Skip to main content

How Have We Changed Our Definition of the Comic Form Over Time?

Comics have been a part of the history of humans for thousands of years. Comics can date back to the ancient eygptians telling stories with hieroglyphics, or even cave paintings. This is the earliest form of sequenced story telling, and is essentially the root of all comic forms. The acctual comic form that we think of now didn't really come about until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, we know comics as either strips in the newspaper or comic books sold in stores.
When comics first came out, they were found in the newspaper as very short strips that told a short and simple story. These first comics, such as The Yellow Kid, had little to no words in them, and the words in them were very simple and to the point. As time progressed, however, comics began to get more detailed and contained more depth. They started to tell stories that were longer and contained more content.
This type of comic form is what helped the comic world to transition in to what we now call the golden age. This is where many of the superheroes we know and love today came from, such as superman and batman. Essentially, the type of comics that were made in this era is not too far off from the definition of the comic form we think of today.
The comic form we think of today has much more detail than anyone from the early 20th century could have imagined. The author almost makes the reader interpret the story by his or her self. Yes, there are transitions and emotions that the author puts in the comic, but for the most part, we as the reader are left to intepret what is actually happening in the comic. For me, the fact that the author leaves room for the reader's thought while still depicting a story is the best thing aboout comic forms today.







Comments

J Chambliss said…
We always want to be precise in our descriptions of comics. While Golden Age can be use to refer to superhero comics in the 1930s and 1940s, the same terms would not be used to describe newspaper strips. Keep these distinctions in mind.

Popular posts from this blog

Why blame comics for societal failure?

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.

Mythology and Superheroes in Comics

Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...

The 1950s Are Often Portrayed As A Period of Social Cohesion...

People didn’t set the standards; the standards were set for you. The 1950s were not a time of social cohesion but it was misleading because it was a time of “don’t air your dirty laundry.” Women were to act perfect; the “Stepford wife” if you will, while the men went to work like “Don Draper.” Although the comic codes were in full fruition, people found ways to cause a raucous. Comic books were the reason that children were acting violently. Comic books are a media outlet and they didn’t have to follow the conservative nature that the decade seemed to promote. One of the most popular selling genres of that time was the Romance comics. The romance comics not only attracted male readers, but female readers as well. This, alone, can be alarming for the “social cohesion” of the 50s because men expected their wives to be at home all day cooking, cleaning, caring for the children, etc. They didn’t want their wives spending any additional time reading comic books. Perhaps the comic co...