Comics

Comics is a visual medium that uses images—often paired with text or other visual cues—to convey ideas. It usually appears as a series of panels, where speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia handle dialogue, narration, sound effects, and more. There’s no single agreed-upon definition among theorists and historians: some focus on the mix of images and text, others on sequentiality or relationships between images, and still others on historical factors like mass reproduction or recurring characters. Cartooning and illustration are the most common techniques, though photo comics use photographs instead. Common formats include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 1900s, bound volumes like graphic novels and comic albums have grown more popular, alongside webcomics.

Different cultures have shaped comics in distinct ways. Some scholars trace a prehistory back to the Lascaux cave paintings. By the mid-1900s, comics thrived especially in the United States, Western Europe (notably France and Belgium), and Japan. European comics often begin with Rodolphe Töpffer’s 1830s cartoon strips, while Wilhelm Busch’s *Max and Moritz* (1865) had global influence, gaining traction after the 1930s success of strips and books like *The Adventures of Tintin*. American comics became a mass medium in the early 1900s with newspaper comic strips; comic books followed in the 1930s, and the superhero genre took off after Superman’s 1938 debut. Japanese comics (manga) have roots as early as the 12th century and are generally seen as separate from Euro-American traditions, which likely began in 17th-century Italy. Modern Japanese comic strips emerged in the early 1900s, and after World War II, comic magazines and books expanded rapidly, boosted by artists like Osamu Tezuka. For much of its history, comics had a lowbrow reputation, but by the late 1900s, it gained broader public and academic acceptance.

The term *comics* is singular when referring to the medium itself (e.g., “Comics is a visual art form”) and plural when talking about works collectively (e.g., “Comics are popular reading material”).

European, American, and Japanese comics traditions followed separate paths. Europeans often date their tradition to Swiss artist Rodolphe Töpffer, starting around 1827, while Americans traditionally point to Richard F. Outcault’s 1890s newspaper strip *The Yellow Kid*—though many now recognize Töpffer’s earlier work. Wilhelm Busch directly influenced Rudolph Dirks and his *Katzenjammer Kids*. Japan has a long history of satirical cartoons and comics leading up to World War II; ukiyo-e artist Hokusai popularized the term *manga* in the early 1800s. In the 1930s, Harry “A” Chesler founded a comics studio that at its peak employed 40 artists working for 50 publishers, helping fuel the “Golden Age of Comics” after World War II. In postwar Japan, Osamu Tezuka’s prolific output sparked modern manga. By the late 1900s, these three traditions converged on book-length comics: the comic album in Europe, the *tankōbon* in Japan, and the graphic novel in English-speaking countries.

Beyond these lineages, theorists and historians see comic-like precedents in the Lascaux cave paintings (some showing chronological sequences), Egyptian hieroglyphs, Trajan’s Column, the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry, the 1370 *bois Protat* woodcut, 15th-century *Ars moriendi* and block books, Michelangelo’s *The Last Judgment*, and William Hogarth’s 18th-century sequential engravings, among others.

In English-speaking countries, illustrated humor magazines were popular in 19th-century Britain, starting with the short-lived *The Glasgow Looking Glass* in 1825. The most famous was *Punch*, which coined the term *cartoon* for its humorous caricatures. Some cartoons appeared in sequences; the character Ally Sloper became the first serialized comic strip when it got its own weekly magazine in 1884. American comics grew out of magazines like *Puck*, *Judge*, and *Life*. The success of illustrated humor supplements in the *New York World* and later the *New York American*, especially Outcault’s *The Yellow Kid*, led to newspaper comic strips. Early Sunday strips were full-page and often in color. Between 1896 and 1901, cartoonists experimented with sequentiality, movement, and speech balloons. For example, Gustave Verbeek created his series “The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins” from 1903 to 1905—each 6-panel comic could be read, then flipped and read again. He made 64 such comics. In 2012, Marcus Ivarsson remade a selection in the book *In Uppåner med Lilla Lisen & Gamle Muppen* (ISBN 978-91-7089-524-1). Shorter, black-and-white daily strips appeared early in the 1900s and became standard after Bud Fisher’s *Mutt and Jeff* succeeded in 1907. In Britain, the Amalgamated Press popularized a style of sequential images with text beneath them, including *Illustrated*.