A BRIEF HISTORY OF COMIC BOOKS free pdf ebook was written by on April 25, 2006 consist of 24 page(s). The pdf file is provided by comics.ha.com and available on pdfpedia since December 29, 2011.
a brief history of comic books the pioneer (1500-1828), victorian (1828-1883) and platinum (1883-1938) ages (please note: in this article, all dates given for various ...
A
BRIEF
HISTORY
OF
COMIC BOOKS
You're reading the first 10 out of 24 pages of this docs, please download or login to readmore.
A
BRIEF HISTORY
OF
COMIC BOOKS
The Pioneer (1500-1828), Victorian (1828-1883)
and Platinum (1883-1938) Ages
(Please note: In this article, all dates given for various “Ages” are approximate. With the
exception of the beginning of the Golden Age and the beginning of the Silver Age, little
consensus exists on starting/ending dates. In fact, if you really want to start an argument
between comic book geeks, just ask any two of them when the Silver Age ends and the
Bronze Age begins. Just make sure that you’re standing well back and wearing protective
clothing when you do, though…)
Although many comics historians will
point to European broadsheets of the six-
teenth century as the ancient precursors of
comic books (these broadsheets used text
and illustration to get their point across, so
there is some merit to this argument), or
satirical magazines of the 1780s (in which
the first recorded examples of “dialogue
balloons” are seen), most would agree that
true comics began on May 5, 1895 in the pages of the New York
World
with the first
appearance of R.F. Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley (which itself may have been inspired
by the turn-of-the-century photography of Jacob Riis or the cartoons of Michael
Angelo Woolf ). This single-panel humor cartoon, which focused on the shenanigans
of a group of young hooligans, introduced The Yellow Kid, one of the most popular
fictional characters of the first few decades of the 20th Century (by the way, Outcault
is perhaps better known as the creator of Buster Brown, who later lent his name and
image to a line of shoes).
Soon, comics became a popular mainstay of newspapers na-
tionwide, and such legendary characters as Happy Hooligan,
Maggie & Jiggs (in the popular strip
Bringing Up Father),
Mutt
& Jeff, the Katzenjammer Kids, Krazy Kat & Ignatz Mouse,
and Barney Google were born. Although the earliest strips
were all humorous, it didn’t take imaginative creators long to
realize that the form could be expanded to accommodate other
genres. Some, like visionary artist Winsor McCay, flourished
in the fantasy field, and brought the odd and surreal to the
printed page in strips like
Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend,
Little
Sammy Sneeze,
and, most successfully,
Little Nemo in Slumberland.
Others explored
a more adventurous route, and soon the likes of Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers,
The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician were starring in serialized stories on the
comic page.
The Golden Age (1938-1949)
It’s generally accepted among collectors that the first comic
book was FUNNIES ON PARADE, published in 1933. This
was mainly a collection of newspaper strip reprints, featuring
such favorites as
Mutt & Jeff, Joe Palooka, Hairbreadth Harry,
Reg’lar Fellers,
and more.
But for all intents and purposes, the comic book industry
really started with the publication of ACTION COMICS #1
in June 1938. This landmark issue, the first comic to pres-
ent all-new material, saw the first appearance of The Man of
Steel, Superman. The product of two teenage boys from Cleveland, Ohio, Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster, Superman was an overnight sensation and forever transformed the
fledgling comic book industry. It is the publication of ACTION #1 that marks the
beginning of the “Golden Age” of comics.
The reason for Superman’s instant popularity in the late 1930s
is obvious: during this time, America was a nation of immi-
grants. People were coming from all over the world in search of
“The American Dream.” Superman, as the last survivor of the
doomed planet Krypton, is the ultimate immigrant. It wasn’t
uncommon for children to be separated from their parents
during this time, either in their home country or once they got
to Ellis Island. This is the feeling, of both adventure and un-
certainty, that Siegel and Shuster, both the sons of European
immigrants, tapped into with their strange visitor from another planet.
With the success of Superman, a plethora of super-characters
was quickly released to a breathlessly waiting world. Batman,
Wonder Woman, the Human Torch, Captain Marvel, the
Sub-Mariner, Dr. Fate, the Spectre, Captain America… they
all donned colorful costumes and waged war against crime and
criminals on the homefront, and, in those patriotic days of
World War II, the Nazi menace as well. They fought separate-
ly, of course, and also banded together as the Justice Society
of America, the All-Winners Squad, and the Seven Soldiers of
Victory. At their height, superhero comics were selling up to a
million copies per monthly issue. It was a good time to be a hero.
