Comics, whether in strip or book form, have long been a mainstay of childhood and young adult reading. The unique style of storytelling through sequential art, usually mixed with text, can facilitate any genre or idea, with an unlimited ‘special effects budget’ that would be unwieldy in any other medium. Over the decades, they have grown from being a purely child-oriented type of entertainment to one that also caters to adults, with more literary stories including ‘graphic novels’.
Two days relevant to comics are coming up – Free Comic Book Day is on Saturday May 4th, where people can get a variety of free comic books. Locally, Comic Relief Comics, located at 411 N. 8th Street, Unit#104 in the Depot District, is participating in Free Comic Book Day. Additionally, National Cartoonists’ Day is Sunday May 5th, when comics, their creators, their history, and the impact they have had on society is recognized.
The idea of sequential storytelling is not new, and has interested people for millennia. Antecedents for modern comics include ancient works like Trajan’s Column, and the medieval Bayeux Tapestry, which dramatizes the Norman conquest. The printing press revolutionized this art form, as it did many others. A popular early subject of medieval sequential art were the lives of saints, with the printed art produced from woodcuts. Later, paintings like The Harlot’s Progress by William Hogarth continued the tradition of captioned sequential storytelling. The medium is pleasant to consume, either taking the story in quickly or at a more leisurely pace, and it allows the reader to easily skip forward and back, or linger on a particular panel as long as desired.
One-off, one-panel comics were published in newspapers in the eighteenth century, notably Ben Franklin’s ‘Unite or Die’ comic in a December 1774 issue of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser in the run-up to the American Revolutionary War. In 1890, Comic Cuts was first published in Britain, which included numerous multi-panel strips, and by the early 1900s in America, serialized newspaper comic strips like the Yellow Kid (1895), Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905), and Krazy Kat (1913) had been published, followed by titles like Little Orphan Annie (1924), Blondie (1930), and Prince Valiant (1937). Some of these older strips still run today, whether in reruns or as legacies, now produced by the original creator’s children or apprentices, like Peanuts or Beetle Bailey (both 1950), Hi and Lois (1954), Frank and Ernest (1972), or For Better or For Worse (1979).
The medium moved from embellishments in newspapers to standalone magazines with Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics and Famous Funnies (1933). Soon, there were comics for almost every genre. Comic magazines in the interwar era featured a broad range of characters and situations – funny animals, romance, adventure, historical, westerns, humor, and literary adaptations. While most comics were aimed at children, even at this point some adult-oriented material was produced – including notoriously the so-called Tijuana Bibles, which tended to depict celebrities or classic comic characters in sexual situations. Many of these were illegally produced, without authorization, from the 1930s through the 1950s. During the Great Depression, many cheap, disposable comics were published for free attached to advertising, in order to keep the expensive printing presses running.
During and after World War II, the medium exploded, and many new titles were produced. Comics were sold at newsstands and gas stations. In addition to the existing genres, horror, war, science fiction, crime, and superhero magazines came out. Sometimes they even straddled the line, such as Venus (1948), which started as a romance comic headlined by the titular goddess of love only to become a science fiction and then a horror comic. Even Captain America gradually became a horror anthology after superheroes went out of fashion.
Comics began to draw a great deal of attention – not all of it positive. In 1954, psychologist Fredric Wertham wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent that alleged comics encouraged and worsened juvenile delinquency with their depictions of violence, crime, drug use, and sexual themes. Some of these were overt depictions, in the crime and horror titles of the time. Others were, he argued, ‘coded’ – particularly his assertions that superhero comics pushed deviant sexual practices to children. He appeared before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, and public opinion turned against comics, following similar panics in France and West Germany. In response, publishers self-imposed a draconian content regulation called the Comics Code Authority which drastically curtailed what kinds of comics could be made. More adult fare was still made in the underground market, but most vendors would only sell approved books. After this, humor, historical, religious, and funny animal comics dominated the market.
Starting in the 1960s, a second wave of superhero comics were launched that met the CCA criteria. These came to dominate the marketplace, and in many ways ‘superheroes’ has become synonymous with ‘comic books’. That is not to say that these are the only comics produced. In the mid 1960s, underground and often crudely produced comics (frequently spelled as ‘comix’) and ‘zines that dealt with issues like drugs, sex, counterculture, anti-authoritarianism, and anti-war took root, exemplified by the works of R. Crumb and including titles like Zap Comix (1968), Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (1968), and Snatch (1969). On the other end of the spectrum, Chic Tracts (1960) were religious mini-comics that were often given away or left to be surreptitiously found in public places as an evangelical tool. The effect of these out-of-the-mainstream comics can still be felt in work published today.
Newspaper comics strips continued publication as well, but with progressively more creative restriction in size, content, and layout – which was resisted by some creators, such as Bill Waterson in his strip Calvin and Hobbes (1985). In the 1980s and 1990s, risk-adverse newspaper syndicates only added an average of two new cartoons a year, which included The Boondocks (1997) and Pearls Before Swine (2001).
However, with the ongoing decline of newspapers, daily newspaper comic strips have suffered along with them. In their place, creators have turned to the internet, where webcomics like Penny Arcade (1998), The Perry Bible Fellowship (2001), Dinosaur Comics (2003), xkcd (2005), and Hark! A Vagrant (2007) have proliferated – their low startup cost and negligible barrier to entry has created a renaissance in this medium, with thousands appearing and more coming out every year. Some are meta and self-referential, such as Garfield Minus Garfield (2008), which edit strips to remove the titular lasagna-loving cat, making the strip appear to be more about Jon’s loneliness and existential dread.
Published comic books have also experienced a decline. In the 1950s, a Superman comic sold 1.5 million copies each month. Today, most comic books sell only a few tens of thousands of issues per month. More variety in genre has returned to the comic book and graphic novel environment, although they remain dominated by superheroes. American comics are now routinely outperformed by Japanese Manga comics, which have much more variety in tone, topic, and audience. Worldwide, American comics now have negligible direct impact, being known more for popular movies and toys based on their intellectual property than the comics themselves.
Currently, comics and webcomics offer an unprecedented variety in genre, viewpoint, diversity of creator, and subject matter. It is easy for new readers to find material that suits their tastes, and equally easy for an inspired artist to start creating their own comics. However, the fragmented market makes it unlikely that any one title, character, or story will capture the public’s attention the way they did in the 1960s.
For those interested in learning about the history of comics, the library holds many materials relevant to the study of sequential art. The database Underground and Independent Comics includes a significant amount of historical material, and works about comic art more generally include The Comics Before 1945 by Brian Walker, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art by Jerry Robinson. Individual comics and graphic novels available include titles like Maus, From Hell, Watchmen, Habibi, Pride of Baghdad, Fables, and Blankets.
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