All history is subjective, but you only really see that when you have lived through a certain period yourself, and when contemporary sources are talking about something you were deeply invested in at the time. And while it might be existentially troubling to realize the 1990s were 30 years ago now, they are clearly history.
I wallow in as much nostalgia as any other 50-year-old, and am always a sucker for books and documentaries that look back at the years of my youth. But while it's not surprising that some things endure - it's extremely unsurprising how many people are still talking about Tarantino's earliest films - but it's always interesting to see what sticks around in the greater cultural memory, and what fades away.
I see it on nostalgic MTV channels, which rarely play the kind of thing I was blasting in 1995, and go for the safest of options. I fucking knew I'd still be listening to Lenny Kravitz goin' my way for the rest of my life when I first heard it in '93, and it was loud and proud on the classic rock radio station I was listening to earlier today.
That's to be expected, but I'm still surprised when I see it with comic books. My obsession with comics was all encompassing throughout the nineties, so when TwoMorrows put out one of its excellent books covering the decade in comics, I ate it all up, but I didn't always recognise what I was tasting.
That's to be expected, but I'm still surprised when I see it with comic books. My obsession with comics was all encompassing throughout the nineties, so when TwoMorrows put out one of its excellent books covering the decade in comics, I ate it all up, but I didn't always recognise what I was tasting.
Even after living through it all, there were still tiny bits of new information – Neil Adams getting DC to put up an extra $11k for his Robin costume - but in general it's a rough overview of mainstream comic books, without really getting into the details.
It's also really not my 90s. I was living on the arse end of the planet in an age before the internet when all this was going down, so all the big stories of the medium - notably the big industry boom and bust - generally passed me by, and I only noticed it when it was done.
My 1990s was the Invisibles (which gets an extravagant three paragraphs in that TwoMorrows book) and Love and Rockets (which gets one whole paragraph) and Matt Wagner's Grendel (which only gets a mention when he crosses over with Batman). 2000ad went through some huge changes through the decade, and somehow survived to make huge inroads into the 21st century, but you wouldn't know it from this book.
It's also really not my 90s. I was living on the arse end of the planet in an age before the internet when all this was going down, so all the big stories of the medium - notably the big industry boom and bust - generally passed me by, and I only noticed it when it was done.
My 1990s was the Invisibles (which gets an extravagant three paragraphs in that TwoMorrows book) and Love and Rockets (which gets one whole paragraph) and Matt Wagner's Grendel (which only gets a mention when he crosses over with Batman). 2000ad went through some huge changes through the decade, and somehow survived to make huge inroads into the 21st century, but you wouldn't know it from this book.
And that's okay. It really is. It makes me a little somber to think what the historical record will say when my generation are all dead and gone, but I can still hang on to what was important to me at the time, and is still a vital part of who I am. It always will be, no matter how many years go by.
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