Hey Kids! Comics! vol. III #5 // Review
It's the middle of the 1980s, and the comic book industry is in a serious moment of change. It's the dawn of the Copper Age of Comics, and both the big two comic book companies AND a growing number of little indies are beginning to evolve into something completely different. Writer/artist Howard Chaykin continues his exploration of the history of the industry in Hey Kids! Comics! vol. III #5. Chaykin tells tales from the era of Moore, Miller, Eastman, Laird, and...Chaykin. It's a fun little excursion through the era that would end in the current rise of a post-comic book era for the comic book industry.
Durkee and Stendahl are in the process of being rejected by everyone. So all they have to do is publish themselves. How hard could that be? And what are they going to do when The Antisocial Positronic Aardvarks make it mega-big in and out of the comics shops? Meanwhile, Marvel Verve Comics is hemorrhaging talent, and Jeanette Kahn Shoshana Glaub is helping to move DC Yankee Comics in a new, irreverent direction with some particularly dark iterations of the mainstream superhero genre. Meanwhile, Howard Chaykin Noah Gitlin is reaching some level of success, and there's talk of creating a comics rating system like they have in the movies.
Chaykin quickly moves through various aspects of comic books history with wit and a sharp narrative style. It's clear that he has no love for Eastman and Laird, but there IS a great deal of respect for them and what they'd built. The framing of the Dark Knight/Watchmen era of DC Comics is a fun read from Chaykin's perspective, and it IS interesting seeing him give a serious amount of weight to talks of self-regulation in the era.
It's fascinating to watch Chaykin work in so many familiar styles in the interest of illustrating the history of the industry. There are some very sharp page layouts that hammer home the emotional reality of an era that Chaykin was very much a part of. Reaction in and around the self-regulation matter hits the page in 13 angry panels featuring various figures in the industry being very terse. Most artists would need help nailing the power of that the way Chaykin does. There's an aggressive punchiness to the art that amplifies the drama without making it feel exaggerated. Cleverly nuanced stuff.
As sharp as Chaykin's storytelling is, it's a very quick enjoyment across various elements of this point in comic book history. There isn't a whole lot of insight that's being driven into the narrative. He's just delivering it to the page in a way that seems suitably crazy. Because it was a crazy area. Because there's never been anything other than a crazy era in a very, very strange industry. The business never really made sense. Chaykin knows this, and he's playing with it in a way that makes it feel every bit as insane as it is. Art imitates life imitating art.
