: To recall the entire history of comic art in one area of the page and in one lifetime would be impossible. But hopefully this area should cover a good number of the highlights. Read on and enjoy!
simple, scribes were servants and nothing more. They wrote and drew only what they were told to write and draw. Perhaps I should also make it clear that what I’m speaking are not hieroglyphics, but murals. Glyphs were a means of writing and although some may refer to it as picture writing , they are words none-the-less. Being words, they only constitute a part of comics, and most importantly, they do not show the passage of time. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Atzecs and Maya of central Mexico and the Yucatan penninsula (whose art and architecture were eerily similar to the Egyptians) were creating their own archaic comics. These went a step further in that they dealt heavily with mythological events, as well. A good example is an Aztec piece which Cortez stumbled upon during the invasion by the Spanish conquistadors It tells the story of a folk hero named 8-Deer Tiger’s Claw as he deafeats a ruling Aztec family, killing the heirs off one-by-one. Both the Aztec and Egyption murals are read in a zig-zag style and are brightly colored. Several of you are quite possibly growing tired of waiting for me to explain my phrase archaic comic art , so I might as well pause for a moment and tell you. Though Eisner and McCloud both describe comics as sequential art . IHMO (In My Humble Opinion),
comics are a combination of art and the written word and these either possesed no writing at all or the two were kept separate by a blank space (this was the case in Egypt and Mexico) or panel. Therefore, they are sequential art and not a true comic. Please keep in my that this is my own personal theory and not necessarily correct. To put it simply, my impression of a true comic is worded sequential art where at some point, the characters seem to have their own free will and are not a puppet of an unseen narrator . In an archaic comic, both components can exist successfully apart. The only fallibility I can see to this is some stream-of-conciousness writing, where the story is told through an above panel acting as a character’s thoughts.
: In medieval Japan, an elite audience, consisting of only the upper class created scrolls combining art and words which were limited in number, due to the fact that printing had not yet been invented. In Europe, specifically northern Europe, an excellent example of the archaic comic was created, or should I say, woven. The Bayeux Tapestry was a LONG cloth retelling the events of the Norman Conquest of England in chronological order. It read from left-to-right and although there were no separating panels and the pictures were merged, short discriptions of particular sections (events) helped the reader tell that they were moving forward in time. Only a few centuries later, Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press, allowing comics to be purchased by the masses. The original forms were all created by woodcutting. Since the peasants were uneducated and illiterate, archaic comics were a perfect method of allowing both nobles and workers to read the same thing. Biblical stories were the order of the day, of course, because few could actually read the bible. Scott McCloud explained one such work, titled The Tortures of Saint Erasmus in his own literal comic art bible, Understanding Comics. It consisted mostly of the unfortunate saint undergoing various forms of pain from flogging, to being boiled alive, to decaptitation. Violence was highlighted in such tales because it aroused immediate interest. Some things haven’t changed.
: After a long disappearance of archaic comic art (due to a growing literacy rate and changes in printing methods) they reemerged in Europe with the return of woodcutting. An astounding evolution was made by William Hogarth, an artist whose work was heavily influenced social issues of the day.
In 1731, he created a series of six paintings called A Harlot’s Progress that were later printed as a portfolio. When the six pieces were on exhibit, they were placed in a specific order, to tell a story in sequence. Harlot’s and it’s sequel, A Rake’s Progress became so popular that they were the first works of archaic comic art to be copyrighted. Jumping ahead a bit to the mid-nineteenth century, we encounter a certain Rudolphe Topffer who could truly be considered the father of modern comics. Topffer published stories featuring cartoonish characters, panels, and the humor was greatly satirical. It is in his drawings that the words and art began to become greatly dependent upon eachother to make each panel work. The man had a shortcoming, though: he considered his cartoons to be nothing but a simple hobby, devoid of any artistic merit. The German playwrite, Goethe, may have put it best: If for the future, he would choose a less frivolous subject and restrict himself a little, he would produce things beyond all conception.
among the more well-known artists of this style. Woodcutting became so popular that entire papers (actually, some were closer to tabloids) sprung up which consisted mainly of elaborate woodcuts.
