Comics becoming “darker” during the 1980’s, I think had to do a lot with the time period. During the 80’s drugs and violence began to rise tremendously. Cocaine became a popular among celebrities and the wealthy and crack cocaine took over the inner cities making and created drug wars. The drug problem became the Reagan Administration launched the war on drugs in order to put a stop to the up rise of drug use. The comic book creators knew the people reading these comics were using drugs and the dark style of comics appealed to these people. The writers were also using these drugs and put them in a state of mind were dark and violent comics is what they wanted to write. The comic book industry also had a hard time attracting new readers. Most of the readers were older and have read comics since they were a kid. The writers need to make comics that appealed to a more mature audience and would keep their attention. The artwork in the comics also changed, the comics in the 1980’s and a more graphic and terrifying. The 1980’s overall created a new style for comic books.
Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.
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