How have we changed the definition of the comic form over time? Comics have come a long way over more than a hundred years, maybe even thousands of years if we include the many different art forms that Scott McCloud describes as comics in “Understanding Comics.” But since the general public didn’t start to define what comics are until recent history, I’ll limit our ever-changing definition of comics to the last hundred years or so. In the late 19th century comics were defined as simple, very short strip stories that came out in the newspaper, used pictures to narrate the story and very little words. Such comics included The Yellow Kid, which included very little text, and the text that was included in the story was part of the comic pictures themselves. Later on, in the early 20th century, comics were defined still simply and loosely as “those illustrated stories that come in the newspaper that use words to help tell the story” but these contained more words to help tell the story than their predecessors did. In the 20s that would have been a satisfactory definition of what comics were, but in the 21st century, those would be defined only as simple comic strips. Over the next twenty years, comics would grow to exactly what most of us think of as the epitome of what comic books are; super hero stories depicted in a very colorful manner with words to help in telling the story. The next 20 years or so would come to be known as the Golden Age of comics in which many of the most famous super heroes first appeared; such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and many more. This was the era that I believe defined modern day comics and brought them to be what we think of them today.
Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.
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