Today we will take a look into the beginnings of comics. The history of comics has not been a commonly discussed topic, especially regarding its history outside of the United States. Before we can go any further though, we should define what a comic is.
What are comics?
According to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, you can define comic as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (McCloud, 1993, p. 9).
Based on this definition, McCloud suggests that large, picture filled tapestries of the past can be considered a type of comic. He goes on to say that based on this logic, the creation of comics went back as far as 1049 A.D.
In the Beginning
Looking at comics in a more traditional way though, the comic attributes its beginnings to Rudolphe Töpffer. Töpffer is known as the father of comics and at first made his comics for fun. He did not create them to show them off as serious art (Kunzle, 2007, p. ix).
This mindset was a trend that carried on for the majority of comic history. Comics were meant to be humorous and not have a continuing story (Barker, 1989, p. 8). Serious comics or comics with any other tone were not taken seriously and were quickly dismissed.
An American History
Looking forward a couple hundred years later and over in the United States, the comic strip developed around the late 19th century (Halegua, 1992). Comics back then started out as a means to attract people to reading the Sunday paper. The humorous only nature of comics would last for another 30 years (Halegua, 1992).
Over time, comics went through a lot of development in the United States. Some changes included:
- Rudolph Dirk's comic “Katzenjammer Kids” was the first to include word balloons in the panel instead of outside of the panel. These word balloons indicated who was speaking at the time.
- Winsor McCay'sseries “Little Nemo in Slumber Land” introduced the concept of continuous stories that updated weekly. This was also one of the earlier stories that was not solely humor focused.
- In 1938, mostly action based comics made their first appearance. This was also the first appearance of Superman
Comics continue to grow and change as time goes on. People are exploring new ways to create comics and explore different methods of communicating the story.
Works Cited
Barker, M. (1989). Comics: Ideology, power, and the
critics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Kunzle, D. (2007). Father of the comic strip: Rodolphe
töpffer. (1 ed., p. ix). University Press Mississippi.
McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics the invisible
art. (1 ed., p. 9). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Works Cited
Barker, M. (1989). Comics: Ideology, power, and the
critics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Halegua, R. (1992). Chronological history of american
comics . Retrieved from http://www.comic-art.com/history/history1.htm
Kunzle, D. (2007). Father of the comic strip: Rodolphe
töpffer. (1 ed., p. ix). University Press Mississippi.
McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics the invisible
art. (1 ed., p. 9). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
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