History of comics
Comics are a relatively young art: a little more than 80 years have passed since the beginning of the “golden age” of comics. During this time, the genre managed to survive the ups, downs, becoming more and less popular. Today comics are back at the peak of popularity, not least thanks to Hollywood adaptations. And the specific style of drawing and storytelling still finds millions of fans. Let’s try to figure out a little bit more about the history of this art.
Why do people read comics?
Actually, the reason why people read comics is simple: most of us, about 65% of people, are “visuals”. It is much easier for us to get information in the form of pictures than in the form of text. Approximately 50% of the cerebral cortex is involved in the processing of visual information – more than any other channel of perception.
Therefore, by the way, psychologists often recommend instilling in children a love of reading precisely through comics – it is more likely that this will make it easier for the child to enjoy the plot and remember new facts. For adults, comics are a great example of synthesized art. It has everything: an exciting story, rich dialogues, vivid illustrations, omnipotent heroes, and the ability to stay with your favorite comics as long as possible, for many episodes.
How the comic book industry began
Some historians argue that cave paintings of ancient people can be considered the forerunners of comics. Scribbled on the walls of the caves, the stories about hunting, life, the change of seasons really remotely resemble classic comics. But most researchers take the events of the 16th century as the starting point of comic culture. Then in Valencia and Barcelona people began to sell pictures with captions illustrating biblical stories. For two centuries, “painted stories” spread from Spain to all of Europe, went beyond the religious theme, and became completely secular.
The godfathers of a genre
The “godfathers” of the genre are considered the British cartoonist and painter Thomas Rowlandson and the Swiss artist Rodolphe Toepfer. The first is best known as the author of illustrations to the poem by William Combe “The Journey of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque.” It was published in the 1810s in the popular “Poetic Magazine” and had incredible success. It was soon even published as a separate book. So, in fact, the first graphic novel appeared. Thanks to Rowlandson, it became fashionable to place a series of caricatures in newspapers and magazines. Rodolphe Toepfer worked alone.
He drew humorous stories about his heroes – the ambitious dandy Mr. Jabot, the hapless father of Monsieur Crepey and others – and accompanied them with funny signatures. The artist showed his works to his friends and kept them at home. Fortunately, among the friends was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the author of Faust. He convinced Toepfer to publish albums since the technology of mass printing of images appeared in neighboring France. They immediately made a fuss; the most popular was “The Story of Monsieur Vieux-Bois” (in the American version – “The Adventures of Mr. Obadaya Oldbuck”), which was published in 1837 and was then translated into different languages.
The development
The newest genre began to quickly spread around the world and found fans in different countries. Humor, often black, remained a characteristic feature of the first comics. In 1865, the German poet and illustrator Wilhelm Busch, for example, published a drawing for children, Max and Moritz, about mischievous boys who were punished in the finale by grinding with millstones. The text and images in the book are closely intertwined, which is another future sign of the genre.
At the end of the 19th century, comics began to be released in the United States. One of the first was Richard Outkolt’s “Yellow Kid”, which appeared in the Sunday edition of the New York World newspaper since 1895. It was in this comic that a “cloud” first appeared to display the words and thoughts of a character – before that, the lines were placed directly on clothes or at the bottom of the frame. By the way, the publisher of the newspaper was Joseph Pulitzer, whose name bears the highest journalistic award.
Golden age
For a long time, comics could not be bought separately – the adventures of the popular characters Flash Gordon, Tintin, Buck Rogers were sold as an addition to newspapers and magazines. But in the 1930s, publications devoted exclusively to stories of this type began to appear in the United States. And in 1938, the first issue of Action Comics magazine came out with Superman on the cover – it was destined to become one of the most iconic comic book heroes of all time. From this moment the “golden age” of comics began, which lasted until the 1950s. During this period, dozens of superheroes were created, which we know perfectly well today: Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Green Lantern, and others.
Dark age – modernity
About 35 years ago, the “Bronze Age”, which came after the “Golden” one, smoothly flowed into the “Dark age”, which continues to this day. The comic book code at this time becomes a mere formality, and then completely ceases to exist. Without fear of censorship, the authors introduce antiheroes to the pages (let’s say, heroes that were secondary become the main ones) and create plots one darker than the other.
