The Graphic Novel

A Brief History of American Comics

ENGL 124 B03 Winter 2010

Newspaper Comics

1890s: American newspapers, which had carried illustrations and single-panel cartoons for several decades, began to include multi-panel, sequential cartoons, which told a story using both text and images. These usually appeared in weekly “funny papers”: tabloid-sized Sunday supplements, often in full colour. Daily, black-and white comic “strips” appeared soon after.

Comic Collections

Popular “Sunday funnies” were soon being reprinted in four-color newsprint booklets. By rearranging the comic’s panels, the collections’ publishers created a layout which could be printed on a smaller, book-sized page. These collections were often produced as promotional material for the newspapers which carried them.

The First Modern Comic Book

1933: Max Gaines produced an independently distributed, 36-page booklet of sequential cartoons. Highly successful, it was soon imitated, initiating the “Golden Age” of comic book publishing.

Tijuana Bibles

In the 1920s, smaller, cheaply produced ‘underground’ comic books appeared. Their content was pornographic and anonymous, and often parodied actual comics or made topical reference to current celebrities in film and politics. These “Tijuana Bibles” were popular during the Depression, and slowly disappeared with the advent of glossier pornographic magazines in the 1950s and 60s.

The Golden Age

As demand grew, genres of “comic book” begin to emerge: westerns, adventure stories, true crime, romance, science fiction, etc. Superhero comics were particularly popular; Superman made his first appearance in 1938.

EC Comics

Max Gaines founded All-American Publications in 1938 and produced a number of comic books series, but in 1944, sold out to Dell. Gaines retained only those titles which addressed a niche market for religious and scholastic content. He formed a new company, Educational Comics (EC), to produce and distribute these.

EC Comics

In the late 1940s, Gaines’s son Bill inherited EC. He changed its name to Entertaining Comics and staked out a new market with gritty new crime and horror offerings. Many of these titles are now keenly sought after as classics of the genre.

Self-Censorship

Interest in superhero comics waned after the end of World War Two, and many publishers followed in the footsteps of EC. Public concerns about the moral effects of comic book reading grew. In 1954, the Comics Code Authority was created to oversee the content of comics produced by members of the newly-formed (and highly influential) Comics Magazine Association of America. Violent, ‘antisocial’ or sexual material was – and is – sharply censored by the CCA.

The Silver AgeA new generation of superhero comics began to cater to Baby Boom children in the mid-1950s. Golden Age characters such as Superman, Wonderwoman, Batman and Captain America reappeared, and a large number of new characters were created: Iron Man, the Hulk, Spiderman, Daredevil, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and many others. Comic books aimed at younger audiences, such as Richie Rich or Caspar the Friendly Ghost, were also popular.

Underground Comics

In the late 1960s, as American countercultures gained impetus, a number of underground publishers began producing comic books which either ignored or actively challenged the censorship standards of the CCA. Many faced hurdles of legal censorship, as well. The most successful of the new underground comic books, Mad Magazine, is still in print.

Independent Comics

The mainstream comic book publishers, Marvel and DC struggled in the 1980s and 90s. Writers and artists gravitated to smaller, independent publishers such as Comico and Eclipse, who were willing to offer greater creative license. Dark Horse emerged in the 1990s as a dominant force among these.

The Graphic Novel

Floundering financially, DC published limited series by two of independent publishing’s stars: Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Allan Moore’s Watchmen (1986–7). The combination of a mainstream publisher with independent talent was explosively successful. A clear market was established for single-issue, perfect-bound comic books which abandon the serial format and contain complex content.

References

Buhle, Paul. “History and Comics.” Reviews in American History 35.2 (Jun 2007):

315-323.

Roberts, Garyn. “Understanding the Sequential Art of Comic Strips and Comic

Books and Their Descendants in the Early Years of the New Millennium.”

Journal of American Culture 27.2 (Jun 2004): 210-217.

Hahn, Joel. “A Librarian's Guide to DC comics.” Serials Review 24.2 (1998): 65-79.

Meskin, Aaron. “Defining Comics?” Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism 65.4

(Oct 2007): 369-379.

Sringhall, John. “Horror comics: The Nasties of the 1950s.” History Today 44.7

(Jul 1994): 10-14.