1986: The First Sea Change in Comics
A Paean to the Petuniacon Generation
I sent out photocopies of the completed Megaton Man #1 to fifteen different publishers in the spring of 1984 and received rejection letters on stationery from a lot of now-defunct imprints: Pacific, Eclipse, First, Epic Illustrated, First, Comico, and so one. Another now defunct publisher, Kitchen Sink Press, responded enthusiastically, and by the summer I was under contract to produce a bi-monthly series.
I attended the Chicago Comic Con that summer and met Denis Kitchen, with whom I had only spoken on the phone and communicated by letter and fax, for the first time. I also met Jack and Roz Kirby, Howard Chaykin, and Heidi Macdonald all within the first twenty minutes of the show’s opening (we called them “cons” back then). In the fall, I attended King Kon in Ypsilanti, promoted by future Caliber Press publisher Gary Reed, and met Harvey Kurtzman, Dave Sim, Al Milgrom and others.
By an accident of history, Megaton Man #1 wouldn’t see print until December of 1984, and yet somehow I was already a professional during that summer and fall of 1984, if not yet a published one.
The following year, 1985, I attended Chicago again as well as the Dallas Fantasy Fair and the San Diego Comicon, and met almost the other 98% of the industry, including Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Joe Kubert, Burne Hogarth, and Jim Valentino. I had met Steve Bissette and Jon Totleben as a small show in Monroeville, east of Pittsburgh, earlier that spring; I met Larry Marder at a Capital City Chicago warehouse open house also that spring.
The point here is not to drop names, but to stress that in those days it was possible to meet just about everybody in comics in just a few shows—all before my fifth issue had come out. It was still a tiny industry and many retailers could stock almost everything and even seemed hungry for more experimental, independent offerings.
Ah, those were the days!
Perhaps the keynote event of the era—one that I had missed—was Petuniacon, a gathering that included most of the indie notables of the time—the Aardvark-Vanaheim crowd, WaRP Graphics, Los Bros Hernandez, Colleen Doran, Arn Saba, Larry Marder, Scott McCloud. In fact, although I wasn’t there, I’ve always thought of the indie explosion I was purportedly part of as the Petuniacon Generation.
But by the end of show season 1986—which climaxed that summer in San Diego—it already felt like a very different industry.
Unlike shows during the previous two years, where comics seemed like one, big, happy family—this may be nostalgia, but I don’t think so—San Diego 1986 had felt instead like several fandoms had gathered but not particularly mingled. Furries, Manga, indies, the old underground contingent, Dr. Who, Star Trek, Star Wars—it felt like all those fandoms had had very different convention experiences. Comics was no longer one, holistic melting pot.*
It was a subtle feeling, but palpable. I remember remarking on it to my crowd at the time—I hung out with Larry, Val, Josh Quagmire, and Scott for the most part—itself representing an unlikely assortment genres, styles, and sensibilities that would be impossible to replicate today—that comics no longer felt like a single, ecumenical enterprise, but a gathering of tribes that no longer particularly cared to mingle nor felt they had missed anything by ignoring the other tribes altogether.
It should be noted that Marvel under Jim Shooter and Carol Kalish—an intimidating pair, at least to me—was always rather cliquish; Marvel editors, writers, and artists tended to keep to themselves at conventions in those days, while almost everyone else—from DC to the indies to self-publishers—seemed more collegial.
But after 1986, that cliquishness, that inward turning, seemed to spread to every other faction within the industry. Indeed, factions themselves had emerged, whereas before they were hardly a thing.
1986 was the year of the black-and-white boom; I myself had ended Megaton Man and launched Border Worlds a black-and-white title. It was a year of tremendous growth in comics and the beginning of diversification. And although black-and-whites would implode the following year, the diversification—the tribalization of fandoms—would remain.
I remember the flight back from that show, probably to a connection in Chicago, chatting with a Legion of Superheroes fan who had had a very different San Diego Comicon experience than the one I had. That feeling would only become more pronounced over the subsequent decade (before I withdrew from comics altogether in 1996).
That Petuniacon Generation feeling—the feeling that you couldn’t help but know everything that was going on in comics and everyone who was doing everything—would never return.
Valentino would go from A-V to Guardians of the Galaxy; Scott McCloud would author Understanding Comics; Kevin Eastman would launch Tundra; Image Comics was still in the future.
“They’re breaking up that old gang of mine” seems to suit these reflections, although the point is not mere sentiment. Comics was diversifying; tribes were forming, barriers were going up. After 1986, it was nearly impossible to keep up with everything going on under the rubric “comics”—and there was little point in trying.
There seemed to be enough going on among one’s own tribe—or genre or preoccupation or fandom—not to particularly notice or pay attention to anything else.
This feeling has only grown more pronounced in the four decades since.
I can still recall discussions in those early days about whether retail stores should classify comics according to genre. Today, it’s impossible for any retailer to shelve even a tiny fraction of offerings that fall under the rubric “comics.”
The same goes for shows, which now come in celebrity photo-op, cosplay, and a dozen other varieties, most of which have little to do with artists alleys, drawing, or even reading illustrated stories printed on paper.
Many of these events still call themselves comic book conventions, although the comics and the convening seem more like vestiges of a bygone era.
This is not intended as a lamentation or a nostalgia trip, or if it is, it is by the way. I simply want to note here that I came into comics just before everything changed. And I would mark that change as having taken place in 1986.
Recently, I served as judge for a comics grant designed to promote worthy unknowns hoping to gain greater visibility in comics. I realized there was no such thing as a grant for comics back when I broke into the business. There were no awards, either.
It was even before The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, for crying out loud.
Megaton Man #1 debuted at the tail end of an era when a number of small imprints were debuting important new titles—A-V with William Messner-Loebs Journey, Arn Saba’s Neil the Horse, and Jim Valentino’s normalman; Eclipse with Scott McCloud’s Zot! and Will Meugniot’s DNAgents; Fantagraphics with Los Bros’ Love and Rockets, Don Rosa’s Comics and Stories, Dan Clowes’ Eightball; Comico with Bill Willingham’s Elementals and Mike Gustovich’s Justice Machine.
In those days, everybody was aware of—and likely bought and read—most if not all of those titles. One read The Comics Journal every month and The Comics Buyers Guide every week, and went to conventions already aware of 99% of what was going on in the industry. There were very few surprises.
This show season, I will be attending several shows. And, as in recent years, 99% of what I see will be completely new—and therefore surprising—to me. If it’s even comics.
There’s no going back to pre-1986. The Petuniacon moment is over.
*Although, ironically, Kevin Eastman had T-shirts in 1986 for Melting Pot, a pet project that wouldn’t come to fruition for many years yet!