About Comics
Something magical happens when you combine sequential pictures with a story, and that alchemy has produced legions of comic strip and comic book fans. Comics are as diverse as any other literary mediums, with visual gags, novel-length stories and even a Pulitzer Prize-winning historical piece (Art Spiegelman's "Maus") within the medium.
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History
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Comic strips grew out of the newspaper circulation wars of the late 1800s in New York City. Each newspaper vied to hire the best cartoonist, as comic strips were known circulation builders. Comic strips grew in popularity, and the top strips were distributed to many newspapers by syndicates. For years, the most popular strips featured the serial adventures of such characters as Steve Canyon and Lil' Abner, before giving way to the joke-a-day gag strips. A few of these provided a sophisticated mirror to society, such as Charles Schulz's "Peanuts." Although there have been standout strips like "Doonesbury" and "Calvin and Hobbes" in recent decades, the newspaper strips have declined in the public view as newspapers themselves have taken a back seat to first television, and now new media including the Internet.
Effects
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Comic books appeared in the 1930s, originally reprinting the most popular newspaper strips of the day, but soon featured original material. Millions of comic books sold during World War II as superheros such as Superman and Captain America battled Nazis and the Japanese. In the 1950s, comics were branded as a cause of juvenile delinquency and they declined rapidly. Marvel Comics led a resurgence of comic books in the 1960s as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created heroes such as Spiderman, reflecting contemporary culture. Underground comics appeared in the 1960s with the explosion of youth culture, with explicit references to sex, drugs and rock and roll. After another decline in the '70s, comic books bounced back as a series of indy/alternative artists applied their talents to the medium, notably Art Spiegelman with his groundbreaking graphic novel "Maus" in 1986. Today, the graphic novel has established itself as a viable art form while superhero comics have retreated to genre status, feeding material to summer blockbuster movies.
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Features
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The various forms of comics--comic strips, editorial cartoons, comic books, manga novels, underground comics, comic anthologies and graphic novels--share certain features. Comics are a narrative art form, where the story is drawn by an artist or artists and the words are drawn into the art inside a word balloon. A comic strip in a newspaper typically runs three or four panels, which are little squares including the words and pictures. A comic book features page after page of panels, consisting of a narrative constructed of words and pictures. The term graphic novel refers to a long comic story packaged as a trade book for sale in bookstores and comics specialty shops.
Misconceptions
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Historically, the majority of comic books have been produced for children--thus the persistent misconception that comics are for children only. With the advent of the more sophisticated Marvel Comics and especially the underground comics of the 1960s, older readers were attracted to comic books. Today's graphic novels may be aimed at a number of audiences, with many literary graphic novels pointed at an exclusively adult readership. Notable cartoonists that write for an adult audience include R. Crumb, Julie Doucet, Mary Fleener, J.R. Williams, Phoebe Gloeckner, Steve Lafler, Keith Knight and the trio of Jaime, Mario and Gilbert Hernandez, the brothers famous for "Love and Rockets."
Benefits
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Comics are an unparalleled medium for artistic expression, where a talented artist can create a complete artistic vision single-handedly. They are often used as a commercial medium, too, because the impact of a color visual paired with words is so strong. Comics can also be used as a teaching tool, because the sequential narrative is a good technique for reinforcing concepts. Reading and collecting comics can be habit-forming.
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