Comics

a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus amongst theorists and historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or the use of recurring characters. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in comics; ''fumetti'' is a form that uses photographic images. Common forms include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels, comic albums, and ' have become increasingly common, while online webcomics have proliferated in the 21st century.

The history of comics has followed different paths in different cultures. Scholars have posited a pre-history as far back as the Lascaux cave paintings. By the mid-20th century, comics flourished, particularly in the United States, western Europe (especially France and Belgium), and Japan. The history of European comics is often traced to Rodolphe Töpffer's cartoon strips of the 1830s, and became popular following the success in the 1930s of strips and books such as '' The Adventures of Tintin''. American comics emerged as a mass medium in the early 20th century with the advent of newspaper comic strips; magazine-style comic books followed in the 1930s, in which the superhero genre became prominent after Superman appeared in 1938. Histories of Japanese comics and cartooning (') propose origins as early as the 12th century. Modern comic strips emerged in Japan in the early 20th century, and the output of comics magazines and books rapidly expanded in the post-World War II era (1945–) with the popularity of cartoonists such as Osamu Tezuka. had a lowbrow reputation for much of its history, but towards the end of the 20th century began to find greater acceptance with the public and academics.

The English term ''comics'' is used as a singular noun when it refers to the medium itself (e.g. "''Comics is'' a visual art form."), but becomes plural when referring to works collectively (e.g. "''Comics are'' popular reading material.").

Origins and traditions

Manga Hokusai.jpg, ''Manga''
Hokusai, early 19th century
Toepffer Cryptogame 13.png, '
Rodolphe Töpffer, 1830
AllySloper.jpg, Ally Sloper in ''Some of the Mysteries of Loan and Discount''
Charles Henry Ross, 1867
Yellow Kid 1898-01-09.jpg, '' The Yellow Kid''
R. F. Outcault, 1898

The European, American, and Japanese comics traditions have followed different paths. Europeans have seen their tradition as beginning with the Swiss Rodolphe Töpffer from as early as 1827 and Americans have seen the origin of theirs in Richard F. Outcault's 1890s newspaper strip '' The Yellow Kid'', though many Americans have come to recognize Töpffer's precedence. Japan has a long history of satirical cartoons and comics leading up to the World War II era. The ukiyo-e artist Hokusai popularized the Japanese term for comics and cartooning, ', in the early 19th century. In the 1930s Harry "A" Chesler started a comics studio, which eventually at its height employed 40 artists working for 50 different publishers who helped make the comics medium flourish in "the Golden Age of Comics" after World War II. In the post-war era modern Japanese comics began to flourish when Osamu Tezuka produced a prolific body of work. Towards the close of the 20th century, these three traditions converged in a trend towards book-length comics: the comic album in Europe, the in Japan, and the graphic novel in the English-speaking countries.

Outside of these genealogies, comics theorists and historians have seen precedents for comics in the Lascaux cave paintings in France (some of which appear to be chronological sequences of images), Egyptian hieroglyphs, Trajan's Column in Rome, the 11th-century Norman Bayeux Tapestry, the 1370 ' woodcut, the 15th-century ' and block books, Michelangelo's ''The Last Judgment'' in the Sistine Chapel, and William Hogarth's 18th-century sequential engravings, amongst others.

English-language comics

Illustrated humour periodicals were popular in 19th-century Britain, the earliest of which was the short-lived '' The Glasgow Looking Glass'' in 1825. The most popular was '' Punch'', which popularized the term ''cartoon'' for its humorous caricatures. On occasion the cartoons in these magazines appeared in sequences; the character Ally Sloper featured in the earliest serialized comic strip when the character began to feature in its own weekly magazine in 1884.

American comics developed out of such magazines as '' Puck'', ''Judge'', and '' Life''. The success of illustrated humour supplements in the '' New York World'' and later the '' New York American'', particularly Outcault's ''The Yellow Kid'', led to the development of newspaper comic strips. Early Sunday strips were full-page and often in colour. Between 1896 and 1901 cartoonists experimented with sequentiality, movement, and speech balloons. An example is Gustave Verbeek, who wrote his comic series "The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins" between 1903 and 1905. These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6-panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. In 2012 a remake of a selection of the comics was made by Marcus Ivarsson in the book 'In Uppåner med Lilla Lisen & Gamle Muppen'. ()

Shorter, black-and-white daily strips began to appear early in the 20th century, and became established in newspapers after the success in 1907 of Bud Fisher's '' Mutt and Jeff''. In Britain, the Amalgamated Press established a popular style of a sequence of images with text beneath them, including '' Illustrated Chips'' and '' Comic Cuts''. Humour strips predominated at first, and in the 1920s and 1930s strips with continuing stories in genres such as adventure and drama also became popular.

Thin periodicals called comic books appeared in the 1930s, at first reprinting newspaper comic strips; by the end of the decade, original content began to dominate. The success in 1938 of '' Action Comics'' and its lead hero Superman marked