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- This source lists out what kind of art styles are made in the modern era

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Modern art, painting, sculpture, architecture, and graphic arts characteristic of the 20th and 21st centuries and of the later part of the 19th century. Modern art embraces a wide variety of movements, theories, and attitudes whose modernism resides particularly in a tendency to reject traditional, historical, or academic forms and conventions in an effort to create an art more in keeping with changed social, economic, and intellectual conditions.

The beginnings of modern painting cannot be clearly demarcated, but there is general agreement that it started in 19th-century France. The paintings of Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and the Impressionists represent a deepening rejection of the prevailing academic tradition and a quest for a more naturalistic representation of the visual world. These painters' Post-Impressionist successors can be viewed as more clearly modern in their repudiation of traditional techniques and subject matter and their expression of a more subjective personal vision. From about the 1890s on, a succession of varied movements and styles arose that are the core of modern art and that represent one of the high points of Western visual culture. These modern movements include Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Metaphysical painting, De Stijl, Dada, Surrealism, Social Realism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Op art, Minimalism, and Neo-Expressionism. Despite the enormous variety seen in these movements, most of them are characteristically modern in their investigation of the potentials inherent within the painting medium itself for expressing a spiritual response to the changed conditions of life in the 20th century and beyond. These conditions include accelerated technological change, the expansion of scientific knowledge and understanding, the seeming irrelevance of some traditional sources of value and belief, and an expanding awareness of non-Western cultures.

Juan Gris: The Sunblind Courtesy of the Tate, London, Rights Reserved A.D.A.G.P. Paris, 1972; photograph, G. Roberton/A.C. Cooper Ltd.

An important trend that began in the 20th century was that of abstract, or nonobjective, art-i.e., art in which little or no attempt is made to objectively reproduce or depict the appearances or forms of objects in the realm of nature or the existing physical world. It should also be noted that the development of photography and of allied photomechanical techniques of reproduction has had an obscure but certainly important influence on the development of modern art, because these mechanical techniques freed (or deprived) manually executed drawing and painting of their hitherto crucial role as the only means of accurately depicting the visible world.

Modern architecture arose out of the rejection of revivals, classicism, eclecticism, and indeed all adaptations of past styles to the building types of industrializing late 19th- and 20th-century society. It also arose out of efforts to create architectural forms and styles that would utilize and reflect the newly available building technologies of structural iron and steel, reinforced concrete, and glass. Until the spread of postmodernism, modern architecture also implied the rejection of the applied ornament and decoration characteristic of premodern Western buildings. The thrust of modern architecture has been a rigorous concentration on buildings whose rhythmical arrangement of masses and shapes states a geometric theme in light and shade. This development has been closely tied to the new building types demanded by an industrialized society, such as office buildings housing corporate management or government administration. Among the most important trends and movements of modern architecture are the Chicago School, Functionalism, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, De Stijl, the Bauhaus, the International Style, the New Brutalism, and postmodernism.

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painting, the expression of ideas and emotions, with the creation of certain aesthetic qualities, in a two-dimensional visual language. The elements of this language-its shapes, lines, colours, tones, and textures-are used in various ways to produce sensations of volume, space, movement, and light on a flat surface. These elements are...

Western sculpture, three-dimensional artistic forms produced in what is now Europe and later in non-European areas dominated by European culture (such as North America) from the Metal Ages to the present....

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Modern art, painting, sculpture, architecture, and graphic arts characteristic of the 20th and 21st centuries and of the later part of the 19th century. Modern art embraces a wide variety of movements, theories, and attitudes whose modernism resides particularly in a tendency to reject traditional,

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- Gives 100 titles which have different art styles

- Most of them are from different time periods

- This source shows how certain ages affect the art style of modern comics/tv shows

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I'm not sure how I would briefly describe this book, and that's part of why I love it. A monster destroys ¾ of the moon and says more is coming. But he gives mankind an out: Kill him inside of a year, and he'll leave them alive. Then, and this is where it gets nuts, he takes over as homeroom teacher for a group of misfit teenagers and starts teaching them how to kill him. It's basically Bad News Bears with a little more murder and some great manga art from Matsui.

83. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Robert Hack (Archie Comics)
82. Uber
Kieron Gillen, Canaan White, Digikore Studios (Avatar Press)
81. The Spire
Si Spurrier, Jeff Stokely, Andre May (BOOM! Studios)
80. Aliens: Dead Orbit
James Stokoe (Dark Horse Comics)
James Stokoe could have drawn 100 pages of character models and it would be on this list. He's an incredible artist who draws incredibly detailed everything. Everything! Rubble. Ribcages. Control panels. Inner mandibles. Giving him an Aliens book is the no-brainer of no-brainers - this is what HR Geiger would have drawn if he was raised on anime.

79. Shade the Changing Girl
Cecil Catellucci, Marley Zarcone, Kelly Fitzpatrick (DC Comics)
78. Wuvable Oaf
Ed Luce (Fantagraphics)
I think the best part about Wuvable Oaf, the indie book about black metal San Francisco bears is just how nice it is. It's a really sweet, funny courtship story about an ex-underground wrestler starting a relationship with a small, blood-drenched metal singer. I find myself recommending this book to a surprising amount of people.

77. Upgrade Soul
Ezra Claytan Daniels (Lion Forge Comics)
Ezra Claytan Daniels went for messed up, twisty sci fi right out of the gate, and it was a home run. Upgrade Soul is an ugly body modification story about trying to prolong one's life unnaturally, and what happens if that's not all really well thought out beforehand. It's drawn really well: even now, the scene with the gauze coming off layer by layer, the pacing of it and the skill of setting that sequence up, is amazing.

76. Strong Female Protagonist
Brennan Lee Mulligan, Molly Ostertag
"What if superheroes were real" is usually an exceptionally stupid premise for a comic, but there are plenty of ridiculous components to the superhero conceit that are worth examining. One of them is the value of superheroing - does flying around punching shit really actually fix anything? In Strong Female Protagonist, Alison Green asks that question, decides it doesn't, and quits capes for college and activism in New York. This is a great story well told, but what I enjoy about it now is how New York it feels. It's a really thoughtful take on superheroing, but it's also a really good story that transports you to an age and a place.
read Strong Female Protagonist here
75. Journey Into Mystery
Kieron Gillen, Doug Brathwaite, Ulises Ariola & others (Marvel Comics)
Journey Into Mystery shouldn't have been successful. Loki wasn't quite at the height of his powers yet, and while he was getting there, even now he can't really carry his own book. It was also a legacy numbered relaunch coming out of a big summer crossover event. And yet, Kieron managed to take new kid Loki and use him to tell a story about stories and fate and myth that stands up there with some of the greatest Asgard stories ever told. What he does with the trickster god is actually sad and moving (and also generally hilarious - he writes a really fun Loki). it It's one of my favorite things he's ever written.

74. Kinski
Gabriel Hardman (Monkeybrain Comics)
Sometimes, a comic is just plain good. Sometimes, a comic prominently features the GOODEST BOY on a cover. Sometimes, as is the case with , a comic does both. Hardman is a master of the form, and Kinski is one of his most underrated works. It's the story of a guy bored with his life and trying to save a black lab puppy - not especially complicated or deep, but enough to hook me in, especially with the VERY GOOD BOY on the cover. But his art is magnificent. It's black and white, and Hardman uses just about every inking style and manner to help tell the story. It's virtuoso stuff. I loved it.

73. The Sheriff of Babylon
Tom King, Mitch Gerads (Vertigo Comics)
With a list like this, sometimes it's not the full sweep of a story that gets it on, but the remembered moments. I've seen King and Gerads work together a hundred times since then (or at least it feels like that - time has no meaning anymore). It's all been spectacular, but the scene with Chris and Fatima in the Saddam's old pool sharing a bottle of vodka talking about pointlessness still stands out hard for me. The Sheriff of Babylon has gotten better with age, and it started out really, really good.

72. Genius
Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman, Afua Richardson (Image Comics)
71. Judas
Jeff Loveness, Jakub Rebelka (BOOM! Studios)
70. Midnighter
Steve Orlando, ACO, Hugo Petrus, Romulo Fajardo, Jr & others (DC Comics)
Sometimes I just want to see a man punch his own ears off to stop from hearing a killing word.
read more: The Best Comics of 2015
Orlando and ACO gave us one of my favorite fight comics of all time in Midnighter (and continued in Midnighter and Apollo). It's clever and sexy, and it delights in being a comic the way all the greatest fight comics do. The flow of the fights is spectacular - these are some of the best punching scenes I've ever read. It's basically an ultraviolent, morally indignant James Bond. It's terrific.
read Midnighter on Amazon
69. Black Hammer
Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, Dave Stewart & others (Dark Horse Comics)
68. My Friend Dahmer
Derf Backderf (Abrams Publishing)
I'm not usually one for true crime stories, especially not ones that try and humanize monstrous serial killers, but Backderf's story of his old high school acquaintance, human eater Jeffrey Dahmer, is really good. Backderf's art is very much of the underground comix style, which elevates the story, I think. Dahmer is disturbing and troubling throughout the book, but he's also very much a weird gawky teenager, and in this art style, everyone is. The story humanizes him without excusing him, but I think the real reason it works is because it's tinged with regret on Backderf's part about the ways his relationship with Dahmer could have been different.

