Comic Books

Comic Books

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While the comic book genre has traditionally been considered a form of children's entertainment, that distinction has almost never been entirely true. In fact, at the turn of the twenty-first century, the bulk of comic books produced in North America were aimed at an adolescent or adult audience.

Related forms include the comic strip, panel narratives (which date from the late nineteenth century in American newspapers), and the graphic novel, a long-form pictorial narrative, generally published as a book instead of the more ephemeral pamphlet form; the best-known graphic novels are Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize–winning Maus (1986) and Maus II (1991). The term comics mistakenly connotes humor, which is not an integral part of the form. This difficulty is mitigated in other linguistic traditions, such as French, which uses the term bande dessinée ("drawn strip");

Italian, which uses fumetti ("puffs of smoke," referring to speech balloons); and Spanish, which uses historieta ("little stories"). The Japanese term, manga, originally meant "humorous sketches," although that connotation no longer holds, and today the term is seen as a neutral way to indicate comics.

Background and History

There is much debate over the definition of the term comicbook. Some critics such as Scott McCloud would argue that any narrative told with words and pictures could be considered a comic book. Others might place into this category any book that contains comic strip–like stories, such as those of the nineteenth-century Swiss humorist Rodolphe Töpffer or the adventures found in Max und Moritz (1865) by the nineteenth-century German illustrator and poet Wilhelm Busch.

The most common use of the term, however, denotes periodical publications in which the narrative is told through a combination of words and pictures, generally arranged in the form of comic strip panels on the page. Early periodicals like Comic Monthly (1922) and, later, the tabloid-sized Famous Funnies (1934–1955) contained reprints of newspaper comic strips. The intended audience for such publications was both children and adults, as both groups would be drawn to characters familiar from newspaper reading. Historian Ron Goulart notes in his Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History (2000) that the first periodical to feature all-new content was Dell Publishing's short-lived weekly publication The Funnies (1929–1930). In 1935 Dell again published a tabloid with all-new material, New Fun, which quickly dropped in size from tabloid to magazine, making it the first genuine comic book of new material produced in America.

Burgeoning Popularity

While initially popular, the new form took a few years to become a cultural force. Originally created by teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for possible newspaper strip publication, the adventures of Superman first appeared in Action Comics (June 1938). Public reception of the character was immediate and overwhelming;

Superman, a separate comic book established a year after the character's first appearance, sold in excess of one million copies an issue by 1940. Other costumed heroes followed, including Batman (in 1939), created by cartoonist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger; the patriotic Captain America (in 1941), created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; and Wonder Woman (in 1942), created by psychologist William Moulton Marston. Superheroes engaged in the war effort in their pages during World War II; covers to the Captain America series, for example, urged readers to buy war bonds.

Superheroes were not the only popular comics at this time, however. Animal comic books, epitomized by the Disney line published by Dell Comics, were also successful. The Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories by Carl Barks (whose work remained uncredited for years, as did the works of all Disney cartoonists) continue to be highly regarded for their adventure, humor, and visual accomplishment. Westerns were especially popular in the 1940s and 1950s, with television and film stars like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, as well as characters like The Lone Ranger, starring in titles of their own, usually with photo covers.

So-called teen comics, particularly the Archie series, found popularity with pre-teen audiences, especially girls. Romance comics (a genre created in the 1950s by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who had created the Captain America series in the 1940s) also attracted predominantly female readers, although the stories in such comic books generally were created by men and upheld traditional gender roles.

The 1940s and 1950s: Crusade against Comic Books

Crime and horror comics, two genres that became popular after World War II, ignited a great deal of controversy. Featuring the sensational exploits of larger-than-life criminals (who enjoyed popularity in film and other media, as well) or gruesome revenge tales with monstrous protagonists, these comic books, with titles like Vault of Horror –published by E.C. (Entertaining Comics)–were admired by both children and adults. While the stories usually featured morality tales in which crime or evil is duly punished in the end, along the way there was plenty of opportunity for graphic gore.

These comics soon fell under the eye of educators and librarians. Like the comics that preceded them in the 1920s and 1930s, these comic books were seen to have a detrimental effect on children's reading habits. Some educators felt that the use of words and pictures together threatened the literacy of young readers. A more cogent argument was that most of these comics were not always well-written.

The most persuasive arguments of all had to do with story content. The campaign against "crime comics," as they were called, was led by the radical psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, whose Seduction of the Innocent (1954) was excerpted beforepublication in Ladies Home Journal. Based on Wertham's clinical research, it argued that violent and sexual imagery in comic books contributed to juvenile delinquency. Wertham was among the many witnesses who testified at the 1954 U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. As a result of these inquiries, and to protect themselves from further intervention and possible governmental control, many of the largest comic book publishers of the day banded together to create the Comics Code Authority (CCA), a selfgoverning censorship board. The goal of the CCA was to ensure that all published comic books would be perceived as wholesome family entertainment. The CCA required that depictions of parents, police, and other authority figures could not be portrayed as corrupt; crime could never succeed; the female body had to be drawn realistically, not lasciviously; drug use could not be shown or described; and that monsters such as vampires or zombies could not be portrayed at all. Amy Kiste Nyberg discusses the history of the CCA in great detail in her Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code (1998).

