Basically the Golden Age was a lot like the Image Age of the early 90's. Product was selling in vast quantities and strong draftsmanship or storytelling skills were not necessarily what was required or admired to have a strong selling book.


I think this is a good analogy. It's not that there weren't any Golden Age artists and writers who were invested in their craft (or didn't have talent), but early on, the industry didn't really seem to have too many ambitions past filling out the pages of a printing signature. (There's a remarkable story in one of the Steranko History of Comics books about an entire 64-page comic book written and drawn over the course of a weekend.)

That said, where some people see "crude" in (some) Golden Age comics, others see an art form beginning to take shape, trying anything to see what works.

A Week Ago Tuesday: My blog, where I never, ever write about comics (though I think I did, once or twice).