67. No Mercy
Alex de Campi, Carla Speed McNeil (Image Comics)
66. Runaways
Rainbow Rowell, Kris Anka, Matthew Wilson & others (Marvel Comics)
Rowell is a revelation as a comic writer. The way she juggles this huge cast is incredibly skillful writing. She's got a good grasp on everyone's voice and knows all the continuity of the old team cold. The book is vastly more enjoyable than the TV series as a teen hero soap opera, and Anka and Wilson make it way cooler to look at, too.

65. Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man
Chip Zdarsky, Adam Kubert, Jordie Bellaire & others (Marvel Comics)
Chip Zdarsky's growth into one of Marvel's most earnest writers was a surprising and outstanding development. I don't think he's done better work on any character than Spider-Man. It makes sense - Peter lends himself to stories that walk a tightrope between funny and tragic, and Chip is able to fine tune his characters and plots to nail both aspects.
read more: The Best Comics of 2016
Zdarsky got to work with some amazing artists on this run: Kubert does some of his best work, and Chris Bachalo should draw all Sandman stories forever and ever. But the real standouts are Peter's dinner with Jonah in #6 (drawn by Michael Walsh), and the last issue of Chip's run (#310). Both of them are really granular Spidey character studies that show why Peter is such a terrific hero, show just how much Zdarsky gets him, and show just how good Chip's writing can be.

64. Ragnarok
Walter Simonson (IDW Publishing)
It's Walt Simonson drawing a Thor comic. He already did the best Thor story of all time. This is more of the same. I don't think I really need to go into greater detail here, right? I will, for the sake of argument: there's a full page splash at the beginning of the first issue that has Thor facing down the Serpent of Midgard and it is gorgeous. You can almost count the scales on the serpent.

63. Mox Nox
Joan Cornella (Fantagraphics)
Cornella's absurdist comic strips still, years later, make me die laughing. Mox Nox is a collection of his work that shows just how many situations you can put his ridiculous, Weeble-looking figures into that will shock you with their gore or make you shout laughing.

62. The Valiant
Matt Kindt, Jeff Lemire, Paolo Rivera, Joe Rivera (Valiant Entertainment)
Valiant has published some consistently excellent comics over the last decade, but they hit a high point with The Valiant, an Avengers-esque team up of all the heroes of the Valiant universe that focused on Bloodshot, the Geomancer and the Eternal Warrior. It worked so well for two reasons: the relationship between Bloodshot and the Geomancer was incredibly well written and heartbreaking in the end, and the art from the Riveras was incredible. Paolo Rivera doesn't draw anywhere near as many comics as I would like (that number is generally "nearly all of the comics"), so when he is on a book, you know you're going to get some beautiful stories.

61. One Punch Man
ONE, Yusuke Murata (Viz Media)
I didn't even realize I needed a fight manga parody in my life, but then One Punch Man rolled through and I love it and want more.
read more: The Best Comics of 2017
Saitama trains himself to become a hero, and gets so powerful he can defeat horrifying giant monsters with one punch. Then he gets super bored because nothing is a challenge, and the rest of the first volume is light mocking of fight comics that I found immensely entertaining and really funny. It's not going to tell us anything about ourselves as a society or have a bigger message than "heh this is pretty silly, isn't it?" But sometimes that's perfect.

60. Darth Vader
Kieron Gillen, Salvador Larocca, Edgar Delgado (Marvel Comics)
The way the Star Wars prequels neutered Darth Vader is a crime against a character. Miraculously, the move to Disney shifted him back from the hurt puppy dog teenager that the prequels turned him into (and the mystical waste of time that the Special Editions and the books made him) and into a merciless badass force of nature. That shift started in earnest in this book - Gillen and Larocca made him mad again, and a pissed off Sith Lord is a force of nature I loved reading about.

59. The Highest House
Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Fabien Alquiler (IDW Publishing)
58. The Nib

Matt Bors & others

"Mister Gotcha" is up there with "This is Fine" as probably my favorite quick comic gags of the decade. Bors is an extremely sharp cartoonist and a gifted satirist, and The Nib is a regular stop in my daily routine.

57. The Wild Storm
Warren Ellis, Jon Davis Hunt, Steve Buccellato (DC Comics)
56. House of X/Powers of X
Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz, RB Silva, Marte Gracia (Marvel Comics)
55. Sex Criminals
Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)
Qualifying a raunchy sex comedy as weirdly sweet almost seems cliche at this point, but Sex Criminals is the rare story that can match graphic depictions of Urban Dictionary sex positions, a story about people who can stop time when they orgasm, and brutally honest depictions of intimate relationships and make it all entirely relatable. It's a wonderful story. But also I'm still mostly here for the comedy - Zdarsky puts so much detail into it that every splash page is like a Where's Waldo of insane sex jokes.

54. The Nameless City
Faith Erin Hicks, Jordie Bellaire (First Second)
The Nameless City feels like if Avatar The Last Airbender was about class and not martial arts and the pressure of leadership. It's one of the few graphic novel series that I remembered to put on a pull list, every volume improving on the last. Hicks' art is gorgeously cartoony, detailed and loose at the same time, and it builds an engrossing world with fascinating characters that tells the story of a city and a people in major transition. It's a series I can't wait to share with family.

53. Exit, Stage Left! The Snagglepuss Chronicles
Mark Russell, Mike Feehan, Paul Mounts (DC Comics)
I've said this a thousand times before, but it's worth repeating: I don't understand how the hell this comic got made, and my gast is further flabbered by the fact that it's amazing. Exit Stage Left recast Snagglepuss as a '50s gothic playwright living in New York City; Huckleberry Hound as his novelist best friend; and Quick Draw McGraw as Huck's down low cop boyfriend, and told a compelling story about fame and society that was equal parts clever, funny, sweet and sad. Brilliant and wry, Mark Russell is one of the best new additions to comics this decade. If you haven't read this book (which doubles as a stealth period piece about the dawn of the gay rights movement in America I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE I'M TYPING THIS), you should go get it right now.

52. These Savage Shores
Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vittorio Astone (Vault Comics)
Ram V, Kumar and Astone do a wonderful job of building a story with a rich world that's unlike most stories I've ever read before, and they do it with incredible skill. The period aspects of the story are lush and gorgeous, but Kumar and Astone's art is magnificent, paced perfectly with a flow of movement that belies a storytelling skill that you don't often find in small press superhero comics. The panel flow is really exceptional, and Astone's colors make this vampire/demon battle sing.

51. The Dark Angel Saga, Uncanny X-Force
Rick Remender, Jerome Opena, Mark Brooks, Esad Ribic, Dean White & others (Marvel Comics)
X-Men comics have picked back up recently, but prior to HoXPoX, their pinnacle for me was the Dark Angel Saga. Specifically, Psylocke and Angel's moment of eternal bliss as their world was destroyed around them. Jerome Opena and Dean White made the visuals so vivid that I could hear the wind roaring around Betsy and Warren, and Remender had done such a good job of building the duo's relationship that I was almost in tears reading it for the first time. The rest of the run is essential reading: it has my favorite non-movie Deadpool and some of the best Apocalypse stuff since the Age of Apocalypse, but that moment is just so amazing.

50. Wytches
Scott Snyder, Jock, Matt Hollingsworth (Image Comics)
49. Fantasy Sports
Sam Bosma (Nobrow Press)
Fantasy Sports isn't complicated. It's about a treasure hunter who has to beat a mummy at basketball to loot a pyramid. See? Super straightforward.
read more: The Best Comics of 2018
Bosma's art is the star here. It's somewhere between sports manga and Adventure Time. It's vibrant and fun, full of great movement in a story that hums along. And it's really accessible - it's shelved closest to the ground in my house, so kids can pull it out and get hooked the same way I did.

48. Sexcastle
Kyle Starks (Image Comics)
47. G.I. Joe: Cobra
Mike Costa, Christos Gage, Antonio Fuso, Lovern Kindzierski (IDW Publishing)
46. Battling Boy
Paul Pope (First Second)
Battling Boy is unlike any other comic I've read in the last decade. I spent a good three hours trying to come up with a clever analogy for this book, like "Witch's Night Out meets Thor in a Flash Gordon strip," but they're all grossly inadequate. Pope is one of the most unique minds working in comics. He puts more character in one grease smear on a face than a lot of creators can fit in long runs. Battling Boy is fine pulpy adventure comics that work for any comic reader.

