History of Comic Books

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Comic Book History

This is the history of comic books as written by two independtly ran geocities sites. The facts are unchecked (due to lack of actual knowledge on behalf of this poster). If you feel anything is incorrect or you have any better or just more information to provide please do so. Thanks - Admin.

Before the 1980's

((The following historical write up was found on a geocities comic book site by Rafael de Viveiros Lima. You can read more at http://www.geocities.com/soho/5537/index.htm ))

Comic books are, at least, as old as movies. Their first steps were set in the beginning of XXth Century, in the search of new ways of graphic and visual communication and expression. Usually, comic books are also associated with the prehistoric paintings in caves and Egyptian hieroglyphics, all of them visual narratives of juxtaposed images. The existence of words was not mandatory, but with the adoption of symbols to represent them -- letters --, they were soon added to give more information and boost the narrative flow. The improvement of press and printing technology were strong factors to the development of the medium.

Among the precursors can be mentioned Swiss Rudolph Töpffer, German Wilhelm Bush, French Georges ("Christophe") Colomb and brazilian Angelo Agostini, but it is usual to associate the first comic book to Richard Fenton Outcalt's creation, The Yellow Kid, in 1896. Outcalt essentially synthesized what had been made before him and introduced a new element: the balloon, a space where he wrote what the characters said, and that pointed to their mouth with a kind of tail.

The bases for a brand new kind of art were set, and the adventure begun. In the first decades of its life, comic books were essentially humoristic, and this is the explanation for the name they carry to date in English language. Some of those days' creations can be read until today, and are among the best stories in comic book's History: Little Nemo in Slumberland (by Winsor McCay), Mutt & Jeff (by Bud Fisher), Popeye (by E. Segar) and Krazy Kat (by George Herriman). However, comic books have other denominations, such as Italian fumetti (smoke, an allusion to the shape of the balloon), French bande dessiné; (drawn strip), Japanese manga and Portuguese história em quadradinhos (story in little squares), much more comprehensive.

Stories' themes were mostly about children and pet's frolics, and from that age comes the designations kid strips, animal strips, family strips, boy-dog strips, boy-family-dog strips and whatever else could be created. Such designations still apply, even to more intellectualized strips, such as Calvin and Hobbes.

The crack of the Stock Market in 1929 was a turning point in comic book's history, and in the 30's comic books grew up, starting to picture adventures. Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy and Hal Foster's adaptation of E. R. Borroughs' Tarzan were those days paradigms, now known as The Golden Age. Three essential types, the science fiction, detective stories and jungle adventures spread their tentacles, respectively based in each of the above stories. While Foster's Tarzan was a full of action, without balloons adaptation of the book by Borroughs, and Gould's Dick Tracy was partially inspired by the gang wars of Chicago (where Gould lived), Flash Gordon was a product of total imagination of Raymond, which would give also Secret Agent X-9, Jim of the Jungle (competing with Dick Tracy and Tarzan, respectively) and Rip Kirby. Foster did also a historic masterpiece on comics, Prince Valiant, medieval adventure with academic accuracy. About this time was created the first costumed character, the Phanton, written by Lee Falk and masterly drawn by Ray Moore. Falk is one of the best comic book writers of all time and probably the one that stood more time with the same character -- more than 50 years! Falk also created Mandrake the Magician, with pencils by Phil Davis.

(About this time there were great comic books in other places besides USA, like France and Belgium, but they were barely known out of their birth countries. Of particular interest is Belgic Hergé's Tintin, who practically created the clean line style, and had lots of followers (and imitators)).

The outcome of this process was that the birth of a typically American comic was born: the super-hero, with Siegel and Shuster's Superman. Superman is a landmark -- for a lot of people his début is the start the Golden Age -- in Comic book History, a perfect archetype, the model to lots of characters and one of the most perfect myths of modern ages. Lots of academic studies and dissection works have been made about him along his near 60 years of life. And lots of bucks, too. Both his creators died in the nineties, without a small fraction of this fortune, because they sold the rights of the character in 40's to DC Comics.

The Comics evolved, and spread its arms, becoming part of mass culture. In the period 1940-1945 some four hundred super heroes were created, mostly based in Superman's model, though only a few survived. Two of them deserve to be highlighted: Batman, created in 1939 by Bob Kane, a darker character (inspired in Da Vinci's flying machine and Zorro) whose fame would exceed Superman's in the 80's, and Captain Marvel, by C.C. Beck, a yon boy that earned magical powers every time he said the magic word Shazam!, an acronym of names of old gods. A lot of characters were enlisted and went to the World War II, and comic books became ideological weapons to increase soldiers and people moral. The greatest icon of those war days is Jack Kirby and Joe Simon's Captain America. To say the least, in the cover of his first magazine, Captain America battled no one other than Adolf Hitler himself.