These standards effectively limited the scope of comic book stories to those which could best be described as entertaining but blandly inoffensive. Comic book publishing thus became, for a decade, a practice aimed solely at entertaining children. While horror and crime and romance comics were still published, they were done so in far tamer, more conservative forms. E.C.'s popular satire MAD could not survive under the CCA; therefore, its format was changed to a black- and-white magazine, thus exempting it from the code governing traditional comic books. Of the major comics publishers, only Dell and Classics Illustrated did not join the CCA; their wholesome content assured that their books would be distributed widely even without the CCA seal.

Rebirth for Readers of All Ages

In the 1960s two different forces acted to broaden comics readership outside of young children. Beginning in 1961, Stan Lee, the publisher of Marvel Comics, in concert with artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, re-invigorated the superhero genre with characters like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange, whose exploits combined cosmic adventure with soap opera–style narratives. Marvel Comics became popular with both children and older readers, with comic book clubs forming on college campuses across the country.

Near the end of the 1960s, underground comics (or comix ) gained countercultural relevance. Cartoonists like R. Crumb, Trina Robbins, and Art Spiegelman, among many others, began publishing and distributing their own comic books through drug paraphernalia shops (or "head shops," bypassing traditional newsstand distribution (and thereby the CCA, as well). Influenced by youth movements of the day, these comic books tackled a wide variety of topics, breaking taboos with gusto and offering social and political commentary to their adult readers. Many of these comics outwardly resembled funny animal and other comics from the 1950s, which the cartoonists had grown up reading. The books also often featured parodies of the CCA symbol, a sarcastic reminder that two decades before, comic books did not have to rely on underground distribution if they wanted to address an adult audience.

While mainstream comics did not change drastically after the emergence of the underground comics, they did challenge CCA restrictions. When the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Marvel Comics to promote drug awareness in its Amazing Spider-Man comic book, the CCA refused to approve the resultant three issues (numbers 96–98). Marvel published the books anyway in early 1971, and the publicity helped lead to a revision in the code, in part due to changed attitudes regarding the suitability of certain types of material for younger readers.

The Code was revised again in 1989, and while it is still in existence, it does not hold sway as it once did. The rise of comic book shops in the 1980s–along with the direct market distribution system, bypassing newsstand distribution altogether–resulted in fewer comic books being sold by newsstands. At the same time, this system enabled many new and smaller companies to print fewer copies of titles than their competitors and still make a profit. These so-called alternative comics made it possible for titles to be directed at smaller markets and produced comics on subjects that had not been profitable in decades, including nonfiction, fantasy, and humor.

While most of the alternative comics are intended for adult readers, others are designed with children in mind. Comics like Jeff Smith's Bone series, a nine-volume fantasy epic that began in 1991, is for young and old alike; portions were re-serialized in Disney Adventures magazine. Linda Medley's Castle Waiting series, which began in 1996, investigates what happens to peripheral fairy tale characters once the fairy tale ends. Her female-centered fantasies are as thought provoking for adults as they are enchanting for younger readers. Medley includes in her comic books and in their collected version guides for teachers, activities for children, and guides to further reading in comic books as well as traditional literary forms. Editors Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, responsible for the avant-garde comics anthology RAW in the 1980s and 1990s, began in 2000 to produce Little Lit, a hardcover, annual anthology specifically designed for child readers. The first volume, subtitled Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (2000), and the second, Strange Stories for Strange Kids (2001), combine reprints of classic children's comics with newly produced stories by cartoonists and children's book illustrators.

Works influenced by Japanese manga, in addition to translations of manga, are another group of contemporary comic books deserving special attention. Both the visual style and the storytelling techniques of manga –such as open page designs and stories that continue over multiple volumes–are appearing with greater frequency in the works of newer American superhero and fantasy artists, who look increasingly to Japan for artistic inspiration.

Comics and Other Media

Early newspaper cartoonists, eager to expand their audience (and their profits), often licensed their characters to the burgeoning film industry. Winsor McCay, creator of the Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905–1911; 1911–1913; 1924–1926) and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904–1913) comic strips, early on created his own animated cartoons by hand. Often based upon his comic-strip characters, his films, such as Gertie, the Dinosaur (1914), are regarded as hallmarks of early animation.

Comic book characters were soon licensed as well, with the most popular example being Superman. Within only a few years of the character's debut in 1938, Superman could be seen in the daily newspapers, heard on radio, and seen in motion-picture serials on Saturday afternoons. In the 1950s the Superman television series attracted new readers; shortly thereafter, it became one of the early color series. A decade later, the Batman television series brought a more faithful adaptation of a comic book character to the small screen; whereas the Superman series kept the comics' science fiction and super-villain elements to a minimum, Batman reveled in the exploits of classic villains like Catwoman and the Joker. Its high-camp, pop-art approach, however, reinforced for the general public that comic books were inherently trivial, childish material.

Hollywood has looked increasingly to comic books and strips for source material, producing films like Superman (1978), Batman (1989), Dick Tracy (1990), The X-Men (2000), Spider-Man (2002), and The Hulk (2003). Adaptations of lesser-known comic books, such as Men in Black (1997) and The Road to Perdition (2002) have proved successful as well, even though they were directed at an older (adolescent or adult) audience.

Most publishers of comics feature company- and character-related web sites, and newer cartoonists have found the Internet to be an effective way to get their work seen by a larger audience, often leading to eventual print publication. While there were some attempts in the 1990s at creating CD-rom comic books, the format never caught on with the public. Electronic comics remain more promotional tools and experiments, rather than an obvious new frontier in publishing.

See also: Children's Literature; Series Books; Tintin and Hergé .

bibliography

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Gene Kannenberg Jr.