And then the war ended, and the heroes who had kept the world safe for democracy
found themselves without worthy enemies to fight. Truly, after triumphing over
Hitler and his Axis hordes, using those same superpowers to catch bank robbers was
sort of like using a tank to swat a fly. The heroes limped on, doing the best they could,
until about 1949, but their days were clearly numbered.
The Atomic Age (1949-1956)
Comics publishers saw the writing on the walls. Suddenly,
everyone was scrambling to find the hot new trend. Lev Glea-
son had been publishing CRIME DOES NOT PAY since
1942, and, a few years later had a blockbuster on his hands.
Crime and gangsters were hot! Radio gave us “Dragnet,”
“The Shadow,” “The Black Museum,” “Crime Classics,” and
“Night Beat,” and comics were quick to jump on the band-
wagon. CRIME EXPOSED (1948), TRUE CRIME COM-
ICS (1947), CRIMES BY WOMEN (1948), THE KILLERS
(1947), and many, many more crime titles littered the news-
stands, fueling the public’s insatiable appetite for “true crime” stories (an appetite that
continues unabated to this day. Witness the O.J. Simpson cottage industry and the
ever-ongoing Jon Benet Ramsey investigation, not to mention the current phenom-
enon of court TV shows, such as “The People’s Court,” “Judge Judy,” and all their
various imitators and competitors). The infusion of this new genre would prove to
be the savior that the comics industry had been looking for. It would also prove to
be its downfall.
Another trend in popular culture in the late 40s and early 50s was the horror
film, which, in turn, gave birth to the science fiction movie. Horror films had lain
dormant since the start of World War II. Who cares about vampires and werewolves
when there’s a real monster to fight in Germany? Avon Publications tried to enter
the horror comics niche in 1946, but EERIE, their sole offering, lasted only one
issue. But by 1949, the war was over, and monsters were making a comeback in both
films and comics. 1951 gave us “The Thing.” “It Came From Outer Space,” “War
Of The Worlds,” “Robot Monster” and “Invaders From Mars” terrified us in 1953,
“Godzilla” first stomped Tokyo in 1954, and Cold War paranoia reached its height in
1956 with “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.”
Comics weren’t slow to notice this trend. William Gaines,
the heir to M.C. Gaines, publishing magnate, and head of
Educational (soon to be Entertaining) Comics, found him-
self presiding over a dying line. PICTURE STORIES FROM
THE BIBLE and FAT & SLAT just weren’t setting the pub-
lic on fire. So Bill turned to the then-hot genre of crime and
published CRIME PATROL and WAR AGAINST CRIME.
Never one to miss an opportunity, he also helmed SADDLE
JUSTICE, GUNFIGHTER, MODERN LOVE, and
SADDLE ROMANCES, and a little gem of a parody comic
called MAD. Then, in the back pages of CRIME PATROL #15, Gaines introduced
The Crypt Keeper, and the Horror Genre in comic books was officially born.
Gaines had some of the most talented artists in the business working for him. Jack
Davis, Wally Wood, “Ghastly” Graham Ingles, Jack Kamen, Harvey Kurtzman, and
Al Williamson, to name just a few, could all be counted on to turn in top-notch
stories month after month. And they really took off when the all the stops were pulled
out for the horror books.
THE VAULT OF HORROR, THE CRYPT OF TERROR,
THE HAUNT OF FEAR… if it slithered, slimed, crawled,
killed, maimed, or devoured, it found a home in the pages of
these books. No idea was too twisted, no image too terrifying
for Gaines’ Ghouls to illustrate for a white-knuckled public.
“O. Henry”-style twist endings abounded: a baseball player
who killed a rival was himself killed and his body parts used
to play a midnight ball game. In another, a dutiful wife found
that her husband, the butcher, had sold tainted meat that had
accidentally killed their son. Come the next morning, his
remains are proudly displayed in the meat case, while she stands glassy-eyed behind
the counter.
And science-fiction wasn’t neglected, either. There were books like WEIRD
SCIENCE, WEIRD FANTASY, and INCREDIBLE SCIENCE FICTION.