45. The Omega Men
Tom King, Barnaby Bagenda, Jose Marzan, Jr., Romulo Fajardo (DC Comics)
Omega Men is still, several years on, some heavy, heavy shit. The shock of the twist, hell the shock of the series still makes me smile. That it was a comic book that was advertised with Kyle Rayner seemingly beheaded on camera and beamed around the galaxy was stunning; that the seeming beheading wasn't the most shocking part of the book is amazing. It's a miracle this book happened (literally - it was cancelled and uncancelled midway through), but I'm so glad it did. It was ambitious and smart, and unlike anything we'd seen in comics in years at the time.

44. Lady Killer
Joelle Jones, Jamie S. Rich, Laura Allred (Dark Horse Comics)
Joelle Jones is a superstar now. I'm fairly sure that it started because of this comic, and I'm absolutely certain it's deserved. Lady Killer is the story of a '50s housewife who's an assassin on the side, and it's everything the premise suggests. It's grindhousey and funny and gory, but through it all, Jones' art is amazing and Allred's colors are perfect. It's a lot of fun to read.

43. Infinite Kung Fu
Kagan McLeod (Top Shelf Productions)
Kagan McLeod's story in Infinite Kung Fu is a little bit rote for the genre - it's a kung fu movie put to page, nonsense and all. But my god the art. The pages are practically crackling with life. The big swoopy inks and the way McLeod makes the characters move and the way the fights flow from panel to panel and the scale of some of these fights and it's all just incredible, incredible artwork. Even if the story is a little pedestrian, the art is some of the best I've ever seen.

42. Bandette
Paul Tobin, Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain Comics)
41. Hawkeye
Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth & others (Marvel Comics)
Hawkeye launched David Aja into the stratosphere, and gave Fraction the juice to do whatever he wanted (like, for example, write a sci-fi gender flipped adaptation comic in dactylic hexameter). It radically changed Clint Barton for a decade. And in a lot of ways, its influence still rings out now, because it's just really good.

Aja is a madman. His art flows differently from anyone who came before, but it's been mimicked so many times since, and even when imitators try and fail to live up to his standards, they still usually do something interesting. Fraction succeeded at a time when Marvel was going in a million different directions by pulling the camera way in on the Marvel Universe - focusing on an apartment building, making a street crime book with a regular guy and turning Kate Bishop from a supporting Young Avenger into one of the best characters in the Marvel library.

40. Batman: The Black Mirror, Detective Comics
Scott Snyder, Jock, Francesco Francavilla, David Baron (DC Comics)
Scott Snyder is one of those creators I'll follow just about anywhere, and it all stems from how ridiculously good his Black Mirror story was in Detective Comics. Back when Bruce was still traipsing about the world, turning the International Club of Heroes into Batman, Incorporated, Dick Grayson was back in Gotham being the best Batman and solving this dense, moody, disorienting crime. It was a deep Grayson character study, a deep Gotham character study, and a showcase for the incredible art of Jock and Francavilla.
read more: The Best Comics of 2019
Snyder did some incredible things with Bruce Wayne when he and Greg Capullo got control of the main Batmanbook post-New 52 (especially the last story arc - stunning stuff). But The Black Mirror is even better. Whenever someone asks me for a Batman comic gift recommendation, this is what I tell them to buy.

39. Giant Days
John Allison, Lissa Tremain, Max Sarin, Julia Madrigal, Whitney Cogar (BOOM! Studios)
38. Berlin
Jason Lutes (Drawn & Quarterly)
Lutes has been working on this for 20 years and finished it in 2018, and you can see the unbelievable care and craft in every page. Berlin follows a couple of working class people through the fall of Weimar Germany in the late 20s until the Nazis take over, and even though it's fictional, it's incredibly interesting to see Germany's collapse as it related to regular people, and not as big, momentous historical events. The history comes across as a much more jagged line. Lutes is wonderful at using the pace of layouts to tell the story, and his art is immaculately clean and clear.

37. The Underwater Welder
Jeff Lemire (Vertigo Comics)
When Jeff Lemire draws his own stuff, watch out: you're about to get something profoundly uncomfortable. And The Underwater Welder is precisely that. It's so good at making you feel like something's wrong.
read more: The Best Movies of the Decade
It works because it's never completely honest about what the story is about. Jack is an underwater welder, like his father was, and he's got a wife and a kid on the way. But he becomes obsessed with his father's old watch, and that obsession is a focus for his panic about becoming a father. Lemire's art is all rough-looking freehand and watery inks, perfect for a guy who spends most of his time in a diving suit. The atmosphere of The Underwater Welder is almost asphyxiating. I love it.

36. Ms. Marvel
G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa, Nico Leon, Ian Herring (Marvel Comics)
34. Deathstroke
Christopher Priest, Carlo Pagaluyan, Jason Paz, Jeromy Cox & more (DC Comics)
34. Monstress
Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda (Image Comics)
33. The Vision
Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Michael Walsh, Jordie Bellaire (Marvel Comics)
I'm pretty sure I spent more time shaking my head at the events of The Vision than any other book on this list. What Tom King did to this family is deeply, profoundly messed up. Walta, Walsh, and Bellaire were essential to building the eerie, uncomfortable atmosphere that pervaded this whole story, and the facial expressions especially helped land the twist in the middle, the plot point that shifted the story from "oh no that's super messed up" to "aww that's really sad and also super messed up."
read more: The Best TV Episodes of 2019
What might be the most shocking part about it is how much of this run endured in continuity through the years: Viv Vision is showing up left and right, and Victor Mancha's fate here is a big plot point in Rowell and Anka's wonderful Runaways relaunch.

32. 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank
Matthew Rosenberg, Tyler Boss (Black Mask Studios)
31. Kid Gloves
Lucy Knisley (First Second)
Kid Gloves is amazing for a lot of reasons. It's informative and moving and personal, with a lot of history and politics that I think are really important components to a larger conversation that the book can be part of. Here's the thing about it for me, though: I started reading it at the library. About halfway through, I put it back on the shelf, walked up the street to a book store and bought a copy. I knew from how much I was talking to the book while reading it that it was something I wanted to keep on my shelf and refer back to in the future. And I feel really good about that decision.

30. XKCD
Randall Munroe (Webcomic)
It didn't inspire any stirring condemnations from legendary filmmakers, but I wonder if Randall Munroe's half webcomic/half infographic didn't have the biggest low key impact of any comic in the last decade. I feel like you're vastly more likely to see an XKCD strip on someone's desk, or tacked to the door of an office, or passed around on social media, than you are anything from Marvel or DC that isn't designed to trigger the internet outrage cycle.

This is because Munroe is really good at cartooning. I mean, okay, he's not going to paint you a Rembrandt, but his stick figures have a way of sneaking emotion up on you, through their shoulders and their heads. And he's whip smart, too, but his comics help present his knowledge in an accessible, open way. XKCD has been in every iteration of blog reader I've had since 2010, and I'll be checking in on it until it ends, because it's terrific.

29. Two Brothers
Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon (Dark Horse Comics)
28. Lumberjanes
Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen, Carolyn Nowak, Carey Pietch, Maarta Laiho & more (BOOM! Studios)
Lumberjanes takes a lot of what worked about The Goonies and makes it smarter in a different way to give us one of the most fun and purest adventure comics in recent memory. It's no surprise that Stevenson is kicking so much ass on She-Ra.

The book has been going for some time now, so the creative teams have shifted, but the art is remarkably consistent through the volumes, and it's clear, sharp cartooning that's exaggerated in all the right ways for a woodsy, camping adventure tale like this. Lumberjanes is another book with a huge cast that's well managed, and it's a lot of fun to read through.

27. Showa: A History of Japan
Shigeru Mizuki (Drawn & Quarterly)
Technically, Showa is like, 30 years old. But it took 25 of those years for it to be released in the States, and there are no rules to this list, so I'm counting it.

26. Copra
Michel Fiffe (Bergen Street Comics/Image Comics)
It's still amazing to me that Copra can even get made. It started out as a...spiritual sequel to Ostrander/Yale/McDonnell Suicide Squad in that it was almost an actual direct lift of Ostrander/Yale/McDonnell Suicide Squad only with Doctor Strange and Clea added in. But it was done with weird indie linework and colored pencil coloring, with a big zine aesthetic that made it immediately compelling. And once I got into it, I realized that Fiffe had captured everything great about that Suicide Squad run but turned it into something dstinctly his own, and I've loved it ever since.

