Forms of Comics and Their Cultural Meaning
FORMS OF COMICS AND THEIR CULTURAL MEANING
Comic art is a nice way of visual storytelling and it has been loved by many people all around the world. In this paper, I will be focusing on American, European and Japanese comic forms and cultures.
American Comics
The format of American comics are mainly multi page thin periodicals, which have coloured graphics. Most common are the weekly periodicals. Popular American comic culture started with Superman in 1938 and the concept of superheros became very beloved also in many different comics. There are also the book-length comics which include a number of issues, and they are called “graphic novels”.
Nowadays, a big percentage of comic readers think that comics are disrespectable and they try to live in their comfort zones with other “geeks”, although to my opinion it is not logical for them to isolate themselves from the “others” because of their hobbies, especially if it is comics.
European Comics
European comics format is monthly or weekly coloured magazines. “Comic album” is a term for a comic book, which has seperated short comics, printed on high quality paper. I personally don’t have much information about European comic culture, but there are some examples which are famous worldwide: Tintin, Asterix etc.
Japanese Comics
Japanese Comics are called “manga” and comics are really popular in the japanese culture. People of almost all ages read manga, which has a wide range of variety of topics for example like action, adventure, romance, historical drama etc. Japanese manga are mainly weekly black and white magazines which can be more than a hundred pages each. There are also books including collected comics which were really successful and these books are called tankobon.
As we can see from this short summary of comics understanding in different cultures, we can claim that comics are not just graphics with speech bubbles for kids. They have their own community and visual design quality, which makes it
Comic art is a nice way of visual storytelling and it has been loved by many people all around the world. In this paper, I will be focusing on American, European and Japanese comic forms and cultures.
American Comics
The format of American comics are mainly multi page thin periodicals, which have coloured graphics. Most common are the weekly periodicals. Popular American comic culture started with Superman in 1938 and the concept of superheros became very beloved also in many different comics. There are also the book-length comics which include a number of issues, and they are called “graphic novels”.
Nowadays, a big percentage of comic readers think that comics are disrespectable and they try to live in their comfort zones with other “geeks”, although to my opinion it is not logical for them to isolate themselves from the “others” because of their hobbies, especially if it is comics.
European Comics
European comics format is monthly or weekly coloured magazines. “Comic album” is a term for a comic book, which has seperated short comics, printed on high quality paper. I personally don’t have much information about European comic culture, but there are some examples which are famous worldwide: Tintin, Asterix etc.
Japanese Comics
Japanese Comics are called “manga” and comics are really popular in the japanese culture. People of almost all ages read manga, which has a wide range of variety of topics for example like action, adventure, romance, historical drama etc. Japanese manga are mainly weekly black and white magazines which can be more than a hundred pages each. There are also books including collected comics which were really successful and these books are called tankobon.
As we can see from this short summary of comics understanding in different cultures, we can claim that comics are not just graphics with speech bubbles for kids. They have their own community and visual design quality, which makes it