HISTORY OF COMICS

Comics are commonly considered to be the invention of  the 19th century. However,  they have antecedents in  the Middle Ages. By means of  the printing press, images were produced for a mass audience. Before the invention of the printing press, there had been illustrations, paintings, and other artworks designed for public view. Narratives in sequential pictures have also had an important role, particularly Trajan's Column in Rome (AD 113) and the Bayeux Tapestry in Normandy (c. 1100). 

However, in order to see these images, people had to travel. After the invention of the printing press, images could travel to the people.

In England, the "broadsheets'' are known nowadays to have been the precursors of comics. They were  produced on a single side of paper, and were focused on subjects such as religion and current affairs. As Sabin Roger argues in his work Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels:A History of Comic Art

These [broadsheets]were hawked by sellers in the streets and ussually they included words as well as pictures, although the audience would have been assumed to be illiterate. [...] Certainly, these shhets show evidence of word balloons and speed-lines, as well as a certain level of  dexterity in juxtaposing words and images. Also, panelled borderswere not uncommon (the first religious sheets were sometimes subdivided like altarpieces).Thus, the idea that the language of comics was solely the invention of the modern era is manifestly mistaken (11).

The next step involving the broadsheets and their circulation was the development of an industry that revolved around public executions, where artists' impressions of the events were sold as souvenirs.

Afterwards, a market for humourous sheets was established and caricatures of famous people and funny illustrations began to appear. The audience was comprised of people from the middle-class, who had some knowledge of politics. These broadsheets were known as comicals, or occasionally as comics. Roger Sabin also argues that “One important aspect of this shift towards humour was the subversive power of pictorial satire [that] was felt for the first time“ (12).  However, despite the consequences, artists' continued their work even though, at times, they found themselves in danger. Some were imprisoned, attacked or even assassinated.

Later on, a network of print shops emerged,  where the sheets could be produced and sold. By the 1820s  a  ''satire industry" developed. It was based in London and had branches in every major city in the country. Some of the most famous cartoonists at the time were: William Hogarth (1697-1764), James Gillray (1757-1815), George Cruickshank (1792-1878) and Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827).

The first main genre of comics was comprised of “documentaries“. These were  prose articles with illustrations. The most famous examples were the Illustrated London News (1842), and the Illustrated Police News (1864). 

The second main genre was made up of fictional story papers.  These were serialized prose stories  with pictures, with tales about criminals, anti-aristocratic romances, and popular gothic novels, Black Rollo, the Pirate (1864), Wild Boys (1865) and Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1878). 

The third kind of magazines were humorous. These publications were a mix of text and illustrations, but much more visual than the other two genres. The boom was started by Punch (1841).

These cartoon magazines were almost similar to comics due to some important features: more pictures than text, more strips and slapstick. The only thing these comics lacked was the central continuing  character. This changed with Alexander Sloper, a character who appeared in Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (Gilbert Dalziel, 1884), a cheap, black-and-white tabloid that mixed strips, cartoons and prose stories.  

From the start, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday was sold through newsagents, like other magazines. Then it was discovered that people enjoyed reading the publication while travelling by train, and it was promoted through railway kiosks. The comic thus became known as railway literature. As Sabin argues:

Sloper was a vehicle through which cartoonists could comment upon Victorian leisure. When he was on half holiday, he visited the local pub, the races, and, above all, the seaside. Often he did this alone, but sometimes he was accompanied by his daughter Tootsie, (the first female character to be successfull in a comic) and his Jewish friend Ikey Mo (15).

So, in a way, he represented the prototypical middle-class man who traveled around the country. Other similar examples included: Illustrated Bits (1885) and CH Ross's Variety Paper (1887). Pre 1914 comics included Funny Cuts, Snap Shots, The Joker, The World's Comic, Larks!  and The Funny Wonder (later  The Wonder).

These new comics attracted criticism. They were considered a threat to literacy due to the fact that:

First, any publication based on pictures was deemed to be automatically inferior to prose material:reading was associated with an improving ethic, whereas stripes and cartoons had the opposite effect. Secondly, it was argued that the close print in the new comics was bad for the eyesight (19).

Another critique was raised by the conservatives who put forward the cultural issue. The fact that comics were so popular meant they became symbols of the nation's declining standards. However, these critics came too late, as the comics industry was solidly established and fast growing. 

In the United States, comics were newspaper strips. In the beginning , these newspaper strips were black-and-white, limited-panel gags at the bottom of a page. However, in a short while, they grew into full-colour supplements, usually between four and eight pages in length. These supplements appeared every Sunday, and became known as "the Sunday Funnies''. Some important names of cartoonists and comics which appeared at the time were Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault (1896), Winsor Mc Cay's Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905).

In spite of the growing interest in newspaper strips, American comics were highly criticized in a similar way to their British counterpart: the mix of words and pictures was considered lowbrow, trashy and detrimental to "proper'' reading. However the prejudices were made on  religious and racial grounds. Some extreme Christians resented the fact that comics were published on a Sunday, but not much could be done to solve the matter, as the comics industry in America was too well-established.

In the American history of comics, scholars have used the concept of “ages“ to distinguish different important periods in the comic book history. The main difference between them are the shared concerns, storytelling techniques, marketing strategies, styles of art and writing, and approach to genre conventions. These ages are now identified as the Golden (1938-1956), Silver (1956-1971), Bronze (1971-1980), Iron (1980-1987), and Modern (1987-present).

During  the Golden Age, characters such as Superman were created. Then, starting from 1939,  Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, The Flash, and Green Lantern appeared. This period was called the Golden Age due to the fact that these characters offered a new genre of entertainment. 

After WWII, between 1956-1971 during the Silver Age of comics, comic books lost readers and publishers due to several reasons:  lack of purpose, competition from television, investigations of the Senate into the cultural influence of the comic book industry. The most damaging to the comic book industry was Dr. Fredric Wertham’s book The Seduction of the Innocent, which accused some comic books of corrupting the young and inciting them to violence.  Thus, the Comics Code Authority was created as a way to self-police the industry. Slowly, the industry recovered.  The superheroes of this period  were Hulk and Spiderman.

During the Bronze Age (1971-1980) comic book sales continued to decline, but some companies such as DC and Marvel  enjoyed profits from Saturday cartoons such as Superfriends, Batman, Wonder Woman, Incredible Hulk , Fantastic Four, Star Wars.

During the Iron Age (1980-1987), many of the heroes die, such as Captain Marvel, Batman, and Watchmen’s anti-hero Rorschach, due to the influence of post modern concepts such as reflexivness and the problem of death. Profits increase due to the development of the industry and the creation of specialized comic book retail outlets.

As for the Modern Age (the 1990s),  as Peter Coogan argues in his book Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre

comics became top collector items, only less popular than stamps and coins. Even though comic books in 1990s had a smaller audience than in previous eras, this audience was willing to buy more and pay more. Marvel became the first comic book publisher to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991 (13).

Another major issue of the Modern Age is that advanced computer-generated imagery. Therefore, superhero fights and powers looked as fantastic and seamless as they did on the comic page. 

WRITTEN BY RUXANDRA MANEA

EDITED BY ANTONIA GIRMACEA AND EDUARD GHITA