A History of Comic Book Storytelling

From

to

Definition

• By any definition that’s likely to be given, comic books only date back to 1933

• However, there are many forms of storytelling that use the same style of comics, but that nobody would ever describe as being comics!

• For these, we use the term…

SEQUENTIAL ART:

“Juxtaposed pictorial or other images in deliberate sequence”

What does that mean?

• It just means “pictures that are meant to be seen together in a certain order to tell a story”

• It also means that the history of the kind of storytelling used by comics is suddenly very, very long indeed!

“Histoire de Monsieur Cryptogame” – Rodolphe Töpffer, 1830

“A Harlot’s Progress” – William Hogarth, 1791

“The Torture of St. Erasmus” – c.1460

“The Bayeux Tapestry” – 1066 AD, and over 70 metres long!

“8-Deer ‘Tiger’s Claw’” – 1049 AD, and 36 feet long!

Painting in the tomb of Ancient Egyptian scribe, Menna –

c.1300 BC

As you can see, this has been a very popular style of storytelling throughout humanity’s long

history!

So where do modern comics come in? What’s a “graphic novel”?

Graphic Novels and Modern Culture

• “Graphic Novel” is a very recent term• It refers to multiple comics bound together

into books as chapters of a larger story, but is also used when people want to talk about comics without sounding childish

• Even though it’s getting better, comics still have a sort of STIGMA in modern Western culture that they don’t have in others

In Other Cultures

• Comics have seen huge popularity in two cultures in particular:

As “Bandes Dessinees” in Europe and as

“Manga” in Japan

BANDES DESSINEES

• Comics have been a part of European culture for a long time – see the Töpffer strip above!

• Comics as we know them are primarily seen in France and Belgium

• They really took off during and after World War II – the German occupation made it hard to import American comics, and when the war ended, the comics produced locally remained much more popular

• Comics in Europe are a much more respected form of art than in America. One writer, Maurice De Bevere, even described them as “The Ninth Art”

• The French term “bandes dessinees” does not imply any sort of content. “Comic Book” implies something lighthearted, funny, childish; “bandes dessinees” simply means “drawn strips”

Though European comics aren’t that well known outside of France and Belgium, some have

become very popular worldwide. Examples include Tintin, shown

here, and Asterix, shown below.

Manga

漫画マンガ

• In Japan, comics as we know them emerged after World War II – later than in even America

• They became far more widespread and respected very fast, helped along by legendary writers like Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy)

• In Japan, there is manga for literally everybody – for children and teenagers, young adults, and even housewives and businessmen!

• Of the three cultural comics, Japan’s manga are the most widely published internationally

Astro Boy, by Osamu Tezuka

A businessman reading a manga magazine on the train

Josei manga is meant for housewives and older women – like the Harlequin romance novels that we have. Manga in this genre is basically the “50 Shades of Gray” of Japan