In the 1990s, there were a lot of comic books—and comic book publishers—that I either missed out on completely or that held so little appeal to me that I ignored them. That’s saying a lot for a guy who lived for Wednesdays—new comic book day in America—through the late 1960s, all of the ‘70s and much of the ‘80s. I do know it was a time of greatness for the medium—Alex Ross, Kurt Busiek, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Alan Moore, Rob Liefield and Todd McFarlane—among many others—turned the medium on its ass and spun it ‘round and ‘round.
KEITH DALLAS podcast excerpt: "You name 1990s comic book property and, if it became popular, suddenly one title would mushroom into 12: three ongoings, half a dozen one-shots and specials. You see that with X-Men, Spider-Man and The Punisher. It was truly an indication of the suits taking over Marvel. They looked at sales figures and said, 'Oh, Spider-Man is hot! Let's put out 50,000 Spider-Man titles! They want Spider-Man, let's give 'em what they want.'"Me? I got married in ’88, started writing books in’92, and had a kid in ’96. So I have a good excuse for sleeping through this particular sequential art revolution – I had a life! Fortunately, the folks at Twomorrows Publishing have embarked on a massive effort to qualify and quantify comic books of every era with their American Comic Book Chronicles series. Joining me today to talk about the latest volume—The 1990s—are author Jason Sacks and editor-in-chief Keith Dallas. This is their second appearance on the show; the guys were last here to talk about the 1970s edition.
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