And now that I think about it (after reviewing that Nicky Wright book), it was WWII that briefly spurred the growth of comic sales to unrealistic/unsustainable levels.
Anyway, my (very brief) current take on the early history of comics (at least from a financial/distribution/demographic POV) is...
(1930-1940)
- Pulp magazine publishers in the mid-to-late 1930s needed to find a new print medium to expand into... one which would be more "visual" based to counter the coming age of electronic media. Don't forget, radio was big, but prototype televisions were being developed in the 30s, and their potential was clear... what they (as well as the movies) offered the public was a new (visual) way of consuming/telling stories (the sequential visual narrative). Thus, with this in mind and seeing the success of funny page reprint titles such as Eastern's "Famous Funnies," many of them began producing comic books... if not as a replacement to their pulps, at least as a supplement to them. And in my opinion, this is reflected in the style and tone of many of these early comics... in concept, at his core, Superman was a (science fiction) pulp character really... as was the early Batman (in essence a crime pulp character).
- This new format caught on with children (for various reasons) instead of what (IMO) its original intended audience was... adults. And by 1940 the vast majority of comic books purchased seem to be purchased by children and not adults... which raised concerns in various circles about content... hence, the birth of the Werthams of the world.
(1941-45)
- The U.S. enters WWII. There is a further surge in sales... this time among adults (military service personnel)... which, btw, was never to be seen again.
(1945-50)
- By late 1945, with the war over, sales (at least among adults) declined to pre-war levels... wanting to keep that audience the comic industry reinvented itself somewhat (as did the movie industry before it)... by introducing new titles and genres that they hoped would interest them. In particular, romance and later horror. Crime comics (which always paid... despite what Lev Gleason stated on his comic) were also re-imagined (to be more like their pulp predecessors... although, Gleason's book was always so IMO), as were the jungle comics. Unfortunately, this usually meant they became more violent and sexualized... particularly in the hands of such people as Victor Fox.
- As early as 1948 you already had too many comics... some of which of questionable content for their real audience (children). Unfortunately, these very same titles were "high profile" ones... and hence, were easy targets for crusaders of various stripes.
(1950-56)
- In the early 50s, with another boom in comics due to the horror genre (and a larger population of children, and both older adolescents and college bound twenty somethings who might have read comics in their earlier youth), the stands were eventually glutted with titles that many newsstand retailers had no interest or time in contending with.
- Unfortunately, it seems the majority of adults of that era didn't embrace the comic book medium and (IMO) at best, viewed it as a novelty of the war years (or of their youth). Which is very unfortunate, for (again IMO) some of these comics were extremely well done... consisting of superb art and very well written, creative stories. Which I think would have held (and appealed to) the imagination of a large number of these older readers. There was also unfortunately a lot of pandering "copy-cat" trash being published as well... more than the market could bear... and which gave further fuel to the self-appointed "do-gooders" of the world.
Thus IMO...
-The "implosion" of the mid 50s was inevitable.