Rockets, spacemen, and a plethora of weird aliens populated these magazines, with
all the promise of the newly-born Atomic Age.
But then the unthinkable happened. The publication of
SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT in 1954 by
Dr. Frederic Wertham rocked the comic-publishing world.
Wertham claimed to be a crusader, obsessed with protecting
America’s youth. He claimed to have done a study of juvenile
delinquents that “proved” comic books had turned them into
criminals. Never mind that the majority of his subjects came
from broken homes or from parents who had had unfortunate
run-ins with the law; comic books, and comic books alone,
were the scourge of the country and had to be wiped out.
Today, a crackpot like Wertham would be laughed out of the media, but, much
like the infamous “Tail Gunner” Joe McCarthy and his “Red Scare”, people heard
Wertham’s message and took it to heart. The Supreme Court actually held hearings
on comic books, and, as the publisher of the most flagrantly horrific comics, William
Gaines took the stand. It was not a pretty sight.
In response to this incredible threat, and to avoid any kind of government interfer-
ence, comics publishers banded together and created their own Comics Code, which
specifically banned, for example, the words “Horror” and “Terror” from the title
of a comic book. It also banned vampires, werewolves, ghouls, zombies, and other
supernatural creatures from the pages of comics literature.
This seemed to satisfy Wertham and his allies. There are those
who say, however conspiratorially, that the Code was designed
to put EC, the most successful publisher of the day, out of
business. It all but succeeded.
In 1955, grasping at straws, Gaines inaugurated his “New
Trend” line of comics that included titles such as VALOR,
ACES HIGH, EXTRA, MD, and PSYCHOANALYSIS, all
designed to obtain Code-approval. None of them lasted the
year, and, except for a little book called MAD, which had been
converted to magazine format to avoid the Code, EC went quietly into that good
night.
Comics weren’t dead, however. Over at National Comics, BATMAN, SUPERMAN,
and WONDER WOMAN had been plugging along at a time when superheroes
were out of favor. However, now that the Code was in place, and horror and crime
comics were a thing of the past, it seemed like a good time for a resurrection of the
heroes of yore.
The Silver Age (1956- ca. 1970)
Julius Schwartz was a man of many talents. For years he had
been an agent for some of the nation’s top science-fiction
writers, including Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and H.P.
Lovecraft. By 1956, he was Editor-In-Chief of National
Periodical Publications (soon to become DC Comics), who
owned Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Looking
over the bleak comic book landscape of the day, Schwartz
decided that the time was right to bring back the superheroes
of yesteryear. Not just bring them back as they were, however,
but bring them back updated for a modern age.
In the pages of SHOWCASE #4 (cover dated October 1956), Schwartz reintroduced
the Sultan of Speed, the Vizier of Velocity… The Flash! After three more try-outs in
SHOWCASE, the Flash graduated to his own starring book, and the Silver Age of
Comics was born.
Hot on the heels of the revitalized Flash came other heroes of the Golden Age,
reinterpreted for a savvier audience. Hawkman, Green Lantern, the Atom… all were
reborn. And then, inevitably, subscribing to the theory that if one is good, more
is better, they all met in the pages of THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA,
the greatest gathering of heroes the world had ever known.
Across town, Martin Goodman, publisher of the struggling Atlas/Marvel line of
comics, wasn’t slow to pick up on this new trend. Atlas had been plugging along since
the establishment of the Comics Code, turning out lightweight monster yarns about
such Code-approved creatures as Tim-Boo-Bah, Fin Fang Foom, Grootah, Googam,
and Metallo. Tight scripts by Stan Lee, and imaginative artwork by Jack Kirby, Steve
Ditko, Larry Lieber, and others, made these books fun and exciting to read, but they
certainly weren’t setting the world on fire.
And then Martin Goodman made a momentous decision: since National had a
successful superhero team book, Marvel needed one also. Stan Lee was tasked with
creating it.
In collaboration with Jack Kirby, Lee produced the first issue
of THE FANTASTIC FOUR, which went on sale with
a cover date of November 1961. Made up of a quartet of
characters who had been exposed to cosmic radiation during
an unauthorized space flight. The group consisted of Reed
Richards, the highly elastic Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm, the
now-you-see-her-now-you-don’t Invisible Girl, Johnny Storm,
Sue’s brother, a reinterpreted Human Torch, and Ben Grimm,
the tragic, monstrous, super-strong Thing.
