The Ages of Content and an Age of Terror: Comics beyond the “Modern Age”

The periodization of comics has deeply flawed assumptions baked in that make attempts to globalize or extend its chronology backwards extremely difficult. While such are essential, little thought has been given either to nuancing periodization within current time scales or even forward chronologically. With the exception of Adrienne Resha’s “Blue Age of Comic Books,” the idea remains largely unexamined. Yet even this intervention rapidly pivots towards medium and means of production, or reception rather than content of comics and other sequential art.

For all the utility of Resha’s medium-based intervention, it is flawed in some of its assumptions regarding historical comics readership. More importantly, it is difficult to fit a mostly medium-based intervention of periodization alongside the four priorly recognized thematically or content-based periodizations. This disjunction is not insoluble and can be rectified by examining the shifts in comics content during what has now been an over-long Modern Age.

The now almost forty-year length of the Modern Age – more than twice the length of the other three recognized comics ages – has obscured shifts in themes and content, increased diversity of creators and characters, and even a global shift in centers of production. Not least among these obscured features is the distinct shift after September 11th 2001. The drastic reordering of storylines, character ideologies, and continuities that followed the beginning of the global war on terror cannot be underestimated. The concurrent evolution of digital technology, information systems, digital media, and even digital surveillance, all likewise represented en masse in post 9/11 comics can provide a useful bridge between the ideas of a digital medium age of comics and a content scheme for periodization. This Age of Terror idea is itself an incomplete reflection of changes, but it is a first step forward in moving beyond the Modern Age.