25. Afterlife with Archie
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla (Archie Comics)
This comic should not exist. It should not be good. It certainly shouldn't be one of the best comics I've read in the last decade. And yet, Afterlife with Archie remains incredible. In fact, it might be the purest, finest zombie story I've experienced in a while. The slowly building tension is a masterclass in mood. Aguirre-Sacasa does a great job of taking Riverdale's existing dynamic and plopping it into a zombie horror story so you get something that is recognizably both things at the same time. Francavilla's art is probably the least surprising part of the equation, in that it is incredible. And the fact that you can probably draw a straight line between some of the themes here and what ended up on your screens in Riverdale is...pretty insane. And amazing.

24. Scalped
Jason Aaron, R.M. Guera (Vertigo)
The best thing about Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera's Scalped is the cast. It's a HUGE book, about an FBI investigation into corruption on a reservation that sends Dash Bad Horse back home undercover to investigate. Everyone Dash encounters, and everyone who's conspiring to make life in Pairie Rose garbage, is a full character within two sentences. They all sound different, move different, look different. They carry the weight of a rough life in their posture and their cadence.

Superhero comics developed the distinctive costumes so artists could distinguish between characters easily. It's hard to draw distinctive, consistent, recognizable people in street clothes, but Guera is amazing at it, and Aaron puts so much care and character into everyone who sets foot on the page that Scalped is impossible to put down.

23. Nancy
Olivia Jaimes (GoComics)
"Sluggo is lit" isn't quite the cultural phenomenon it was when Olivia Jaimes, the pseudonymous cartoonist, first introduced it to the strip she took over in 2018. But it's still damn funny. I'll admit, I completely blew it on Nancy in 2018 - it hadn't registered with me because I don't get print newspapers and only have a passing knowledge of their comic strips anymore. But when I first saw it, I died laughing.

And then I took a closer look at some of the comics - the one where Nancy steals the cookies from the top of the fridge by tossing them between panels to herself, or the joke about filler where the last panel is mostly an empty word balloon - and I realized that Jaimes, in addition to being funny as hell, really gets how to screw with the flow of information from comic to reader. She's exceptionally talented, and Nancy is amazing work.

22. The Hard Tomorrow
Eleanor Davis (Drawn & Quarterly)
The Hard Tomorrow stressed me out, and then lifted me up at the end. It's very much a comic about our current moment (and by "current moment," I mean the singularity that the last four years have compressed into). It doesn't capture the terror that some groups might feel, but it does a great job of conveying that background hum, like a cultural migrane, that makes everything more difficult in the world. And then, intentionally or not, it swings the story back around and pumps you full of hope and meaning with the last ten pages. It's incredible comics work from Eleanor Davis, an amazing talent.

21. My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies
Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Jake Phillips (Image Comics)
You can read any Criminal comic and come away happy. Okay, maybe not "happy" per se - My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies is an extremely unhappy comic, about a girl who meets a boy in rehab, gets him back on drugs with her and then goes on a trip with him, framed around her pretentious love of drug addicted musicians. It would be obnoxious if it wasn't so incredibly well done and packed in with a twist at the end that makes it go from messed up to REALLY messed up. Everything Brubaker and Phillips have done together, back to Sleeper, has been superlative, but from the last ten years, I really feel like this is their best work.

20. Through the Woods
Emily Carroll (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
19. The Flintstones
Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, Chris Chuckry (DC Comics)
Anytime a comic can get a physical reaction out of me, it's usually a sign that it's a very successful storytelling endeavor. I think The Flinstones' hold music on the suicide hotline joke is the loudest I've shouted "holy shit" at a comic in a decade. Mark Russell is the best satirist working in comics right now, and certainly in the past decade. Steve Pugh was equal to the task of packing every joke and sly look and absurdity implied by the dialogue. The Flintstones is one of the funniest books you'll ever read.

18. Atomic Robo & Other Strangeness
Brian Clevenger, Scott Wegener, Ronda Pattison (Webcomic)
I love Dr. Dinosaur. I will buy anything Dr. Dinosaur is in, contribute to any crowdfunding campaign that gets me Dr. Dinosaur goods, and I will take every opportunity I can to share that " the light is for ambiance " page.

17. The Private Eye
Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, Muntsa Vincente (Panel Syndicate)
Vaughan, Martin, and Vincente made a beautiful, compelling comic book that was uncomfortably prescient.

Sixty years from now, the cloud bursts - all of the private data stored on the cloud gets released to the public. It destroys lives and relationships, and triggers an anti-internet backlash. And an anti-journalist one. It then follows an unlicensed journalist as he travels around solving a mystery in a world where everyone wears masks to throw off facial recognition tech.

The Private Eye was cyberpunk that inverted some cyberpunk formulae - it was bright and warm and shiny, distrustful of tech and very human, but it was still a grimy near-future full of people navigating a world that sucked. It was an incredible read and one of the comics I think about most, even five years down the road.

16. Secret Wars
Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic, Ive Svorcina (Marvel Comics)
I'm using Secret Wars as a stand in here for all of Hickman's prior Marvel work from the decade, and really the entire story that started in Fantastic Four and paid off with the final Doom/Reed battle at the end of this story. "Epic" doesn't even begin to describe a story that starts with the council of Reeds, breaks the Avengers, destroys the multiverse, then reforms it again out of a love of adventure. I reread these comics more than any in my collection because they're beautiful and immersive and impossibly grand.

15. Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye
James Roberts, Alex Milne, Josh Burcham (IDW Publishing)
Every word of that paragraph still makes no sense to me. I am continually delighted by this fact.

More Than Meets the Eye follows Rodimus and a group of breakaway Transformers as they search the universe for the lost Knights of Cybertron. It features a fascinating and touching relationship between Rewind and Chromedome (with Cyclonus as a third-wheel/homewrecker WHAT IS HAPPENING), and it has a deep dive into Ultra Magnus's history as Cybertron's premiere stick in the mud. Honestly, just take my word for it: this comic was incredible.

14. The Multiversity
Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Nathan Fairbairn & Others (DC Comics)
13. My Favorite Thing is Monsters
Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)
Everything about Emil Ferris' debut work is absurd. The production value of the book is stellar. Her deft storytelling made me feel literally dropped into the comic several times, overwhelming me by the world she brought me into. And that this was her first published work is still, what feels like an eon later, ridiculous to me. My Favorite Thing is Monsters will make you feel like a ten year old girl, whether you've ever been one before or not, and that is some magical work.

12. Here
Richard McGuire (Pantheon Books)
Here started out as a comic strip in 1989, and got blown out into a full graphic novel in 2014, and both are incredibly interesting experiments with the form of comics storytelling. It sets the "camera" pointed at the corner of a room, and then spins time out in both directions, showing us what that corner looked like 2000 years in the past, hundreds of years in the future, in the 1950s, today, and a bunch of other times. And the way that McGuire manages to tell a coherent story under those restrictions is masterful work.

11. Hellboy in Hell
Mike Mignola, Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Comics)
10. Thor: God of Thunder
Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic, Dean White & others (Marvel Comics)
There is actually some debate in my mind as to whether or not Jason Aaron's Thor run, stretching from the stunning God of Thunder through The Mighty Thor and War of the Realms and into King Thor, is better than Walt Simonson's Thor. It's probably still Simonson's run, but the fact that there's an open question should tell you how good Aaron's story has been. The best Thor stories have a bigger point than "Can Thor beat up the Hulk?" Aaron's has been "What responsibilities does being a god bring with it; how do they carry them out; and how does that impact us?" It's masterful work drawn by a collection of incredible artists.

9. Saga
Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
The best thing about Saga to me is that the characters have grown with me. That's not necessarily why it's one of the ten best comics of the decade - Fiona Staples is an utterly incredible artist who without fail puts something singularly amazing into each issue - but it's why I care about it so much. Hazel, Marko and Alana have all grown beautifully as characters since issue 1, and the world is so inventive and different from what you always get in science fiction that it's a joy to read every time a new issue drops.

8. Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit
Donald Westlake, Darwyn Cooke (IDW Publishing)
7. Prince of Cats
Ron Wimberly (Image Comics)
Wimberly's Prince of Cats is pretty close to a perfect comic. Repurposing and adapting Shakespearean dialogue and patter to a hip hop aesthetic is, strangely, exactly what I want out of a story. Wimberly's art is stylish as hell, with fantastic layouts and odd angles, and it is colored beautifully. It's the story of Tybalt from Romeo and Juliet, but set in a city that's a mishmosh of all five boroughs, in a time that's anywhere from the mid '80s to present day. It's a little bit Shakespearean tragedy, a little bit samurai anime, a little bit Planet Rock, and ultimately an amazing piece of comic book art.

6. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl
Ryan North, Erica Henderson, Derek Charm, Rico Renzi & others (Marvel Comics)
5. Hark! A Vagrant
Kate Beaton (Webcomic/Drawn & Quarterly)
Beaton is one of the smartest, funniest cartoonists out there. Hark! A Vagrant catches the best of the early decade webcomic ethos - it's loose and fast, about anything and everything and just funny as hell. She's got bits about Tesla, a ton of jokes about Austen and classic literature, idiot Victorian chimney sweeps. All of it lands because Beaton's got a sharp eye and a strong voice for absurdity. I think my personal favorite remains Straw Feminists.

4. Hip Hop Family Tree
Ed Piskor (Fantagraphics)
3. Mister Miracle
Tom King, Mitch Gerads (DC Comics)
2. Smile
Raina Telgemeier (Graphix)
I came to Raina's world late. I have a niece who's brilliant, and I was looking for a way to get her into comics so I'd have someone at family gatherings to talk to about this stuff. I knew that these books were popular, so I grabbed one at a bookstore and started on it. Twenty minutes later, I was walking out of the store with Smile and Sisters, and my niece finished both of them in about six hours and started asking for more. Raina tells a hell of a story, and Smile deserves to be on this list just based on craft, but it's this high because she's single-handedly hooking a new generation into our favorite medium. I will always appreciate that.

1. March
Rep. John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions)
I don't think I could have landed on a different comic here if I tried. March is a unique combination of craft, relevance, and timelessness. Powell's art is staggeringly good, full of gorgeous storytelling. And when I think about moments from comics that have stuck with me the most, I keep coming back to the bombing of the Freedom Riders' bus at the end of volume 1. I knew it was historical and that still scared the hell out of me. Kudos and thanks to Rep. Lewis, Aydin and Powell for making an incredible book.
Read and download the Den of Geek Lost in Space Special Edition Magazine right here!

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I'm not sure how I would briefly describe this book, and that's part of why I love it. A monster destroys ¾ of the moon and says more is coming. But he gives mankind an out: Kill him inside of a year, and he'll leave them alive.

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In this book, every chapter is drawn in a different art style but it still allows the author to tell the story in a smooth order.

Chorus 1 (Chapter 1) - The artist uses squares to spell out the whole title of the chapter. This theme of a square binds the pages within that chapter. We can also see how the squares come out of the intrument. Each instrument has different colored cubes. One is pink/one is red.

Chorus 2 (Chapter 2) - The artist uses more realism when the people or objects are close. On the first page where the chapter is introduced, we can see the lined hairs and the different lines under his chin to show depth. On the next page, the ping pong paddles are very detailed as well as the ping pong ball. A few pages later you can also see that when Bird was asked to play, his eyes got bigger and so did the facial changes change. Later in the chapter it becomes a abstract blend of colors showing how free everyone is while Bird is playing music.

In the Outro - The artist uses a dark theme to start the chapter then contrasts it with neon birds and shapes. This shows how he is finally happy with his music.

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- Explains how important illustrarions are and why they are someones better than movie scenes

- Illustrations can show scene changes as describing it would be difficult sometimes

- Pictures can show a lot more than words

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Frank Quietly: Three Things That Can Only be Done in Comic Strip Form

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In this talk, Frank explains the unique communicative power of comics, guiding us through graphical compositions and constructions that harness the full potential of comics as a medium.

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- Defines why each age has its own unique mark from history

- Marvel and DC's comic dominate the market right now but this branches out to more artists to make their own diverse art style

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The most important comic book ages include golden, silver, bronze and modern age of comics.

Did you know that the very first comic book was created in 1837? It is called The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, and its creator is Rodolphe Töpffer - the first comic book artist in history.

The production of comic books took off from the early 20th century, and the popularity of the beloved medium isn't showing signs of slowing down. In fact, comic book sales in the U.S. hit an all-time high in 2020, reaching $ 1.28 billion.

In this post, we will introduce you to the four major comic book ages - golden, silver, bronze and the modern eras of comics.

By learning more about the defining periods from the history of comics, you'll gain a better understanding of some of your favorite superheroes and comic book stories!
Read the Biowars comic book!
Golden Age Of Comics

In 1938, National Publications released the first issue of the Action Comics series, marking the start of the Golden Age of Comics. This comic book introduced readers to Superman - one of the first major superheroes!

Superman appeared in the years when the whole world was facing a threat from Hitler's antisemitic Nazi Germany. The Great Depression was also in full swing. The stories about Superman reflected the fears of everyday people, and he was portrayed as the superhero everyone needed - he protected the innocent, weak and oppressed.

During the Golden Age of Comic Books, some of the most iconic superheroes were created, including Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, The Flash, The Green Lantern, Aquaman, The Human Torch and Captain America.

The cover for the first Captain America comic book defined the Golden Era of comics. It depicts the new brave superhero punching Hitler:

The Golden Age of Comics lasted from 1938 until 1956. During this time, comic books became increasingly popular among American youth, and that remains true to this day. After all, comic books, alongside jazz music, are one of the rare original products of the American culture.

As superhero comics became increasingly popular during the Golden Era, some psychiatrists, such as Dr. Fredric Wertham, warned parents of the dangers of violence and sexuality depicted on the pages. The attempts to censor comics, however, remained fruitless.

In the end, it wasn't the warnings of Dr. Fredric Wertham that steered children away from reading comic books. The end of the war and the loss of the modern world's greatest real-life villain made kids lose interest in superheroes. Who were superheroes supposed to fight against when Hitler was out of the picture?
Meet the Bioverse characters!
Silver Age Of Comics

In the 1950s, the world was recovering from the consequences of WW II. At the same time, it was facing the hardships caused by the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Many people in the U.S. believed comics were a bad influence on youth. Because of the pressure from the public, a regulatory body called the Comics Code Authority was founded in 1954. Its goal was to prevent publishers from releasing comics that include explicit content.

CCA wasn't mandatory, but still, many publishers followed its regulations. That's why many comics from the Silver Age Era don't include scary or violent plots. Instead, they often focus on diversity and defying stereotypes.

To mark the beginning of the Silver Age, the Showcase #4 comic book was released in 1956. The star of this comic book was the ultra-fast Flash - the new face in the superhero sky!

During the Silver Comic Book Age, which lasted until the early 1970s, some of the most famous comic book artists and writers appeared on the scene, including Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. This legendary duo is best known for creating arguably the most popular superhero of all times - Spider-Man. Spidey's character debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15, in August of 1962.

Many comic book historians consider the Silver Age of Comic Books the most important of them all. During this era, superheroes were mainly portrayed as emotional, with flaws like any other human being. This helped make them more relatable and popular among readers.

This change in the depiction of superheroes marked the end of the Silver Age era.
Learn how to draw your own comic book character in 6 steps!
Bronze Age Of Comics

The Bronze Age of Comic Books began in 1973 with the release of The Amazing Spider-Man #122. In this comic book, writer Gerry Conway and artist Gil Kane depict the deaths of Spider-Man's great love, Gwen Stacy, and his archnemesis - The Green Goblin.

Before Spiderman #122 was released, characters' deaths weren't often featured in comics. But from that moment on, darker storylines became more common. Writers went back to creating stories about scary, real-life problems, the way they did before the launch of the CCA.

Death, alcoholism, drug use, and environmental pollution became hot topics in the Bronze Comic Book Age. Comic book creators explored the failings of humankind more than ever before.

For example, in the Demon In A Bottle series, they described Iron Man's, i.e. Tony Stark's, battle with alcoholism and the way he confronted his "demon."

Artists and writers were inspired by pulp fiction, Westerns and horror stories, which translated into their work. Characters such as Conan the Barbarian, Warlord, Beowulf, John Carter, and Swamp-Thing all debuted during the Bronze Age. These heroes became staples not only of the comic book culture but also of the 1970s and early 1980s pop culture.

Contemporary social issues were described in many comics created during this comic book age. The most notable title is possibly the story called I Am Curious: Black, which describes how Lois Lane, Superman's girlfriend, becomes a black woman for a day.

While many historians argue that the Bronze Age of Comics never really ended, most cite 1986-87 as the final stages of the era. This timeline synchs up with the release of what most critics agree is the greatest graphic novel ever written and the exemplar of the Modern Age of Comic Books - Alan Moore's Watchmen.
Find out how to publish your own comic book!
Modern Age Of Comics

The Modern Age of Comic Books is by far the most diverse and popular era in comic book history. It started around 1987, and it's still going strong.

Today, comic book characters seem to be more popular than ever before. This is largely due to hugely successful movies and TV shows based on comic books, such as Spider-Man: No Way Home, Avengers: Endgame, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, and many others.