But this wasn’t just any super-group. The FF was a family. They fought amongst each
other, they had no secret identities, they had money and dating problems, and, for
the first couple of issues, they had no colorful costumes. Clearly, these were not your
father’s superheroes.
The Fantastic Four were a smash, and it didn’t take Stan and crew long to capitalize
on their success. Before long, Marvel introduced such icons as Spider-Man, Thor, the
Hulk, Iron Man, and the X-Men. Comics became hip with the college crowd, and,
by about 1964, comic collecting became an increasingly organized hobby.
The Silver Age was in full swing. Fueled in part by the bur-
geoning “Pop Art” movement championed by such influential
artists as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, both of which
drew inspiration from the four-color page, and stoked by the
growing number of fans on college campuses and in the “adult”
world, comics were “cool.” Batmania, a brief but intense
national obsession ignited in 1966 with the premiere of the
“Batman” TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward, helped
to kick the Silver Age into high gear, as even the day’s most
popular and powerful entertainment stars vied for a chance
to cross paths as colorful villains with the Gotham Guardian and his youthful ward.
“POW!,” ZAP!,” and “WHAM!” were the watchwords of the day, given life in glar-
ing, day-glo colors. Superman starred in his own Broadway musical, and superhero
cartoons rocked the airwaves on Saturday mornings. It was a good time to be a comic
character, as publishers, licensors and merchandisers were finding out.
It’s not as easy to precisely define the end of the Silver Age as it is to place the end of
other ages. Different people have different ideas about when this halcyon time came
to an end. Some say it happened as early as 1970 when Jack Kirby left Marvel to go to
DC and the first OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE was published.
Some say the release of CONAN #1 (October, 1970), and the birth of the “sword-
and-sorcery” genre in early 1971 is as good an ending date as any other. For many,
however, the Silver Age ended in 1973, when Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man’s girlfriend
and long-time love interest, was killed. Really killed. Not a hoax, not a dream, not an
imaginary story. For the first time, death was real in comics. For the first time, no one
was safe. “Happily ever after” was no longer a guarantee.
It was the end of innocence. It was the end of the Silver Age.
The Bronze Age (ca. 1970-1980)
But just because the Silver Age ended didn’t mean that comics
came to a crashing halt. Far from it. The form was alive and
well, and entering a new age with new artists and new ideas.
“Relevant” comics were big in the Bronze Age, with characters
like Green Lantern and Green Arrow (in stories masterfully
told by Denny O’Neill and Neal Adams) confronting such
topical issues as drug abuse, pollution, racism, and poverty.
Stan Lee actually challenged the Comics Code when he wrote
a story spanning AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #96-98 (1971)
that dealt with drug abuse. The Code refused to approve the
book, so Lee ran those three issues without the Code Seal. It had taken 15 years, but
the Comics Code armor was beginning to crack.
Other new, young creators began to enter the field as well,
bringing with them new sensibilities and new ideas. Bernie
Wrightson, Mike Ploog, Jim Starlin, Howard Chaykin…
these were just a few of the “young turks” that invaded the com-
ics industry during the Bronze Age. They were The Beatles of
comics. It was a time of experimentation and expansion, about
seeing how far the envelope could be pushed. It was a time of
transformation. For the first time, heroes began questioning
their motivations, just as their creators had been questioning
their government on topics ranging from Vietnam to drug en-
forcement laws for several years. Captain America, once the unflagging symbol of the
US of A, began to question his role as a symbol of America in light of the atrocities in
Southeast Asia that were then coming to light. Green Lantern explored a range of topical
issues, from racism to environmentalism to Native American concerns, all the while
questioning his current role as part of an intergalactic police
force. Even Lois Lane got into the act, going so far as to submit
to an experimental procedure that changed her from Cauca-
sian to African-American so she could better understand the
plight of blacks during the height of the Civil Rights era. It
was, indeed, a brave new world between the slick covers of
America’s comic books. But, as with all things, it too would
come to an end.
