The Dark Age

(TwoMorrows, 2006)
™ and © 2005 Mark Voger

Probably not the definitive or objective analysis of comics’ most profitable period since the mid-20th century, but certainly a nuanced one, and probably the first to give the period a fair going-over. The last 15 years of the 20th century are a much-maligned period in comics, cited for “realism” that, if it ever existed, decayed into parody.

Writer Mark Voger, showing a heedless love for the material, leaps in and acknowledges the validity of those criticisms while giving a second look at a period that, for all its aesthetic flaws, was a commercial and cultural success among the laity. The end portrait is a freshly tilled creative landscape primed for the seeds of comics’ next creative burst forward. At times needlessly coy, and even momentarily trite, the book still covers all the major and minor points a thorough look at the era would need while adding enough new perspectives and a few revelations to open a discussion about the real, and often-overlooked merits, of an era remembered for polybags and chromium covers.

— Brendan McGinley

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