Comics

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Comics

History of Comics

How did comics arise ? Their birth and evolution, illustrated with some examples

The comics weren't invented from one day to the next. It was a slow evolution the result of which is the comic-art of today with its many different branches.

According to Fuchs & Wolfgang, "history of comics "(11), a first comic or a "mother" of the comics doesn't exist. The whole story began with the pictures that were printed in newspapers and magazines to illustrate something that was written in an article. Because of the printing technique those pictures were in black and white, that's why the artists couldn't use paint. The content of those pictures was mostly a caricature of someone in the accompanying article. Fuchs & Wolfgang say this happened in the late 19th century.

The time came when newspapers were able to print photographs, nevertheless the caricatures didn't disappear from the pages. The caricature-picture made another step in the direction of the comic, it became a comic-strip.

A comic strip is what is also called a "cartoon". That means, a couple of pictures that are connected and make only sense if read together. You could compare it with a "flip book" which makes no sense if you look just at one picture but if you turn over all of the leaves rapidly they seem to get "alive".

You can find such cartoons, comic strips which tell you a joke or a story in just three or four pictures, still nowadays in every newspaper. The task of most of them is to make the reader laugh, nevertheless, you can find some political strips, too.

Some of the newspapers began to collect their comic strips (if they were very popular) and gave the cartoonist a chance to release them in a comic book. So the idea of ...

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... with the comic shops, nevertheless this is difficult and your success is not sure. The safest way to find someone who publishes your work is to join many art or comic contest hope that someone likes your work and wants to promote you.

I hope with this little report about comics and cartoons I could interest you a little bit for my passion, and if you see a comic shop the next time you might enter and have a look at the books, and perhaps you'll find something that you like to read, who knows ?

Sources:

Fuchs, Wolfgang J. & Reitberger, Reinhold C. (1971). Comics: Anatomy of a mass medium

Muenchen : Heinz Moos Verlag,

Reynolds, Richard (1992). Super heroes: A modern mythology. London : B.T. Batsfort.

Schaad,F.(1997). Personal communication.

The sources of the pictures are online:

HYPERLINK http://www.inforoute.capway.com/CoinBD/Images/Aquablue.gif

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