A Short History of Comics

Introduction: How Did Comics Come About?

Telling stories in pictures can be traced back perhaps even to

cave paintings. The telling of stories visually with words has

evolved in many cultures. These include Egyptian wall paintings which combined images with hieroglyphics;

…the Bayeux tapestry; medieval church wall paintings; the narrative art of eighteenth century artists such as William

Hogarth; and the l'Imagerie d'Epinal from the Vosges area

of France with its framed sketches of stories.

All these provided the basis from which the earliest comic

emerged. This was Rowlandson's picture tales

told through simple line drawings of a comic character

called Dr. Syntax who appeared in stories such as The Tour of Dr. Syntax in

Search of the Picturesque.

Dr. Syntax

In other work contemporary with Dr Syntax it is possible

to see three of the basic conventions of the comic:

Sketches and caricature - art that

exaggerates physical appearance;

Speech balloons or bubbles that were

being used by artists such as Hogarth in his

political engravings

Written commentary or caption in the

picture to add to the point being made by the sketched image.

However, the first combination of images and

words into the comic form of a series of framed images

linked together, using words to characterise as well as to tell the narrative is attributed

to Rodolphe Topffer, a short sighted Swiss artist

Topffer used the cartoon style as his sight failed. He believed that there was no value difference between stories in words and

stories in pictures. His first published picture story was Les

amours de M. Vieux Bois and this was followed in 1829 by another

based on the story of Faust.

In 1845 Topffer wrote ‘The picture story .. appeals particularly to

children and to the masses, the sections of the public which are particularly easily perverted and

which it would be particularly desirable to raise'. Topffer's desire

to use this form for moral and educational purposes was not to be how subsequent publications used

it.

So are comics rooted in class divisions? Are they a way for

the middle class to educate the working class? Are they, in fact,

the first ‘text’ books?

Topffer regarded his art as helping to teach the illiterate population as well as being

culturally improving. But others saw comics as away

of being rather rude and sensational – a bit like some of the Sunday papers today.

The 18th century forged a link between: Images

Visual Conventions Narrative

Popular Appeal. But how did the commercial and

populist children's 'comic' emerge as an important part of popular culture in the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries?

During the 19th century newspapers and magazines had begun to expand rapidly as a result of the following

factors:

1. The improvements in printing technology and therefore the ability to

reproduce line drawings.

2. Cheaper paper production, making

newspapers accessible to a wider market.

3. The changing demographics - far more people lived in towns and cities, so

helping communication and distribution.

4. The increased literacy of the population.

5. The improvements in distribution available with

new forms of transport such as the railways so that

newspapers could reach most areas of the country.

Popular forms of mass print emerged from publications already

in existence:-the Chap books

- Reynolds Newspaper, a radical working class paper,

- the Penny Dreadfuls of the 1840s and 50s, so called because they cost one penny and told gory or

sensational stories.

Two of the most popular Penny Dreadful stories were Varney the Vampire and Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber, the latter running for 220 weeks .Their popularity

shows that audience's pleasures in the gory and grotesque are not

new.

In 1867 Judy, a humour magazine appeared which had contributors

such as Charlotte Yonge, a fervent follower of the Oxford Religious revival, whose presence reveals Judy’s original moral purpose.

It also had the subversive character Ally Sloper in it. This slippery,

working class character became very popular and would be the

blueprint – the original design - for many similar types of comic

character, in particular the 'naughty kid' such as Dennis the Menace

Ally Sloper eventually left the 'serio‑comic journal' to appear in

his own comic called Ally Sloper's Half Holiday in May 1884,

becoming the first recognisably English comic. This was published

until 1917. The transfer of a character to his/her own comic is a

trend that many later comic characters, such as Judge Dredd,

followed.

This magazine was aimed at an adult working class audience and contained satirical attacks on the ‘establishment’ as well as saucy stories about Ally Sloper and his

ability to 'slope off' from work.

The power of the picture story had not been lost on the religious tract

societies of the time: The Boys Own Paper (18 January 1879),

followed the next year by The Girls Own Paper, appeared as moral

teaching aids that followed the role that Topffer had originally outlined.

Comic publishers wishing to maintain their audience

experimented with colour such as The Coloured Comic. But this was

too expensive for its market and the first regular coloured comic was

Puck (1904-40) aimed at a family audience followed by Rainbow (1914‑56) which was targeted

specifically at children.

Another early comic was Magnet, first published in 1908, with Billy

Bunter, a fat schoolboy as one of in characters. Cartoon or comic

strips in newspapers like Rupert the Bear, which began in The Daily Express in 1920, were part of the same trend as Tiger Tim's Weekly (1920‑40), Film Fun (1920‑62) and

Chick's Own (1 920‑57).

It was in 1921 that the company most associated with the comic in the UK published its first comic.

The Scottish based D.C.Thomson launched Adventure.

This was followed in 1922 by the titles Rover and Wizard. These comics were characterised by

far‑fetched stories and larger than life characters.

Other developments, such as the graphic novel, were developing.

Mitsou, a story about a cat appeared in 1920 while Tintin,

written by Herge appeared on 10 January 1929 and the first Asterix comic was published in 1957. The form of the graphic novel would be

most popular on the continent.