And these strips didn't just appear in the Sunday funnies - other forms of comics appeared on newsstands and in gas stations in the form of cartoon books, and comics used as advertising gimmicks. From the turn of the century to the 1930s, publishers cranked out hundreds of different strips featuring still-famous characters, such as Dick Tracy, Popeye and Little Orphan Annie. 'The Yellow Kid' used speech balloons, a convention still used in modern comics.Ĭomic strips were just one of the phases in the evolution of comic books. Those short narratives with just a few panels, such as 'The Yellow Kid,' graced the pages of newspapers beginning in 1895. Modern comic books grew out of comic strips, which were almost always humorous (thus, the word 'comic' stuck). Keep reading, and you'll see how comic books first came to life, how they're more popular than ever, and how their creators keep finding new audiences to enthrall. They span as many genres and subjects, both frivolous and mature, as traditional novels.Ĭomics are a global phenomenon, but for the purposes of this article, we'll focus mostly on the American evolution of comic art, with nods to notable international examples. But comics these days aren't just longer versions of the Sunday funnies. Comics have a long history that's been linked to low-brow, cheap entertainment. It's not uncommon for people to scoff at anyone who uses the word ' art' in describing comics. It's for this reason that comic books are often called sequential art - a type of graphic storytelling. Artists lay out each page so that panels logically flow to one another, guiding the reader's eyes so that he or she absorbs the story in a sequential manner. Panels are routinely separated by blank areas called gutters. Individual panels contain one part of a story (perhaps dialogue between characters), or a character's inner thoughts (represented by speech and thought balloons) that leads into the next panel. Each page of the books is segmented into panels (or frames), which have borders that separate them from other panels. Stylistically, comic books are pretty easy to spot. Comic books are usually 20 to 30 pages long once they get longer, they're sometimes called graphic novels. A comic book blends drawn art - color, black-and-white or both - with text to tell a story. In fact, there are so many varieties of comic books and related types of work that it's worth reviewing the term. It's not a surprise that these flicks are popular: Comic books have inspired a fanatical subculture, one that features its own lingo, slang and inside jokes, as any fan of Kevin Smith's films can attest.įilms aren't the only medium that pulls material from comics. Comic-based movies now routinely show up in theaters and draw huge crowds. You'll find comic strips and comic books at newsstands everywhere, and graphic novels and comics in strip mall bookstores and geek boutiques all across the land. Comic books and their artistic cousins saturate our society.

Was barb wire a flop