The Modern Age Of Comics is often called the Dark Age Of Comics because of its emphasis on gritty and realistic storylines, as seen in The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Civil War, and The Infinity Gauntlet.
The early years of the Modern Age also brought significant changes to some long-standing comic franchises.
For instance, the Infinity Gauntlet comic book series went through some major changes - the reboot version introduced readers to new character storylines. Most protagonists also had new personalities and looks, and authors killed off several high-profile characters such as Supergirl and The Flash.

Comic book publishers release reboots of some of their most popular stories every few years, leading to huge sale spikes among new audiences.

The Modern Age also changed the way comics were distributed. Digital comic books, such as BIOWARS, became a huge hit. Graphic novels also gained popularity, including the contemporary staples Blankets and Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth.

The most important change that's happened during the Modern Comic Book Age is the success of independent comic book publishers, like Image. They've found mainstream success with The Walking Dead, Invincible, and Manifest Destiny, which are viewed as contemporary classics.

Even though Marvel and DC Comics continue to dominate the market, readers can now benefit from a more diverse comic publishing landscape and explore the creative works of other publishers.
Learn how to write a comic book storyline!
Takeaways On Comic Book Ages - What Does The Future Hold For Comics?

From Golden and Silver to Bronze and Modern Ages, comic books have always reflected the state of our society and culture. They also represent means of escapism for many and a safe space where readers can "hide" when the real world becomes too much.

But what does the future hold for the world of comics?

In terms of format and content, graphic novels are already all the rage, as are children's comics, which have surpassed superhero comics as the most popular genre.

As for comic book themes, the Covid-19 pandemic will likely be explored in some future storylines. But as always, readers will continue to turn to comics for solace and consolation. Comic books and graphic novels will surely provide a light at the end of a very bleak tunnel.

It is also safe to assume that digital comics will reign over print in the years to come, because they are more accessible and sustainable.

What is your favorite comic book age? What changes will the end of the Modern Age of comics bring? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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Comic Book Ages - The 4 Defining Eras In Comic Book History

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The most important comic book ages include golden, silver, bronze and modern age of comics. Did you know that the very first comic book was created in 1837? It is called The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, and its creator is Rodolphe Töpffer - the first comic book artist in history.

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- Describes the different sound effects in comics

- Different sound effects could make different sounds in people heads

- Different sound effects for certian characters (certian characters have a signature sound effect) ex. Jokers laugh

- Different objects/items have their own sound

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One of comic books' unique features is the humble sound effect. Films and TV shows are filled with sound effects and novels have described sounds for centuries, but comic books write out their sound effects, making them a distinct aspect of their stories. However, comic book sounds aren't merely described, they're very much experienced.

RELATED: 10 Instantly Recognizable Symbols In Marvel Comics

There are many sound effects Marvel and DC frequently use in their comic books. Among them, the most iconic sound effects have become famous for their connection to certain characters or certain moments in comic book history. As a result, every comic book fan knows these sound effects by heart.
Updated April 3rd, 2023 by David Harth: Comic book sound effects aren't always noticed by readers. They're often little more than set dressing, but they play a very important role in the medium's history. Some of them are known to every reader. Others slip under the radar, but readers would definitely know if they weren't there.
One of the most famous words in all comics is "Shazam," the magic word used by Billy Batson to transform into the World's Mightiest Mortal, Captain Marvel. Shazam, however, isn't a sound effect. The importance of Batson's transformation into Captain Marvel being accompanied by a signature sound wasn't lost on Roy Thomas when it came time for him to revamp Marvel's own Captain Marvel, in 1969.

After a few lackluster years of Captain Marvel fighting the good fight on Earth as an exiled Kree military officer, Thomas and artist Gil Kane revamped Captain Marvel by giving him a stunning new costume. They also paired him with Rick Jones by doing a variation on Billy Batson transforming into Captain Marvel. This time, it was through special nega-bands that Rick would clang together to trigger a switch with Captain Marvel. The sound effect, "Ktang!" was their equivalent to "Shazam!"

Mark Gruenwald was an expert in Marvel Comics continuity. He was the leading force behind the creation of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. While working on the handbook, though, Gruenwald felt he was coming across way too many minor and/or pointless supervillains that no one was doing anything with.

Mark Gruenwald's solution was to create the Scourge of the Underworld, a mysterious master of disguise. This new villain went around the Marvel Universe, killing off the lesser-known supervillains in the pages of Marvel's comic books during 1985 and 1986. Whenever the Scourge killed someone, his special gun would give off the sound "Pum" when it fired and then the sound of the bullet made a "Spak" noise.

When Grant Morrison took over , they soon gained a bit of a reputation when it came to Batman. Morrison's take on Batman has often been referred to as "Bat-God," as Batman acquits himself very well in Morrison's JLA issues. The key turning point in the first arc was that Batman figured out the weakness of the villainous Hyperclan.

RELATED: 10 Funny DC Heroes Who Deserve Their Own Films

During the epic "Rock of Ages" storyline, Darkseid had conquered Earth, and Desaad had been torturing Batman for years. As it turned out, though, Batman eventually won out in their game of torture and took Desaad's place until he could make a move against Darkseid. This was accompanied by Batman's verbal tic, "Hh," which symbolized the almost nonchalant attitude that Morrison's Batman had to the wild feats he routinely pulled off.

Morrison was likely inspired in their choice of verbal tic for Batman by a similar verbal tic that Alan Moore used for Rorschach in his classic comic book series, with artist Dave Gibbons. Readers first meet Rorschach in the 1960s, when he was part of a new generation of superheroes.

In the present days, the verbal tics are key in depicting how Rorschach has devolved from his earlier years, when he spoke normally. By the time he investigates the murder of his former superhero colleague, the Comedian, he barely communicates with people, and his verbal tics, like "Hurm," are pronounced.

When Walter Simonson took over writing and drawing duties on Thor, he made sure to make his first issue The Mighty Thor #337 (by Walter Simonson, George Roussos, and John Workman), very memorable. Not only was the cover featuring Beta Ray Bill instantly a classic, but the comic opened up with a mysterious creature pounding on a sword and every pound made the sound "Doom."

This kept up for several issues until it was finally revealed to be the first beast known as Surtur, and that he was on his way to wreak havoc on Asgard. Years later, when Simonson's wife, Louise, was one of the writers of the "Superman" titles, those books borrowed the "Doom" for DC's newest fearsome monster breaking out of his cell: Doomsday.

When Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics for DC Comics in 1970, he debuted a brand-new line of interconnected comics called "The Fourth World," telling the seemingly eternal battle between the New Gods of New Genesis versus the evil beings of Apokolips, led by the evil Darkseid. Kirby worked his magic on the series, telling titanic tales alive with mythological pomp and circumstances.

RELATED: 10 Most Powerful DC Immortals, Ranked

The "Fourth World" titles introduced several fascinating ideas, including the Mother Box, the sort of super-computer that was paired with all the beings of New Genesis. It was essentially a living being who performed all kinds of functions for its owners, including repairing injuries. When it went into action, it had a familiar "Ping Ping Ping" noise to it.

One of the most successful artists in pop art was Roy Lichtenstein, who became a millionaire with his popular and critically acclaimed pieces of art based on the worlds of comic books and popular advertising. The concept behind Lichtenstein's work is that he would take so-called "low art," like comic book art, and then replicate a panel from an actual comic book into a large painting.

In doing so, Roy Lichtenstein would parody the whole idea of "low" and "high" art. Naturally, the anonymous comic book artists whose work Roy used resented the high level of fame and fortune that Lichtenstein achieved based on their work. Likely Roy's most famous work is "Whaam," a gigantic diptych based on an Irv Novick panel from "All-American Men of War."

Right from the start, Batman's arch-rival, the Joker, was laughing his way through a series of murders. As the character progressed from serial killer to general crook, the laughter remained a significant part of his characterization. This continued even as the Joker returned to his earlier murderous ways in the 1970s.

In the classic graphic novel, "The Killing Joke," by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, readers see a possible origin for the Joker, which was based on the notion that a particularly bad day could break anyone. The Bolland depiction of the Joker emerging from the chemical process for the first time and busting into laughter is one of the most famous moments in DC Comics history.

Spider-Man is no stranger to sadness, something proven in Amazing Spider-Man #121, by writer Gerry Conway, artist Gil Kane, inker John Romita and letterer Tony Mortellaro. Norman Osborn, who had recently regained his memories of being the Green Goblin, kidnapped Spider-Man's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, and then threw her off a bridge. Spider-Man jumped to her rescue.

In the infamous panel, is a little tiny sound effect that says "snap." That certainly seems to suggest that when Spider-Man tried to save Gwen with his webbing, he accidentally broke her neck while she was falling. Thus, while Osborn was ultimately responsible for her death by the whole "throwing her off of a bridge" deal, Spider-Man might have literally caused her death with his webs.

When Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis re-launched Justice League following the crossover "Legends", their initial idea for the team was to do something similar to what Grant Morrison later did with JLA. They wanted to have a big guns League to follow up the so-called Justice League Detroit era. However, one by one, they were turned down when it came to using most of the more famous superheroes.

RELATED: The 10 Strongest Justice League Rosters, Ranked

Giffen and DeMatteis pivoted and turned Justice League International into more of a sitcom about a superhero team. Thus, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold became comic relief. In Justice League International#8 (by Giffen, DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, Al Gordon, Gene D'Angelo, and Bob Lappan), the League traveled the world setting up new embassies after cutting a deal with the United Nations. During this issue, readers heard the first laugh that would define this era of the League, "Bwah Ha Ha Ha."

When Jack Kirby debuted the "Fourth World," he introduced many new ideas. One of them was the Mother Box, but perhaps his best known new invention was the teleportation device used by the New Gods called the "Boom Tube." The Boom Tube was aptly titled, as every time the teleportation tunnel was activated, it came along with an ear-shattering "boom!"

The Fourth World was home to one more pact, one between Darkseid and the brilliant New God known as Metron. Darkseid would supply Metron with the materials needed to make his special Mobius Chair in exchange for giving Darkseid the Boom Tube technology. Years later, Walter Simonson would also use several "boom" sound effects during his run on Thor.

When Nightcrawler was introduced in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (by Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Peter Iro, Glynis Wein, and John Costanza), everything about him screamed demon except, of course, for the man himself. Nightcrawler was a sweet, sensitive, and fun-loving guy, who was also a man of great faith. He just happened to look just like a demon, complete with blue skin, fangs, and a tail with a sharpened point at the end.

When Nightcrawler teleported, he would make a "bamf" noise, and the teleportation would be accompanied by the smell of sulfur. Basically, everything outside of Nightcrawler's personality was highly unpleasant. Over the years, "Bamf" also became the name of adorable little creatures that looked like Nightcrawler and would often follow him around.

Unlike other famous sound effects, Spider-Man's webs didn't always give off a "thwip" sound. In fact, before Steve Ditko left Amazing Spider-Man, the webs really didn't have a consistent sound at all. In Spider-Man's earliest days of Spider-Man, his webshooters didn't make noise at all.

RELATED: 10 Iconic Marvel Characters Who Debuted In Comic Events

However, in the months leading up to his departure, Steve Ditko used some new sound effects and one of them was "twhip" for Spider-Man's webshooters. After Ditko left, "thwip" became the official sound of Spidey's webshooters. When the Spider-Man movies came out, they did their best to replicate the sound.

Superheroes had been accompanied by sound effects for decades before Batman got his own TV series in 1966. However, it is interesting to note that punching sound effects really weren't used in thecomics from the mid-1960s. However, that didn't deter the producers from adopting the practice of accompanying a punch with a cut to a giant "Biff," "Bam," or "Pow" drawn sound effect.

The result was very humorous, and for years, comic books became derisively associated with sound effects like "Biff! Bam! Pow!". It doesn't matter how much the medium matures, or how popular superheroes become, these sound effects are almost an albatross around comic books' necks.

From the beginning, Wolverine was using "Snikt". The sound his claws make when they come out of his body was around almost as soon as Wolverine debuted, with the sound effect showing up in his second full appearance, Giant-Size X-Men #1. Since then, it's been an iconic feature of Wolverine coolest ability - his claws.

Interestingly, "Snikt" isn't the only comic book sound effect to be trademarked by a comic book company. "Thwip" is, as well. However, "Snikt" has the distinct privilege of having a comic book named after it, as "Wolverine: Snikt" was a miniseries released by Marvel in 2003.

NEXT: 10 Best Marvel Event Finales, Ranked

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The 15 Most Iconic Comic Book Sound Effects

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One of comic books' unique features is the humble sound effect. Films and TV shows are filled with sound effects and novels have described sounds for centuries, but comic books write out their sound effects, making them a distinct aspect of their stories. However, comic book sounds aren't merely described, they're very much experienced.

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Different Ages of Comic Books / Different Titles For Each Style

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Golden Age - Booklet form, basic sequestial images, basic squares, more dialoge than imagery

Silver Age - Uses more realism, artwork became less focused on attantion grabbing and more focused on  artistic expression

Bronze Age - Drawn to blend with a urban backround, the superhero's "human side" is shown more

Dark Age - Most of the comic settings were in a dark backround, gives an uneaseing feeling, more "horror" type of comics

Ageless Age - Digital Painting/3D Modeling, line inbetween panels so you can see the comics motion/order.

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In a time when audiences were racing in droves to catch the latest talkie and hand-drawn animation was just finding its legs, a new medium brought kids (and adults, let's be honest) back to reading. Comic books began as a dime-store novelty, and since then, they have gone through countless transformations, artistic explorations, public excises, declines and revivals.

The history of comic book styles is one as dynamic as the stories they contain, shaped not only by the hands of countless writers and artists but by millions of readers across nearly a century. While there might not be any mutants or doomsday weapons in the actual history of comics, its panels are every bit as unpredictable.

The Golden Age (1938-1950)
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The Golden Age was truly an idyllic time. There was a clear stylistic distinction between good and evil, and superheroes were nothing more than happy-go-lucky do-gooders that battled and always defeated villains motivated by money or world domination. And that's exactly why the comics of this age caught like wildfire. They fulfilled every kid's dream of gaining larger-than-life powers, effortlessly overcoming their bullies and leaping out of their colorless neighborhoods into adventure.

Dropping literally out of the sky to kick off the Golden Age, Superman represents the comic book origin story. Newspaper comic strips (where the term 'comic' book comes from, incidentally) already existed along with radio shows featuring masked vigilantes like the Shadow. But Superman was the first super-powered musclehead to don a cape and skin-tight spandex to fight crime. Readers couldn't take their eyes off of him. Superman set the tone for every superhero to come after, even becoming the first to earn his own exclusive comic book dedicated to his adventures in a time when characters were typically restricted to one-shot stories in variety publications.

Art styles of the Golden Age of comics

Though printed in booklet form, comics did not deviate far from their newspaper ancestors, telling a straightforward story through basic sequential images.

Cartooning was simple as publishers were not yet at the level of investing in or attracting serious artists.

Panels were laid out in basic square grids, often full of more dialogue than imagery.

The Silver Age (1950-1971)
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Not unlike the youth of its readers, the Golden Age was a time of whimsy and innocence that couldn't last forever. Fans were growing up-some of them returning home from a horrific World War-and the idea of an invincible, caped avenger casually overcoming the world's great evils became less and less convincing. These factors led to a decline in superhero stories and a rise in comic titles that would appeal to more adult sensibilities-the Silver Age of Comic Books.

Publishers explored racier genres, and by far the most successful was horror. These gruesome tales single-handedly rescued the industry from its fate as a half-remembered fad, and their influence stretched beyond comics to likes of acclaimed film director John Carpenter. The visual styles mimed these darker themes, mixing in surrealistic and sometimes disturbing imagery.

These comic books were so effectively grisly that morality groups-already raging against comics as "junk food for the young mind"-now regarded them as the indisputable tools of the devil, despite the fact that majority of its readership was adults.

After a number Senate hearings, publishers created the Comics Code Authority (CCA), whose strict censorship forbade even the words "horror," "terror" or "crime" in any titles. The result was a growing pains era of artistic experimentation, fast and loose writing and political suppression all rolled into one.

Art styles of the Silver Age of comics

Comics took their inspiration from art movements of the past, most notably surrealism, to illustrate the strange worlds in which their heroes lived.

With comics now established as a lucrative medium, cover images relied less on cheap, attention-grabbing tactics and instead became an artistic representation of the issue's themes or a protagonist's state of mind.

Comic books found true artistic expression for the first time in the Pop Art movement, which appropriated commercial objects such as product labels, magazine ads and comics for the purpose of fine art.

The Bronze Age (1971-1980)
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As suggested by its name, the Bronze Age wasn't as lustrous as the carefree Golden Age or the experimental Silver Age. Having exhausted just about every dastardly scheme a supervillain could hatch, comics gave its heroes even tougher enemies to confront.

It all began with a story in Spider-man in which the hero's best friend suffers a drug overdose. Spider-man is helpless, and his alter ego, Peter Parker, has no choice but to take the stage, relying solely on his gifts of persuasion and empathy to save the day. The CCA opposed the inclusion of drug topics, whatever the message, but Marvel published the issue anyway with reader support. This caused the public to lose respect for the CCA and led to the end of censorship, paving the way for darker stories (more on that later).

