In the sixties and seventies there's not a lot of detail in the drawings. Many of the actual story pages were simply black & white and the covers were just the same with a little added colour. Other than Action Comics #1 (the first Superman) I've not really read any comics from this era. Unless the stories are particularly good then I'm not sure they'd hold up to today's standards.
In the eighties and nineties we've got much more attention to shading and intricate backgrounds but the characters haven't changed much at all. This is the era I've just bought issues from (1991 in fact). It still looks a lot different to the modern examples though.
Then from around 2000 onwards the attention to detail has increased to another level and even more work is being put in to the cover art to make them extra special. I suppose it really doesn't affect the underlying story but I'd be lying if I said I preferred the older style artwork. It's possible that means I'm not a 'true' comic fan in the eyes of some people but I've never been someone who cares at all about labels. I like what I like and that's it.
That is very interesting, I wonder what caused the improvements? And which is cause, and which effect? I think that the same thing has happened to other kinds of comics too, eg children's ones. When I think about the simplicity of the comics we had in the 60s compared to what you had in the 80s and what is on the shelves now, the same great leaps of quality can be seen, but I would imagine that the demand in that field has remained fairly constant.
ReplyDeleteMy guess would be that advances in print technology have acted like advances in film, inspiring the creators who are delighted to find they can now do things that would once have been too time-consuming or expensive.
But good for you for saying what you like and not being swayed by other people's opinions. There's a word for people who like things just because they are perceived to be somehow more 'cool', and the word is 'poser', lol.