What are the best comics from this time period?

Best creators?

What are some of the best runs from this period?

Any collections you recommend?

There is no such thing as a "run" as we define it today for the GA comics. Personally, while I find many of the characters and concepts interesting, the EXTREMELY wordy panels and generally poor art make them difficult to read. Often, that "poor art" is due to bad coloring and inking, and not an actual "bad" artist, admittedly, but that doesn't change the dull writing, where they'll use half a panel to write a caption describing the action you can visually see in the same panel.

Go to the library and check out the Shazam/Captain Marvel archives.

After the first volume the stories should be solidly fun, and the art holds up better than anything else from the Golden Age.

Will Eisner's "The Spirit" qualifies as Golden Age, although it was published as a newspaper supplement rather than in normal comic books. There are lots of reprints out there, including a beautiful color "Archives" series that you might find at the library. Dip around in that until you find a period that especially grabs you. It started off already better than most comics of the time, and got better as it went along.

I'm well aware of this, as I've dipped my two in the Golden Age waters in the past, I'm just looking for the better parts. And by run I simply mean an extended period of a consecutive writer/artist team.

As Kurt says, if you can find a library that has the various archives, masterworks and omnibuses, I would suggest any of the Captain Marvel stories, Spirit, All-Star Comics, Marvel (Mystery) Comics, Captain America, Blackhawk and Black Canary.

While I personally enjoy many of the others, those are probably the strongest, and most interesting from those times. I would probably start with the Shazam or Shazam Family archives. Shazam Family has some great Mac Raboy art in it. Beautiful stuff.

Seven Soldiers of Victory was interesting, but is much weaker than ASC, and All-Winners Squad is about the same as SSV. Captain America from WW2 is good stuff, in my opinion, especially the first few that were done by Simon and Kirby. Later, when it's written by others (including teen Stanley Lieber) are not as good, but still not horrible.

There are archive editions of the Golden Age Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Sandman, Starman and the Spectre, as well as Comics Cavalcade and JSA All Stars. Oh, and Robin, from Star Spangled Comics in the late 1940s has 2 volumes.

Yes. And if you can find some Mac Raboy Captain Marvel Jr, you're in good shape.

I generally classify Golden Age as 1938 - 1945, and then I use Atomic Age
for post WW II up until about 1955 or so.

I like Carl Barks (Disney Ducks) and Walt Kelly (Santa, Mother Goose, Brownies,
Pogo, etc.) quite a bit. You'll see how much these two, especially Kelly, influenced
Bone artist Jeff Smith.

Many of us have mentioned Captain Marvel books by C.C. Beck and Mac Raboy.
I liked a lot of the early Fawcett Comics: Ibis, Spy Smasher, Bullet Man, ...
Most of what I know comes from great reprint collection called Flashback—which,
sadly, you won't be any to find anywhere.

Lou Fine is an excellent artist. Jack Kirby said that Lou Fine was HIS favorite artist.
I can't think of any collections right off hand, though: Dollman, Black Condor, etc.

Jack Cole's Plasticman is rather fun, too.

You could probably enjoy the Golden Age quite a bit just by Googling up Alex
Schomberg, or, for "Good Girl" artwork, try searching for Matt Baker.

I don't know much about the stories, but Flash Comics (featuring Flash and Hawkman)
had some real sweet covers over the years.

Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon

Yes, the Flash and Hawkman covers were gorgeous! Sheldon Moldoff (Hawkman's creator) illustrated most of the early ones, and all of the Hawkman ones until Joe Kubert took over. I think at first he did just the Hawkman ones, but eventually, he took over the Flash covers too.

Starman also had an incredible artist, Jack Burnley, who also ghosted Superman for Joe Shuster for years. His style was reminiscent of Alex Raymond.

I don't recall if the Sandman Archives gets to the Simon and Kirby years, but once it does, you get some great stuff there too. This wasn't so different from their take on the Guardian later on.

Thanks very much y'all, this is a solid start.

THIS.

The so-called "Golden Age" of comics is fun and interesting if you take it on its own terms, but as you (Candy) already know, you've got to accept it for what it is. Which obviously you do.

I like a lot of stuff from this era, but only in small doses. Love to read a 12-pager (or whatever) here and there. Can't read them in bulk.

Like in the '70s when DC would do their 100 Page Giants, and there'd be an 18-20 page lead feature story, and then maybe a Silver Age reprint and then a couple Golden Age reprints? In that context, Golden Age stories were awesome.

That takes me back. I remember buying some of those as a kid. I thought it was so cool to have so many stories in one volume. Bought a few of those 100 pagers for Batman and the JLA. The contasts between the different eras was very interesting, although back then, I just read them as cool stories without the analysis.

Hell yes. That was my introduction to them. My dad has STACKS of DC Silver Age stuff, and I used to sneak them out of his collection and read them all the time. Loved those Golden Age reprints.

My favorites were the DC science fiction stories, especially Tales of the Unexpected (and sometimes Mystery in Space). DC has done a crap job of getting that stuff back in print in an affordable package.

Some of my earliest comics.

Unfortunately, your images came up bupkiss, Mark.

Dang. BRB with them uploaded instead.

I think I still have this one.

Yeah, those are great. I can't read a collection of GA stories. I get physically tired and bored. One or two of them in that context though, is fun.

In that case, I'd recommend the early Superman stuff. It's amongst the best of the era, and (again, if you sort of skim or even ignore the captions) holds up pretty well.

If you want to read something non Superhero, Beach's recommendation of Barks Duck stories is well worth the time spent.