Comic Book History, Fascinating
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by: Dave Gieber
The origins of the comic book are somewhat controversial
and perhaps the jury is still out on comic book history.
So lets go back to the cartoonish broadsheets of the
Middle Ages, which were parchment products, created by
anonymous woodcutters. These could have been the very
beginnings of the comic book.
As mass circulation of these broadsheets became
possible, they soon developed a market, particularly at
public executions, popular events for centuries (ugh),
which drew thousands of happy spectators. Many of these
spectators would invest in an artist\'s rendering of a
hanging or burning, and thus making a very lucky day for
the broadsheet seller.
The broadsheet evolved into higher-level content as
humor was introduced. Eventually, all types of
broadsheets emerged, which were eventually bound in
collections, the prototype of the modern magazine and
thus the comic book. Magazines formatted like the
popular Punch, an elegant British creation, became the
primary focus of documentary accounts of news and
events, fiction and humor.
One can see in Punch, the sophisticated evolution of a
comic book style, particularly in respect of the
evolution of comics in Great Britain. Still and all,
from an historical standpoint, the comic strip, and
later the comic book, stood in the alley, waiting to be
born. And then some say Great Britain\'s Ally Sloper\'s
\"Half Alley\" was the first comic book. This was a
black and white tabloid that had panels of cartoons
mixed with a sliver of news; circa 1884.
Now while all this was going on in Great Britain, this
inching towards the comic book, the United States had
its own brand of evolution. Instead of magazines, US
newspapers took the lead in creating the comic book
industry.
Newspapers, with their first steps, took their single
image gags and evolved them into multi-paneled comic
strips. It was during this period that William Randolph
Hearst scored a knockout with the Yellow Kid, which was
actually printed in yellow ink.
So where did the actual comic book begin? Some say it
was with reprints of Carl Schultz\' Foxy Grandpa, from
1901 to 1905. Although others say it was Great
Britain\'s Ally Sloper\'s Half Alley. In 1902, Hearst
published the Katzenjammer Kids and Happy Hooligan in
books with cardboard covers.
For a time, the Yellow Kid himself was a top contender.
But it depends how rigid you are in your description of
a comic book. These examples, for sure, were
predecessors to the modern comic book, which exploded in
the 1930\'s.
The Whitman Publishing Company, in 1934, became one of
the pre-launchers for the modern comic book. They
published forty issues of Famous Comics, which was a
black and white hardcover reprint. The first regularly
published comic book in the more recognizable modern
format though, was Famous Funnies. It featured such
memorable characters as Joe Palooka, Buck Rogers and
Mutt and Jeff.
Superheroes as we know them today took a strong foothold
in the 1930\'s. In 1938, Max C. Gaines, who was one of
the comic industry giants, brought \"Superman\" to Dell
Comics publisher, Harry Donenfield.
Donenfield scored the comic coup of the century when he
published a story written by two teenagers, Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster- and so \"Superman of Metropolis\" (the
title of their short story they wrote in their own
fanzine) was born. Superman was to set a standard for
comic book heroes that persist to this day.
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