GeekReads | American Comic History

The history of American comics started in 1842 with the translation of Rodolphe Topffer's work: The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck. Local artists took over this new medium and created the first American comics. But it is not until the development of daily newspapers that an important readership is reached through comic strips. The first years corresponded to the establishment of canonical codes (recurring character, speech balloons, etc.) and first genres (family strips, adventure tales). Characters acquired national celebrity and were subject to cross-media adaptation while newspapers were locked in a fierce battle for the most popular authors.

The second major evolution came in 1934 with the comic book, which allowed the dissemination of comics (first reprints of comic strips) in dedicated media. In 1938, when Superman appeared in one of those comic books, began what is commonly called the Golden Age of Comic Books. During World War II, superheroes and funny animals were the most popular genres. Following the decline of the superheroes, new genres developed (western, romance, science fiction, etc..) and reached an increasingly important readership. At the beginning of the 1950s, with the emergence of television, comic books sales began to decline. Meanwhile, they suffered many attacks on their alleged harm to youth. For instance, the introduction of the Comics Code Authority removed the detective and horror series incriminated; though nor comic strips or magazines were affected by these attacks.

In 1956 began the Silver Age of Comic Books with the return of the preference for superheroes, such as Flash and Green Lantern by DC Comics. If Dell Comics and its comics for children remained the leading publisher of comic books, genres other than superheroes started to decline and many publishers closed. Very popular superheroes, mainly created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, appeared in Marvel Comics. This turned into the leading publisher of comics in the next period known as the Bronze Age of Comic Books (early 1970s to 1985) during which the stories became less manichean while superhero comics maintained their hegemony. The distinction between these two periods is often associated by historians to an event but it is rather a series of changes that affected many aspects of the comics world. At the same time, underground comics appeared, which, aesthetically, addressed new themes, and economically, were based on a new distribution model. Comic strips continue to be distributed throughout the country and even some of them gained international dissemination, such as Peanuts.

The modern period initially seemed to be a new golden age when writers and artists recreated classic characters or launched new series that attracted millions of readers. However, it was then marked by a series of crises that threaten the financial stability of many agents. Alternative comics, successors of underground comics, develop in line with Art Spiegelman and his Maus. On the other hand, the comic strip experienced a crisis more pronounced in the 2000s and linked to that of the press as a whole, while at the same time a new American product, the webcomics, sprang.

The Origins (1842 to the 1880s) Comics in the United States originated in the early European works. In fact, in 1842, the publication Les amours de M. Vieux-bois by Rodolphe Topffer was published under the title The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck. This edition is a pirating of the original work as it was done without Topffer's authorization. This first publication was followed by other works of this author, always under types of pirated editions. Topffer comics were reprinted regularly until the late 1870s, which gave American artists the idea to produce similar works. In 1849, Journey to the Gold Diggins by Jeremiah Saddlebags by James A. and Donald F. Read was the first American comic.

Just the arrival of technological progress allowed easy and cheap reproduction of images for the American comic to take off. Some media moguls like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer engaged in a fierce competition to attract readers and decided to publish cartoons in their newspapers.

Domestic production remained limited until the emergence of satirical magazines that, on the model of British Punch, published drawings and humorous short stories, but also stories in pictures and silent comics. The three main titles were Puck, Judge and Life. Authors such as Arthur Burdett Frost created stories as innovative as those produced in the same period by Europeans. However, these magazines only reach an audience educated and rich enough to afford them.

The Funnies: The period of the late nineteenth century was characterized by a gradual introduction of the key elements of the American mass comics. Then, the funnies were found in the humor pages of newspapers: they were published in the Sunday edition to retain readership. Indeed, it was not the information given that distinguished the newspapers but the editorials and the pages which were not informative, whose illustrations were an important component.