Download Over 22,000 Golden & Silver Age Comic Books from the Comic Book Plus Archive

HORIZONTALBESTCOMICS

The decade begin­ning with the late 1930s is known as the Gold­en Age of com­ic books. Many of the super­heroes from today’s block­buster fran­chis­es, includ­ing Bat­man, Super­man, and Cap­tain Amer­i­ca, emerged dur­ing this peri­od, and the indus­try grew into a com­mer­cial pow­er­house. Fol­low­ing a sales dip dur­ing the ear­ly 1950s that marked the end of the Gold­en Age, the Sil­ver Age began (cir­ca 1956) and last­ed for some fif­teen years.

Dur­ing this era, super­hero com­ic books ini­tial­ly lost steam — let­ting sto­ries of hor­ror, romance, and crime grow in pop­u­lar­i­ty — before emerg­ing tri­umphant­ly once more with char­ac­ters like Spi­der-Man and The Flash. While copy­right remains very much in effect for such titles, a slew of com­ic books from the same peri­od, many of which have nar­row­ly missed attain­ing such icon­ic sta­tus, are avail­able online at Com­ic Book Plus.

DAREDEVIL

Sim­i­lar to the Dig­i­tal Com­ic Muse­um, which we wrote about last week, Com­ic Book Plus con­tains a near inex­haustible quan­ti­ty of Gold­en and Sil­ver Age com­ic books. The collection’s times­pan ranges from the late 1930s through to the ear­ly 1960s, and includes many thou­sands of com­ic books in the Super­heroSci-Fi, and Hor­ror gen­res.

LINDALARK

Those han­ker­ing for some­thing a lit­tle more unusu­al will also be in luck. Des­per­ate to read about a hos­pi­tal romance? Why not give Lin­da Lark Stu­dent Nurse a read in the Med­ical Love cat­e­go­ry? Sick of land­lub­bers hog­ging all the atten­tion in com­ic books? Head to the Water/Boats sec­tion, where you can read all about Davy Jones, the navy lieu­tenant who lives in Atlantis and does bat­tle with the evil Dr. Fang, in Under­sea Agent.

UNDERSEAAGENT

Com­ic Book Plus also has a ter­rif­ic selec­tion of for­eign com­ic books, includ­ing impres­sive col­lec­tions in Ger­man, Hin­di, Ital­ian, Por­tuguese, and Span­ish. You can see Super Hombre here.

SUPERHOMBRE

Final­ly, the site con­tains a num­ber of U.S. gov­ern­ment edu­ca­tion­al pam­phlets, includ­ing Bert The Tur­tle Says Duck And Cov­er, a guide to sur­viv­ing atom­ic bomb blasts.

BERTTHETURTLE

For fur­ther read­ing, head on over to Com­ic Book Plus. You can pre­view all mate­ri­als with­out reg­is­tra­tion. But you will need to reg­is­ter (for free) if you want to down­load the var­i­ous com­ic books.

H/T to Yoc­itrus for mak­ing us aware of this archive.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman, or read more of his writ­ing at the Huff­in­g­ton Post.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 15,000+ Free Gold­en Age Comics from the Dig­i­tal Com­ic Muse­um

Free Com­ic Books Turn Kids Onto Physics: Start with the Adven­tures of Niko­la Tes­la

Read Mar­tin Luther King and The Mont­gomery Sto­ry: The Influ­en­tial 1957 Civ­il Rights Com­ic Book

The Pulp Fic­tion Archive: The Cheap, Thrilling Sto­ries That Enter­tained a Gen­er­a­tion of Read­ers (1896–1946) 


by | Permalink | Comments (10) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (10)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • Andrew McIntosh says:

    “Fol­low­ing a sales dip dur­ing the ear­ly 1950s that marked the end of the Gold­en Age, the Sil­ver Age began (cir­ca 1956) and last­ed for some fif­teen years.”

    More like a sales *peak*—combined cir­cu­la­tion in 1952 was dou­ble what it was in 1946, and slow­ly but steadi­ly creeped back down to 1946 lev­els by 1960, where it remained steady throught the 60s.

  • Mort Persky says:

    Is it true you’re offer­ing gold­en-age com­ic books for free down­load­ing by us ancient fans who signed on in the mid-’30s?

    I’m VERY inter­est­ed!

  • Johnathan Fitzgerald says:

    I wont to make a coic but i cant think of any­thing to do.

  • art Bowshier says:

    ERBzine.com/comics is and archive of comics based on Edgar Rice Bur­roughs Char­ac­ters.

  • Patrick says:

    Please let me know how can I down­load these golden/silver age com­ic books ?

    Thanks

  • zeeshan says:

    free com­ic down­lode

  • Mort Palin says:

    Wait­ing to see if your state­ment is true

  • Lynda Rogers says:

    I would like to have access to your large col­lec­tion to read

  • miha says:

    Numai per­son­aje vio­lente, altele hidoase, capete de mort, altii care se lovesc. Ce e asta ? Sunt sanatosi acei „dese­n­a­tori„ Nu prea s ar zice. Cat de idiot sa fii sa faci numai vio­len­ta care se impri­ma incon­sti­en­tilor in mintea copi­ilor ! Asa apare un al 2 lea hitler din unu care a vazut ast­fele de desene si apoi a con­tin­u­at cu desenele ani­mate de azi cu mon­strii , cu per­son­aje care cad in cap care se lovesc se imp­ing , cad pe scari, alear­ga si se lovesc de un pom, iau un pumn si se lovesc de perete .
    Vai de capul vostru.
    O lume otravi­ta de niste bol­navi care asta au gasit ei sa faca… Mai bun era Pif si Her­cule pe vre­mea lui Ceau.
    Vedeam si la primele filme mute aparute niste imag­i­ni cu una lega­ta de calea fer­a­ta si trenul care vine. Asta a deb­i­tat mintea unor nenoroc­i­ti de oameni care mai bine nu se nasteau si care acum cred ca sunt la baza for­marii „maaar­ilor com­panii„ de film care imprastie vio­len­ta si ura. Ura unor infrac­tori fata de altii , felul cum se omoara, vio­len­ta care se impri­ma in mintea oame­nilor. Oare voi nu intelegeti ca asta nu e motiv de lau­da, de recla­ma. Oare nici un psi­holog nu a anal­izat desenele ani­mate anor­male de azi , actele ratate de care se zice, actiu­nile gre­site care stre­seaza creierul unor copii care nu ajung bine ! Daca un per­son­aj merge si in urma­toarea secun­da ii cade in cap ceva, apoi fuge si se loveste de un pom, apoi primeste o ghi­ulea in cap trasa de unde­va si alte aber­atii de astea , la ce duc? Aces­te „actiu­ni„ la ce duc ? Ce ajung cei mici care vad asa ceva? Isi pune prob­le­ma asta cine­va? In afara de prof­i­t­ul rusi­nos care il obtine ?

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.