Comics for Film, Games, and Animation

CHAPTER 12

Into the Silver Age, 1956–1961

After Frederic Wertham and his ilk nearly destroyed the comics industry and, bowing to the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority, became a survival necessity, comics were in a bad way. Distribution was drying up (by 1958, even Timely—now Atlas—publisher Martin Goodman was turning to DC/National for a distribution vehicle),¹ sales had plummeted, and publishers were disappearing. News-stands were becoming a thing of the past, a nostalgic memory absorbed into the supermarket as cities gave rise to the domesticity of the suburbs. Comics were losing their primary vehicle for sales and facing new competition for attention thanks to the overwhelming popularity of television and the newly “busy” lifestyle ...