Around this time, writer Chris Claremont revived a cancelled Silver Age series about a ragtag group of mutants called the X-men (heard of it?). Adding racially diverse, international characters to its cast, Claremont's second wave of mutants still had godly powers, but now they were reviled by the public for that very reason. Echoing the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, prejudice against the X-men's genetic traits became the comic's most enduring theme.

While the Golden Age portrayed social topics like World War in typical Golden Age fashion-unfailing virtue and easy justice-Bronze Age comics dealt with the gritty realities of urban life in ways that had no real answer. Maybe Captain America could smack Hitler in the face, but how does a superhero attack the intangible foes of bigotry and addiction?

As the stories became more focused around gritty, realistic stories, the style of the imagery morphed to match.

Art styles of the Bronze Age of comic books

Comics traded in surrealism and experimentation for photorealistic depictions of the urban landscape.

The alter-ego side of the superhero's life is given more panel time, and sensational costumes took a backseat to depictions of everyday people.

Depth of focus and lighting gave comics a cinematic style, heightening the reader's emotional connection.

The Dark Age (1980-1993)

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Unlike the actual Dark Ages, this era was where comic books achieved enlightenment. Until then, the Golden Age's uncomplicated right and wrong still echoed (if just subtly updated to suit the times). Here, writers threw all of it out the window and showed us that a comic book hero's world was just as gritty as the enemies he faced.

Stories like "The Dark Knight Returns" and "V for Vendetta" warned of an ominous future no amount of heroism could prevent. Writers crafted characters who were psychologically complex, often dangerously so. Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke" introduced us to a Joker who was more than a giggling jester but a frighteningly psychotic serial killer. "Watchmen" gave us heroes that were pushed to questionable actions by the very nature of the world they were trying to defend. During this age, the line between hero and villain wasn't just blurry; writers revealed that it never existed at all.

But it wasn't all dark, even when it was. Independent publisher Image Comics was born, and their flagship hero, Spawn, received unprecedented popularity, enough to spawn (sorry!) a movie adaptation only a few years after its inception. This and several other popular titles such as "Prophet" and "The Savage Dragon" also spawned (last one, promise) more interest in creator-owned comics as a whole.

Ironically, as the imagery in these comics was becoming darker and more stylized-playing with lighting and deep, dark, contrasting colors-the genre was thrust out of the shadows of pulp and into the light of literary awareness. The idea of a sustained comic as a single work of literature led to the publication of several graphic novels, culminating in Art Spiegelman's "Maus," the first comic series to win a Pulitzer Prize. Comic books were finally regarded as a legitimate art form, as malleable and open to creative expression as any medium.

Art styles of the Dark Age of comics

Night was the prominent setting for virtually all stories of this age, leading to an art style that favored strategic lighting and long shadows.

Similarly, artists took their inspiration from hard-boiled noir films of the 40s and 50s, creating gloomy, dubious worlds of smoke, rain, alleyways and silhouettes.

Silver Age horror comics influenced the Dark Age in a more psychological sense, with disturbing portraits and unnatural angles that created a perpetual sense of unease.

The Ageless Age (1993-Present Day)
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We've now reached the point in our journey across many colorful panels at which there is no definitive way to categorize the present "age." Comics have expanded into something without shape or borders-a nebulous mass of nerd wonder.

Advanced technology in film, television and video games has created an unstoppable juggernaut of adaptations, leading to an upsurge in comic book readers from all walks of life. Plus, the impact of Image Comics is still being felt, as readers continue their interest in indie books fueled by the industry's rampant commercialization. No longer restricted to publishing giants Marvel and D.C., writers are free to explore specialty publishers and niche markets, even foregoing traditional distribution channels by publishing their content on the internet.

One thing can be said about our current comic book age: it's a time when the superhero doesn't have to be heroic or dark or even present at all. Comic books can be as pulpy or as serious or as just plain weird as you want them to be. Like the invincible Superman of the optimistic Golden Age, now is a time when anything is possible.

Art styles of the Ageless Age of comics

Advanced technology has led to creative illustrative techniques-everything from digital painting to 3D modeling.

The line between film and comic is now so thin that some series are adapted into motion comics, adding voice actors and animation to the panels with no change to the art itself.

The ubiquity of publishers has led to a wide variety of art styles. Design now varies drastically, depending on the nature of the comic and the choices of the creator (rather than the uniform "in-house" styles of the past).

Got a favorite comic book style?

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Comic books have had a long and vibrant history-far too long to represent in one modest article. The references here represent but a handful of pivotal moments as well as some of my personal favorites. Maybe I missed yours.

Before you start sharpening your adamantium claws, how about sharing your thoughts in the comments?

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The AMAZING history of comic books & their art

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In a time when audiences were racing in droves to catch the latest talkie and hand-drawn animation was just finding its legs, a new medium brought kids (and adults, let's be honest) back to reading. Comic books began as a dime-store novelty, and since then, they have gone through countless transformations, artistic explorations, public excises, declines and revivals.

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How Has The Comic Industry Changed In The Last Decade?

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- Books being adapted into blockbuster movies
- Graphic novels winning literary awards
- Technology has helped graphic novels reach more people.

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The last decade has witnessed a tremendous change in the way the comic book industry operates, and with it, the way they reach their audience. Gone are the days when comics were no more than pulp literature to be consumed in isolation by a small group of enthusiasts. The last ten years have seen the renaissance of comics as a mainstream art form, with comic books being adapted into blockbuster movies, graphic novels winning literary awards, and comic book artists becoming household names.

The success of superhero movies like The Avengers, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, and The Dark Knight has brought a renewed interest among audiences for the comic book characters these films are based on. This, in turn, has led to a resurgence of comic sales both in digital and print formats. Comic book publishers have therefore been able to create new audiences for long-running properties and bring in new readers via various platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.

Besides the rise of superhero movies, the traditional comic book has also changed in the past decade. Whereas in the 1990s most comics were serialized monthly or bimonthly, today's readers can pick up a trade paperback or a graphic novel at the local bookstore, much like they would with any other book. Furthermore, comics are now featuring more diverse creators and characters. There is now more focus on characters who have traditionally been underrepresented in mainstream comic books, such as women and people of colour.

The digital age has also revolutionized the way comics are consumed. Today, we not only have digital versions of traditional comic books, but there are also new ways of storytelling through technology by streaming, using augmented reality, and more. This is an excellent alternative for those who do not have access to print comics or want to read comics in a more immersive way. The availability of online comic books and webcomics has made it possible for anyone with an internet connection to discover new stories and artists.

Social media has revolutionized the way that writers interact with readers. In the past, the only way for writers to engage with their audience was through the pages of their comics. However, with the rise of social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, writers are now able to connect with their fans on a more personal level. This has given rise to a new generation of writers who are not only talented storytellers but also social media influencers who engage with a wider audience.

In addiction, the digitalization of the comics industry has also given writers new creative possibilities. With the advent of digital publishing, writers are no longer constrained by the page limits of print comics. They can now create longer-form stories that can be read on digital platforms like ComiXology or on their personal websites. This has given writers more room to develop complex characters and explore intricate storylines that were not possible in the traditional comic book format.

Besides, the comics industry has become more diverse in recent years, and this has had a profound impact on the role of writers. As the industry has opened up to more diverse voices, writers are now expected to bring unique perspectives to their work. This has led to a greater emphasis on diversity and representation in comics, with writers being encouraged to create stories that feature characters from a wide range of backgrounds and identities.

Finally, the decade has marked a new era for the comic book industry. With comics now being more widely appreciated as an art form and a means of storytelling, more and more publishers are breaking the mold with creative and experimental approaches. This ranges from comics that are inspired by European adventure tales, incorporate elements from other visual art forms such as graffiti or even have an interactive quality where the reader is also a character in the story.

In conclusion, the comic book industry has changed significantly in the last decade. The rise in popularity of superhero movies, the availability of digital comics, and the increasing diversity in creators and characters has transformed the comic book industry. Comic books have become an immersive art form and storytelling medium that can be accessed through a variety of platforms for a broader audience to enjoy. With the innovative storytelling techniques, the comic book industry is more creative than ever, and the future looks bright.

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How comics industry has changed in the last decade?

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The last decade has witnessed a tremendous change in the way the comic book industry operates, and with it, the way they reach their audience. Gone are the days when comics were no more than pulp literature to be consumed in isolation by a small group of enthusiasts.

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- Illustrations give the reader more ideas to what the author is trying to say

- "everyone can see themselves in the comic"

- They (illustrations) add character traits, accessories, facial expressions, actions

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Chris Landvick: Why the comic book is a great medium for storytelling

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Besides teaching, educator Chris Landvick has another passion: comic books. And he thinks there is a comic book for everyone - you just have to look in the right place. In his TEDxLFHS talk, Chris teaches you how to find the perfect comic book for your tastes, and why the comic book is a great medium for storytelling.