Why was meta-writing so rare before Animal Man?

Meta writing is trash
If you have to tell a story about the story, you don't have any stories to tell

>Why was meta-writing so rare before Animal Man?
it wasn't

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>can't into stories about stories
one additional layer and it confuses you that much?

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They were both writers. It was Cary Bates and Elliot S Maggin. Bates was the one who got turned into a supervillain while Maggin had to get help from the Justice League, and they remark on how Green Arrow's dialogue is similar to the way Maggin talks, and how Hawkman is hostile to both of them.

Is the Mad story posted in this thread trash?

He'll either double down and flail, or won't respond to your posts.

That's a reductive way of looking at things. I prefer to think that there's no such thing as a bad idea for a story just a bad execution for that idea.

I suppose what I meant is "serious meta-writing."
Where it's not just used for a joke. That was all around the place; Rocky & Bullwinkle, Asterix in Belgium, Iznogoud, etc
What I'm talking about is the plot using the meta elements in a serious way.
Mad is the exception; they're already a parody comic so it's expected that they'll go out of the box.
One of the earlier examples of serious metanarrative is early Boris the Bear, starting 1987; a year before Animal Man. Even then, it's MAD-brand seriousness.

I suppose you could argue that stuff like Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme and Watchmen are a meta-narrative. Sure they're not explicitly breaking the fourth wall but they both take well known comic archetypes and conventions and turn them on their heads a little.

meta narrative has existed since greek plays

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Yep, that's the one. I don't know how I missed them both being writers.

Yes.
Nice wojak. Retard.

>guy writes meta story
>everyone after him starts making meta stories
>soon the entire comic line is nothing but wink-wink-nudge-nudge look how self-aware I am garbage
Thor Ragnarok is a prime example of this cringe

Why would you say its trash?

I agree with you on that; metanarrative for the sake of "look at you aren't you smart audience aren't you smart for being spoonfed narratives" will never be good.
It may work (TTGO to the polls, Ragnarok), but that doesn't mean it's objectively good (CGI Alvin in the Chipmunks got higher numbers than Harvey Beaks that doesn't speak anything about its quality).

not controversial but Mad comics was seriously good satire before it became Mad magazine, I think

>guy writes metastory
Who did? What?

Go watch real movies.

I don't think inserting the writer/artist makes a comic very cerebral honestly. Stan and Jack continously did gags about themselves existing in the quick, trashy horror comics they did in the 50's and 60's and it wasn't really much of a deal. Marvel comics and the staff kept appearing in Marvel superhero stuff in the 1960's. Animal Man isn't special because Grant Morrison appears, it's special because of the layers of the story and the commentary about comics as a medium.

Alan Moore did it in his Captain Britain before Morrison.