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A Brief History of Comics

The comic book format has been a part of American society for more than 70 years --since the 1930’s.  It has risen and declined and risen again in popularity, while evolving all the while in order to appeal to the segments of society who were willing to keep pace with its rising costs.  The America comic book has found popularity in many countries around the world, and has propagated successful competition in Great Britain, Europe, and most especially Japan, whose manga now outweighs the US in overall sales of comics.

The name “comic book,” or comic for short, was applied during a period when funny animals such as Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were especially popular.  Along with that designation there arose the common perception that comic books were mostly for kids, a perception that continues to this day in the minds of many.  Today’s comics, however, are directed toward the young adult from their late teens into their twenties and thirties.  In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the rising popularity of the graphic novel format, some even in hard cover, and the publishing of American editions of Japanese manga, has resulted in a greater acceptance of the comic form among the general reading public. Comics and graphic novels have become increasingly available in libraries and mainstream bookstores.

American comic books today are closely associated with the superhero tradition.  Britain has closely followed the US trend through reprints, but has also created their own editions of American comics and then expanded upon them with original British heroes.  Japanese manga is an entirely separate tradition that has only recently achieved great popularity in American and foreign markets through the publication of translations.  The advent of the Internet was probably a catalyst in the development of manga’s popularity.  In many European countries, Walt Disney and Disney-style comics are extremely popular.  There are storehouses of original European Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Uncle Scrooge stories that have yet to be seen in the US.  In fact, some American writers, such as duck artist Don Rosa, only get to see much of their work published only in foreign editions.  France and Belgium have their own tradition of illustrated books and stories, la bande dessinée, equivalent to American graphic novels, which are published in high volume relative to the size of their populations.

The history of comics in America is broadly divided into three major eras: The Golden Age, the Silver Age, and the Modern Age, that correspond to the rise and fall of the popularity of comic books.  The Golden Age is usually thought of as beginning with the creation of Superman in 1938, although a variety of mystery men existed in comics before that date.  The popularity of Superman, Batman and the Justice Society of America lasted well into the early 1950’s. 

New life was breathed into the comic book medium with the complete renovation of several popular heroes, such as DC Comic’s Barry Allen Flash in Showcase #4 in 1956, followed by Green Lantern, the Atom, and others.  At the same time, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko began to experiment with naturalistic heroes with faults and foibles such as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, which resonated with a great number of comic readers.

The Modern Age has a number of possible starting points but there is general agreement that it began with the publication of Alan Moore’s Watchmen by DC Comics in 1986.  The Modern Age has more to do with publication methods and printing technology than with any significant change in content, although the present period has seen the advent and popularity of many independent creators.  Comic books today are published on better paper with clearer and more colorful printing.  Comic series are collected into glue-bound and hard-cover editions called graphic novels, for sale in mainstream book stores.  In fact, it is becoming more common to see the publication of an original story in graphic novel form, without prior serialization. 

Periodical super-hero comic books, graphic novels consisting of both bound collections and original works, and prolific translations of manga comprise the majority of the American comic book industry today. In addition, stories from comic books are being adapted more and more to the small and large screen. This in turn is arousing the interest and curiosity of the mainstream public to seek out original sources. As a result, it is becoming more common and more acceptable to find even those who thought they had outgrown them returning to take another look at the contemporary comic book.

Why Is Japanese Manga Different From American Comics?

Comic books in Japan began their development independently in the latter half of the eighteenth century.  These were woodblock printed booklets containing stories drawn from Japanese folklore.  The term manga, meaning “random (or capricious) pictures,” came into common usage at that time. During the nineteenth century, visually-based longer publications, equivalent to our comics, were developed that required the literacy and sophistication of adult readers.  The present day manga came into being with the influence of trade with the United States after World War II.  Japanese artists were tutored by Western masters, who introduced such concepts as line, form, and color, along with narrative storytelling.  From that time till now, manga has been published in its present form, longer than American comics but in black and white, with four-color covers.

Manga is more widely accepted in Japanese culture than comics are in America.  Manga are created for every age group with content on most any subject.  Titles are primarily classified by the age and sex of their intended audience.  In particular, books intended for boys (shônen) and girls (shôjo) have distinctly different characteristics and are often sold in separate sections in book stores.

Originally, manga, which is read from right to left and printed in a format that would be equivalent to “back to front” in the US, when translated into English had to be reformatted, usually by creating mirror images of the pages, before adding the text, to put it into the customary left-to-right format of American literature.  This increased the time required to import Japanese manga into the US.  Recently, however, it was found by experimentation that English readers would accept, and in fact liked, reading manga in its original back-to-front, right-to-left, format.  Nearly all manga translations are now published in this form.

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