Many people see the end of the Bronze Age as some unde-
fined time in the late 1970s. Certainly, the “DC Implosion” of
1978, when DC Comics ceased publication of roughly a third of their titles, is a plau-
sible end. Also, it would not be remiss to note that 1980, with the election of Ronald
Reagan to the White House, saw a societal shift that was definitely felt in the comics
world. However you look at it, by 1980 the Bronze Age was well and truly over.
The Modern Age (ca. 1980-present)
Which brings us to the current age, the Modern Age of com-
ics. This has definitely been a period of booms and busts
for comics. Black and white comics were on fire in the early
1980s, led by the unlikely success of such garage-projects as
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES. Now you’d be
hard pressed to give them away. Speculators found comics in
the early 1990s. Like the prospectors who discovered “gold in
them thar hills,” they strip-mined the field for all it was worth,
buying and hoarding massive quantities of current comics,
certain that they’d be able to retire and live a life of ease on the
resale proceeds to be gained in just a few short years. A few short years later, they all
but lost their shirts and cratered the industry. The end of the century saw the rise of
trade paperbacks, which caused creators to rethink the ways in which comics were
traditionally packaged and marketed. Currently, a small but passionate group are
exploring the frontiers of web comics. A few, like Dallas-area cartoonist Scott Kurtz,
creator of PVP (www.pvponline.com), have found enormous success in this field, but
it’s still too early to know what the future of this branch of the industry will be.
The1980s also saw the influx of British creators to American
comics, in a move that has been termed “The Second British
Invasion.” Writers such as Alan Moore and artists including
Dave Gibbons, John Bolton, Brian Bolland, and Alan Davis
brought a new, fresh sensibility to comics. Moore and Gib-
bons created one of the most revolutionary works of the de-
cade with WATCHMEN, a book that was both popularly
and critically acclaimed, and is today considered one of the
cornerstones of comics literature. It artfully deconstructed the
superhero genre, and brought cape-and-cowl characters, some kicking and scream-
ing, into the new era.
Part of the second wave of British creators to make their marks
on the comics landscape, Neil Gaiman made his debut quietly
in the pages of a new horror comic, SANDMAN, published
by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. Within a dozen issues, the
original concept of SANDMAN as a horror comic was largely
forgotten, and the book became Gaiman’s canvas on which
he and a variety of artists could tell virtually any type of tale
they wished, from the mundane to the fantastic. An author
who has won numerous awards for both his comics and prose
fiction, Gaiman infamously won a World Fantasy Award for
Short Fiction in 1991 for his story, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” published in
SANDMAN #19 as part of “The Dream Country” storyline. “Infamously” as, since
that time, the World Fantasy Awards rules have been changed to prohibit a comic
book from ever again receiving this coveted honor. Fortunately, DC Comics has
chosen to keep the entirety of Gaiman’s SANDMAN work in print in a variety of
graphic novel formats.
Perhaps one of the most significant events in graphic novel history was the publi-
cation of Art Spiegelman’s MAUS: A SURVIVOR’S TALE in the pages of RAW
MAGAZINE in 1977. Collected into graphic novel form and issued as a trade paper-
back in two parts in 1991, Spiegelman deftly tells the story of his father’s experiences
as a Jew in Poland during the Holocaust. In order to tell the tale effectively, and to
allow himself some distance from the oftimes painful retelling, Spiegelman cast the
Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats.
Spiegelman’s treatment was so effective that MAUS won a Pulitzer Prize Special
Award for Letters in 1992, and has been in print in one form or another ever since. It
is a groundbreaking work, and one that should be read by anyone who has even the
slightest interest in events in Europe during the Nazi regime.
Today, the comics industry is as diverse as it’s ever been. Read-
ers and collectors can find comics to fit any taste, including
crime, horror, western, romance…. even superheroes! Major
bookstores carry comic books now, and their offshoots, the
“graphic novel.” Even more importantly, comics and comic
characters are entering people’s everyday lives through the
medium of big-budget movies, which are increasingly draw-
ing inspiration and subject matter from the four-color page.
In just the last few years, we’ve seen multi-million dollar
films focusing on the exploits of such spandex-clad superstars as Spider-Man, The
X-Men, Batman, the Hulk, Daredevil and Elektra, with Superman and Wonder
Woman soon to follow. In addition, films such as THE ROAD TO PERDITION,
You're reading the first 10 out of 24 pages of this docs, please download or login to readmore.
