvel Two-in-One #96, Marvel Fanfare #7, Iron Man #169 and Fantastic Four #255 

Writing credits: Frank Miller (190-91), Alan Brennert (192), Larry Hama (193), Denny O’Neil (194-201) 

Pencilers: Klaus Janson (190, 192-96), Frank Miller (191), Larry Hama and William Johnson (197), William Johnson (198-201) 

Inks: Klaus Janson (190, 192-96), Terry Austin (191), Larry Hama and Klaus Janson (197), Danny Bulanadi (198-201) 

• The year starts with another Double Issue as DD, Widow and Stone race to keep the Hand from resurrecting Elektra; Unbeknownst to DD, Stone finishes the job the Hand started, and Elektra lives again.
• Daredevil visits Bullseye telling him a story about a recent client and how’s he’s questioning what he’s doing. This amazing story is our spotlight story this week.
• Next, we have a story about kingpin trying to get Ben Urich under his thumb by using his wife's desire for a new house to turn Urich dirty; ultimately Ben must decide how best to be a good reporter, a good husband and a good man.
• DD is on the trail of some stolen missiles, and they lead him to a cruise ship and a traveling magician who doesn't know the gun she stole from a guard she killed at the heist doesn't work.
• Tarkington Brown, who works for the mayor, finds that he only has a few weeks to live, so he recruits some cops to form a criminal killing murder squad as his way of making a final contribution before he dies; While she is drunk at a party, Heather tells Tark that Matt is DD, and Tarkington sends his squad to take down the Man Without Fear.
• The incapacitated Bullseye is kidnapped from his hospital by mysterious Asian agents. In the process, they shoot a visiting Wolverine, who tries to intervene. When Daredevil investigates, a recuperated Wolverine insists that the two team up and work on the case which sends Daredevil to Honshu Japan (the largest island). 
• There he meets up with Dark Wind’s daughter, Yuriko, who offers to help Daredevil find Bullseye if he’s able to help her save her love interest from the power sway of her father. We learn Dark wind took Bullseye to repair his paralyzed body with adamantium so he can kill a Japanese delegate he doesn’t agree with. Now healed, Bullseye betrays Dark Wind and makes his way back to the States; while Yuriko kills her father to save DD's life.
• The 5-book story arc ends with Bullseye back in New York who is looking to get back on Kingpin’s payroll as a hit man. Black Widow comes checking in on Daredevil and a climactic battle in an old arena Jack Murdock once wrestled in to try to make ends meet. After a lengthy battle, Daredevil looks to finish Bullseye once and for all but is stopped by an image of his father that reminds him who he is (which is not a killer).
• The year ends with someone takes a shot at Foggy, and a wounded Daredevil enlists the Black Widow's aid in trying to find out who is trying to kill his partner. Issue 201 cover is by John Byrne. 

New Powers, Toys or Places

New Supporting Characters

New Villains

This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #191 February 1983 “Roulette” 

Recap

Why We Picked This Story

The Takeaway

The start of superstar creators.

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

------------------

THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES 

Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/. 

The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts. 

Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data. 

Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra’s Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.   

The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time. 

Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377. 

My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage. 

BOOKLIST 

The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it! 

Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn’t even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It’s like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing. 

Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read. 

Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition. 

Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn’t have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.   

Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to. 

Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation.