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Class Reference

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Articles

Definitions and Basics 1

Comics 1 16 () 20 22 29 35 37

Awards and Recognition 43

Harvey Award 43 Ignatz Awards 44 63 65 Award 79

Literary Theory 84

Index of literary terms 84 Monomyth 105 Postmodernism 116 Historicity (philosophy) 129 New Journalism 130 Memoir 142

Visual Theory 144

Scott McCloud 144 148 150 151 152 Comics and 161 Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative 164 Fredric Wertham 165 Seduction of the Innocent 169 Classic Super Heroes 172

Action Comics 172 Action Comics 1 178 Superman 183 Detective Comics 205 Batman 211 233 Spider-Man 249 Fantastic Four 265

Postmodern Heroes 286

Frank Miller (comics) 286 298 Batman: Year One 303

Classic Innovations and Early Comics 308

Richard F. Outcault 308 The Yellow Kid 310 King () 314 318 Winsor McCay 325 330 Gertie the Dinosaur 336 339 344

Postmodern Innovations 357

Chris Ware 357 363 Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth 366 Here (comic) 368 369 Paper Rad 371

Historicity, documentary, and memoir 374

Seth (cartoonist) 374 377 A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge 382 387 390

More North American texts and writers for student’s choice assignment 391

Daniel Clowes 391 397 Astro City 402 Charles Burns (cartoonist) 408 410 415 419 Fun Home 422 Dash Shaw 433 Ben Katchor 435 437 445 Pascal Blanchet 447 447 Steve Mumford 451 Joe Sacco 452 456

UK authors and texts worth noting 462

Punch (magazine) 462 468 The Invisibles 478 Warren Ellis 485 Transmetropolitan 490 494 V for Vendetta 512 523 Promethea 540 547 The Sandman (Vertigo) 561 571 Bob Kane 585 Jerry Siegel 590 595 References

Article Sources and Contributors 600 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 616 Article Licenses

License 621 1

Definitions and Basics

Comics

Comics (from the Greek , k mikos "of or pertaining to comedy" from - k mos "revel, komos",[1] via the Latin c micus) denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual (non-verbal) and verbal side in interaction. Although some comics are picture-only, pantomime strips, such as , the verbal side usually expand upon the pictures, but sometimes act in counterpoint.[2]

The term derives from the mostly humorous early work in the medium, and came to apply to that form of the medium including those far from comic. The sequential nature of the pictures, and the predominance of pictures over words, distinguishes comics from picture , although some in disagree and claim that in fact what differentiates comics from other forms on the continuum from word-only narratives, on one hand, to picture-only [3] narratives, on the other, is social context. William M. Conselman and Charles Plumb’s and Chris Crusty (January 24, 1932). Syndicated during 1930s and 1940s were given entire pages in the section and thus had space to create Social context secondary strips known as toppers.

Comics as a real mass medium started to emerge in the United States in the early 20th century with the , where its form began to be standardized (image-driven, speech balloons, etc.), first in Sunday strips and later in daily strips. The combination of words and pictures proved popular and quickly spread throughout the world. Comic strips were soon gathered into cheap booklets and reprint comic books. Original comic books soon followed. Today, comics are found in , magazines, comic books, graphic novels and on the web. Historically, the form dealt with humorous subject matter, but its scope has expanded to encompass the full range of literary genres. Also see: Comic strip and cartoon. In some circles, comics are still seen as low art,[4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] though there are exceptions, such as Krazy Kat[10] and Barnaby. However, such an elitist "low art/high art" distinction doesn’t exist in the French-speaking world (and, to some extent, continental Europe), where the bandes dessin es medium as a whole is commonly accepted as "the Ninth Art", is usually dedicated a non-negligible space in bookshops and libraries, and is regularly celebrated in international events such as the Angoul me International Comics Festival. Such distinctions also do not exist in the Japanese , the world’s largest comics culture. Comics 2

In the late 20th and early 21st century there has been a movement to rehabilitate the medium. Critical discussions of the form appeared as early as the 1920s,[10] [11] but serious studies were rare until the late 20th century.[12] Though practitioners may eschew formal traditions, they often use particular forms and conventions to convey narration and speech, or to evoke emotional or sensuous responses. Devices such as speech balloons and boxes are used to indicate dialogue and impart establishing information, while panels, layout, gutters and zip ribbons can help indicate the flow of the story. Comics use of text, ambiguity, symbolism, design, iconography, literary technique, mixed media and stylistic elements of art help build a subtext of meanings. Though comics are non-linear structures and can be hard to read sometimes, it is simply presented. However, it depends of the reader’s "frame of mind" to read and understand the comic.[13] Different conventions were developed around the globe, from the manga of Japan to the of China and the of Korea, the comic books of the United States, and the larger hardcover albums in Europe.

History

Early narratives in art

Comics as an art form established itself in the late 19th and early 20th century, alongside the similar forms of film and animation. The three forms share certain conventions, most noticeably the mixing of words and pictures, and all three owe parts of their conventions to the technological leaps made through the industrial revolution. Though newspapers and magazines first established and popularized comics in the late 1890s, narrative has existed for many centuries.

Early precursors of comic as they are known today include Trajan’s Column and the work of William Hogarth. Rome’s Trajan’s Column, dedicated in 113 AD, is an early surviving example of a narrative told through sequential pictures, while Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek friezes, medieval tapestries such as the Bayeux Tapestry and illustrated manuscripts also combine sequential

Sequential depictions on Trajan’s images and words to tell a story. In medieval paintings, many sequential Column scenes of the same story (usually a Biblical one) appear simultaneously in the same painting (see illustration to left).

However, these works did not travel to the reader; it took the invention of modern printing techniques to bring the form to a wide audience and become a mass medium.[14] [15] [16] Comics 3

In Lucas Cranach the Elder’s "Adam and Eve" different scenes of the Biblical story are shown in the same painting: on the front, God is admonishing the couple for their sin; in the background to the right are shown the earlier scenes of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib and of their being tempted to eat the forbidden fruit; on the left is the later scene of their expulsion from Paradise.

The 15th18th centuries and printing advances

The invention of the printing press, allowing movable type, established a separation between images and words, the two requiring different methods in order to be reproduced. Early printed material concentrated on religious subjects, but through the 17th and 18th centuries they began to tackle aspects of political and social life, and also started to satirize and . It was also during this period that the speech bubble was developed as a means of attributing dialogue.

William Hogarth is often identified in histories of the comics form. His work, A Rake’s Progress, was composed of a number of canvases, each reproduced as a print, and the eight prints together Last image in William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress created a narrative. As printing techniques developed, due to the technological advances of the industrial revolution, magazines and newspapers were established. These publications utilized as a means of commenting on political and social issues, such illustrations becoming known as in the 1840s. Soon, artists were experimenting with establishing a sequence of images to create a narrative. Comics 4

While surviving works of these periods such as Francis Barlow’s A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish Plot (c.1682) as well as The Punishments of Lemuel Gulliver and A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth (1726), can be seen to establish a narrative over a number of images, it wasn’t until the 19th century that the elements of such works began to crystallise into the comic strip.

The also evolved during this period, from the medieval origins of the phylacter, a label, usually in the form of a scroll, which identified a character either through naming them or using a short text French Liberty. British Slavery, James Gillray’s to explain their purpose. Artists such as George Cruikshank helped 1792 caricature poking fun at the French Revolution, anticipates the modern comic strip in codify such phylacters as balloons rather than scrolls, though at this having both separate panels and charactes time they were still called labels. They now represented narative, but speaking via speech balloons. for identification purposes rather than dialogue within the work, and artists soon discarded them in favour of running dialogue underneath the panels. Speech balloons weren’t reintroduced to the form until Richard F. Outcault used them for dialogue.[17]

The 19th century: a form established

Rodolphe T pffer, a Francophone Swiss artist, is seen as the key figure of the early part of the 19th century. Though speech balloons fell from favour during the middle 19th century, T pffer’s sequentially illustrated stories, with text compartmentalized below images, were reprinted throughout Europe and the United States. The lack of copyright laws at the time allowed these pirated editions, and translated versions created a market on both continents for similar works.[18] A page by Rodolphe T pffer, whose work is In 1843 T pffer formalised his thoughts on the picture story in his considered influential in shaping the comics Essay on Physiognomics: "To construct a picture-story does not mean form. you must set yourself up as a master craftsman, to draw out every potential from your materialoften down to the dregs! It does not mean you just devise with a naturally frivolous. Nor is it simply to dramatize a proverb or illustrate a pun. You must actually invent some kind of play, where the parts are arranged by plan and form a satisfactory whole. You do not merely a joke or put a refrain in couplets. You make a : good or bad, sober or silly, crazy or sound in sense."[19] [20] [21]

In 1845 the satirical , which regularly appeared in newspapers and magazines, gained a name: cartoons. (In art, a cartoon is a pencil or charcol sketch to be overpainted.) The British magazine Punch, launched in 1841, referred to its ’humorous pencilings’ as cartoons in a satirical reference to the Parliament of the day, who were themselves organising an exhibition of cartoons, or preparatory drawings, at the time. This usage became common parlance, lasting to the present day.[22] Similar magazines containing cartoons in continental Europe included Fliegende Bl tter and Le Charivari, while in the U.S. Judge and Puck were popular.[23] 1865 saw the publication of Max and Moritz by Wilhelm Busch by a German newspaper. Busch refined the conventions of sequential art, and his work was a key influence within the form, Rudolph Dirks was inspired by the strip to create in 1897.[24] Comics 5

It is around this time that Manhua, the Chinese form of comics, started to formalize, a process that lasted up until 1927.[25] The introduction of lithographic printing methods derived from the West was a critical step in expanding the form within China during the early 20th century. Like Europe and the United States, satirical drawings were appearing in newspapers and periodicals, initially based on works from those countries. One of the first magazines of satirical cartoons was based on the United Kingdom’s Punch, snappily re-branded as "The China Punch".[25] The first piece drawn by a person of Chinese nationality was "The Situation in the Far East" from Tse Tsan-Tai, printed 1899 in Japan. By the 1920s, a market was established for palm-sized picture books like .[26]

In 1884, Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday was published, a magazine whose selling Yellow Kid, created by Richard F. point was a strip featuring the titular character, and widely regarded as the Outcault. first comic strip magazine to feature a recurring character. In 1890, two more comic magazines debuted to the British public, Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips, establishing the tradition of the British comic as an anthology periodical containing comic strips.[16]

In the United States, R.F. Outcault’s work in combining speech balloons and images on Hogan’s Alley and The Yellow Kid has been credited as establishing the form and conventions of the comic strip,[27] though academics have uncovered earlier works that combine speech bubbles and a multi image narrative. However, the popularity of Outcalt’s work and the position of the strip in a newspaper retains credit as a driving force of the form.[28] [29]