You will clearly understand why fans everywhere are calling this “The Marvel Age Of Comics”: Using a Production Of Culture approach to periodise superhero comics

The concept of periodisation has always been controversial within the field of Art History and has remained so when used in Comics Studies. Notably, the fan-originated ‘Ages’ system has been castigated as hierarchical, judgmental, undefined and, worst of all, ‘fannish’. Despite this it remains in use as a pedagogical tool and academic shorthand. This paper will show how the widely used, but rarely defined, term ‘The Marvel Age’ can be categorised as a distinct period within the history of American superhero comics in a way which avoids these issues, utilising the Production of Culture approach to shift the focus of examination away from the content of comics and towards the larger social and organizational context of their production and dissemination. Examples will be given of how a clearly defined ‘Marvel Age’, and the three distinct sub-periods within it, can be used for both qualitative and quantitative analyses, after which you will clearly understand why academics everywhere may one day be calling this ‘The Marvel Age Of Comics’.

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