the team had wanted to break into newspapers, but their attempts were unsuccessful and they eventually landed a job at National Periodicals. Since the two were working during the Depression, they were paid by the page and couldn’t afford art paper so most of their early works were drawn on brown grocery bags. When National made plans to publish a second title, called Action Comics, Siegel and Shuster sold an idea for a strip featuring a stoic- looking man dressed in blue tights adorned with a red cape lifting a car high over his head. He was given the name of Superman, and comics would never be the same.
evil. Most were laughable and possessed rather bizarre super-powers. A new door was opened with a character published by Timely Comics (later called Marvel Comics, the most successful company today) named Captain Marvel. All young Billy Batson had to do was say the magic word, Shazam (a combination of the first letters in the names of several ancient Greek gods), and would instantaneously transform into Marvel, the World’s Mightiest Mortal. The title had a few interesting plot twists. In one, Captain Marvel discovered that one of his greatest foes, who had eluded capture for several issues and was never pictured, turned out to be a tiny worm from another world, which thoroughly shocked readers. National, who held a firm grip on the reigns of the comic marke, paid little attention to the title until it began making more money than any other comic on the market. The publisher sued Timely, claiming that Captain Marvel was really a mock-up of Superman and that their copyrights had been violated by the fledgling company. Despite the fact that the two comics were, in reality, nothing alike, National won the lawsuit and earned the rights to Captain Marvel. They later continued the series under the title of Shazam.
to Entertainment Comics, and later to EC Comics. These and other comics began pushing the envelope of what was acceptable in comic books for that time, occasionally portraying rather graphic scenes of violence. Crime and horror comics would achieve great, but short, financial success. Comic art had always had its critics, but now an entire organized movement had started, fueled by such questionable comic books and led by a psychiatrist named Dr. Fredric Wertham. If you’d like to learn more about Wertham and the anti-comics movement in America, take a look at our section on censorship in comics. It was also around this time that a man named Osamu Tezuka began his career that would change the face of Japanese culture forever, in the form of a unique breed of comics called manga. There’s much more about that in the section on manga.
mainstream, other radically different American comics began to emerge on the underground scene. Now called independent or alternative comics, the forebears of these books were rarely based on superheroes, but what was important to their creators. The art was often more cartoonish or abstract than than the mainstream books, and some contained more complex storylines or were largely adult-oriented. They sold in specialized bookstores most commonly found in large cities and through the mail. One of the great early masters of the underground comics movement was Robert Crumb, whose bleak tales usually covering the pitfalls of adult life attracted a respectable number of readers. His real claim to fame was a slogan he used in several of his strips that said Keep on truckin’. In the 70’s, comics began to rely heavily on current fads which are now considered rather laughable. The mainstream books began to test the limits of what was possible under the watchful eye of the Comics Code by writing stories focusing on the darker sides of humanity such as drug abuse and racism. It was around this time that a young Yale student named Gary Trudeau created a strip called Doonesbury, which would grow to beome a legend while still in publication. Not far behind were Gary Larson’s weird and wacky The Far Side, Berkley Breathed’s quirky Bloom County and Outland, and Bill Watterson’s immortal adventures of a boy and his stuffed tiger called Calvin and Hoobes. In the roaring 80’s, both mainstream and underground superhero books began publishing stories about antiheroes who had no mercy and a good deal of fire-power. The readers ate these books up because, for once, the line between heroism and villainy had become blurrier. This trend began with Marvel’s The Punisher (who actually debuted in the late 70’s), the story of a tortured soul named Frank Castle who ended his old life as an average citizen after his family was accidently killed in a mob shoot-out, to take revenge upon those who would harm innocents. The grim and gritty story-telling and art brought with it a new wave of possibilities.
of comic art. We are witnessing the beginnings of a long-overdue cultural exchange between the east and west through American comic books and Japanese manga. Previously little-known idependents published by such innovative companies as Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, and Antarctic Press (and even personally funded titles like Evan Dorkin’s Milk and Cheese and Dave Sim’s long-running Cerebus) have arisen to take their spot in the limelight. We have also seen the rise of the third largest publisher of comic books in America, Image Comics, in a very short amount of time and succeed where other said they’d fail. Right here on the internet, computer comics have begun to pop up here and there. Whether or not they achieve any success (either artistically or financially) remains to be seen. We’ve opened a whole new door in the ongoing history of comic art, a new chapter waiting to be written, and a universe of possibilities is just a cross the horizon.
