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Sunday, October 13, 2013

PBS' Superheroes: A Neverending Battle

Doug:  Happy Sunday evening to everyone.  I just saw this on Twitter, so thought I'd do a little bit more research and then bring you a Bronze Age Babies Bulletin!  As you can see from the retweet below, Gerry Conway will be featured on the PBS show Superheroes: A Neverending Battle.  He'll be discussing a topic near and dear to the hearts of all readers of this blog, as it's a debate we've had here often -- why were Marvel and DC so different in the Silver and Bronze Ages??  I've included a screenshot below the tweet so you all know what we're talking about.  You can use this link to jump to the actual page.

I've heard some publicity about this program, but know next to nothing about it.  Is anyone out there more in the loop than I?  Thanks in advance for any information you can give!



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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 13, 2013 at 10:02 PM

    I've always assumed that DC and Marvel were "so different" in the Silver Age simply because Marvel was aiming at a slightly older audience. By the Bronze Age, there was (imho) no noticeable difference. DC seemed to be imitating Marvel, with increased character development, internal conflicts (team members bickering with each other), cross-continuity, and long arcs and subplots. And, by the 1970's, artists and writers were going back and forth between the two companies as if there were a revolving door.

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  2. DougOctober 13, 2013 at 10:10 PM

    Anonymous, while I believe your history to be correct, I don't agree with the interpretation. Even quality Marvel writers like Gerry Conway did not write in the same way at DC as they had at Marvel. DC had an entrenched "house" style of writing, much like we talk about house styles for artists. It's my opinion that DC's editors retained a large share of creative control.

    Of course, with rogues like Bob Haney running around, things were bound to seem different. But you know what? Whereas I used to think Haney was bad for comics, I now think he may have been one of the best things DC had going for it in terms of separating themselves from Marvel. Haney's work was stand out, even thumbing its nose at conventions of the day (or of any day for that matter!).

    Doug

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  3. AnonymousOctober 14, 2013 at 12:11 AM

    I liked Gerry Conway's work, even though when I read it, I was too young to know who the hell he was.
    He was a gloomy S.O.B.! His writing had a dark aspect to it, but it worked. It was the 70's. And a lot of the stuff coming out of D.C. wasn't really all that great. When I was eight years old, I kinda wanted to be challenged a little. Intellectually, so to speak.

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  4. ComicsfanOctober 14, 2013 at 4:56 AM

    Thanks for the heads-up on this. Finally, something to watch on TV! :)

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  5. david_bOctober 14, 2013 at 8:46 AM

    I personally liked Conway's work on Bronze FF.. Gloom, I do sense now that it was mentioned, but at the time, it worked rather well as Anonymous mentioned.

    Sorry, but the divorce papers/Shaper/Miracle Man/Annililus/Doom issues of 136-150 will still remain my all-time FAVORITE tenure of Conway..

    Will have to see whether I can still pick up the show on cable or youtube..

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  6. GarettOctober 15, 2013 at 1:59 PM

    Thanks for the heads up about this show tonight. It's going to be 3 hours long, and has a big list of comic people involved, including Neal Adams, Simonson, Marv Wolfman, Denny O'Neil, Steranko and more.

    More info here:
    http://www.pbs.org/about/news/archive/2013/superheroes-night/

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