history of comics

At its simplest, a comic book is a series of words and pictures that are presented in a sequential manner to form a narrative that may or may not be humorous (McCloud 1993). Originating in the United States in the late 1800s, the comic book contains everyday language, slang, and idiom, as well as color and a sophisticated interplay between text and image—all serving a therapeutic, explanatory, and commercial purpose in American culture. Traditionally occupying the fringes of pop culture, the comic book is actually a valuable historical text that comments on how young people and adults alike identify with cultural and political issues. As such, a comic book is much more than just a series of words and pictures with marginal cultural importance. Indeed, given its complex cultural and commercial role, a definition of “comic book” raises an amalgam of theoretical debates about sequence, narrative, image, text, genre, and art as well as its relation to other genres, such as children’s literature (Meskin 2007). At the very least, comic books can be seen as a result of pressures by artists and consumers as well as by the historical forces acting on both groups. Much more than just a form of entertainment for kids, comic books are a serious and sophisticated art form that both feeds off of and creates cultural formulas and historical constructs.

Since the 1960s the comic book industry has been dominated by the two major publishers of superhero books—Marvel and Detective Comics (DC). DC’s official name for almost 50 years was National Periodical Publication; Marvel was known as Timely Comics from 1939 to about 1950, and then as Atlas Comics for much of the 1950s. Many comic book fans often use the concept of “ages” to distinguish periods of comic book history that share concerns, storytelling techniques, marketing strategies, styles of art and writing, and approach to genre conventions (Coogan 2006). These ages can roughly be distinguished as the Golden (1938-1956),