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Five For Friday #3: Changing Comics
posted November 12, 2004
 

Name Five Comics that Changed Comics

Action Comics #1 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
Fantastic Four #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
The Adventures of Jesus by Frank Stack
Dazzler #1 by Tom DeFalco and John Romita, Jr.
Love and Rockets #1 by Mario, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez

Other Lists and Responses

Kyle Vanderneut

I'm going to steal from you.

Action Comics #1
Detective Comics #27
Amazing Fantasy #15
Maus
Hate #1

The first three are obvious. For years, any time I was around non-comic people and I told them I read comics their first response was "have you read Maus?" Hate might not be Bagge's first work, but my teen years fell in the 90's and every slacker and outcast I knew read that "grunge comic." I know it introduced a lot of people to the world of indy comics.

If Maus is disqualified for being a book, I'd add Youngblood #1. Whether we like to admit it or not, Youngblood #1 launched a new era and it was the first time in my (then) relatively short life that comics moved from being about the story to being about the art. It was also a statement that creators didn't have to work for the Big Two, they didn't have to turn their creations over to big corporations.

*****

Steve Block

From a UK perspective...

Warrior #1
Escape #1
Oz Magazine #1
The Eagle #1
Ally Sloper's Half Holiday #1

*****

Greg Vondruska

Dazzler is a joke, right? I got a chuckle out of it. But then there might be
something I'm missing. Some sort of Direct Market significance. Ka-zar was in there too, right? As a direct market only comic. My history is lacking there...

How about:

Cerebus
Dark Knight
Zap (what I mean to put here is the first major Crumb appearance, but I don't know it, still all these creators are significant)
Raw
King Cat

*****