In the 40's, the magazine format of comic books as we know today was created, as well as one of the best comic books ever conceived, Will Eisner's The Spirit, an anthological work that last twelve years with the help of soon-to-be-known famous names, like Bob Kane (creator of Batman), Jack Kirby and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. With only seven weekly pages, inserted in the Sunday supplement of a journal, Eisner created a full encyclopedia of comic books, using each of the comic books' basic elements in a new and creative way, beginning each story with a different logo for The Spirit, with an intense use of perspective and shadow. With subjects far more mature than the typically super-hero's stories, The Spirit is the starting point for a series of tales dealing with everyman's life and problems, usual subjects in later Eisner's works. Aside with Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, The Spirit is one of the best comic books of that decade (if not the one ever made).

The 50's staged the greatest witch-hunt of comics ever, and a lot of prejudice from those days still remains. Psychiatrist Frederic Wertham wrote a book, The Seduction of the Innocent, where he accused comic books of causing youth corruption and juvenile delinquency. Among any other weird subjects, he accused comics of inciting youth to violence (what had already happened with rock'n'roll). A Comics Code was then created destined to limit and rule on what could appear (and what could not) in the pages. It destroyed all horror titles from EC Comics, except for one, an humoristic mag, that remains until today: Mad.

Another great story was born those hard days, an apparently innocent strip about a group of children: Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. Charlie Brown, the main character, is a 6 year old boy, born to loose. He symbolizes the insecurity, the ingenuity, the lack of initiative; an eternal hopper. His dog, Snoopy, is a philosophic beagle in the top of his red house. This strip starts the thinking and intellectual age of comics, with a greater valorization of the text over the images. The other great name of the 50's intellectual comics is Jules Feiffer, who retracted paranoia and obsessions of compulsive people from the American society with a free, undefined drawing style, without background, mainly in monologues, in the Village Voice. In times of limited freedom of speech and witch-hunt, the creators (in theater and in movies as much as in comics) used apparently inoffensive stories to say in the interlineation what they wanted. Walt Kelly's Pogo is another example, which used small animals in the swamps of Florida to discuss politics.

In Europe, by those days, was created one of the best comic books ever made, the French Astérix, by René Goscinny (text) and Albert Uderzo (pencils), in Pilote magazine, in 1959. With a huge humor sense, great historic research, wonderful pencils, Astérix is without any question, a masterpiece. The stories of the inhabitants of a gaul village, in 50 b.C., mixed adventure, jokes about mostly European countries (and their people), Latin quotes, caricatures of French personalities from the 60's and detailed backgrounds in an easy reading narrative. In 1977 Goscinny died, but the story didn't end: Uderzo followed drawing and, then, also writing the albums -- until today. Astérix is the top-one best seller in French.

In the sixties we can see the remake of the super hero with the Marvel Comics, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Lee and Kirby already worked with comic books and super heroes, but then, they had the opportunity of creating an entire new fictional universe. The surprise was that the characters had some kind of weakness or defect in opposition to their super powers. Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, Thor, Hulk, X-Men, Iron Man, Dr. Strange were the first of an empire that soon would turn Marvel in the number one in comic book market. But the most popular character and one of the most interesting super heroes ever created is the Spiderman, the secret identity of frail and shy teenager Peter Parker.

Times changes, and so comic books, in sixties. Examples of what we call today adult comics became more usual, opening space for the creation of stories such as French Barbarella, by Jean Claude Forest; argentine Mafalda, by Quino; Italian Valentina, by Guido Crepax; north American Fritz the Cat, by Robert Crumb (who introduced the underground in comic books); and for the embryonic works in science fiction and fantasy of Parisian penciller Jean Giraud, who later would be better known as Moebius. In all those works it could be seen sex, violence, intellectual insight, critics to the society, use of color and page design in very different ways and intensities than what has been done so far. Comic books are not more only for kids; they grew up and sophisticated themselves in unexpected ways. Adult comics existed since the first times, but they increase in number in the 70's. Conventions and exposition in museums began at the end of that decade, as much as academic studies.

The seventies are no more than a natural consequence of what had begun to happen in the sixties. Underground comics definitively conquered their space, been sold either in head shops or hand to hand. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton's Freak Brothers, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Dan Griffin are among the most known names, if you can say so, in underground. On the other side of the ocean, a few French pencillers -- Moebius, Phillipe Druillet, Jean Pierre Dionnet, and Bernard Farkas --, joined under the name of Les humanoides associés, created in 1974 a historic magazine, Métal Hurlant, that came to the USA in 1977, as Heavy Metal. Fantasy, science fiction, acid trips, rock'n'roll, naked bodies, incredible use of color, new ways of page design and literature are part of the confuse mix that made the success of the magazine. From Itally comes great fumetti, such as Ken Parker, by Berardi and Milazzo, Corto Maltese, by Hugo Pratt, and The Click, by Milo Manara.

In the end of the seventies Will Eisner returns to the comic's stage, inaugurating a new genre, the graphic novel, with A Contract with God. It is the first of a series of tales ambiented in the Bronx that would prove definitively that the master hasn't loose his hand.

After The 1980's

((Following historical comic book write up was found on a geocities site by Jamie Coville at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8580/frames.html))

The Grim and Gritty Age

In 1979, Frank Miller started penciling Daredevil with issue #158. By issue #168 he was writing the title and was starting what would be called "grim and gritty" comics. These stories were different and more popular because they were more realistic and honest. Frank Miller would go on to write many other comics using the "grim and gritty" style. Slowly "grim and gritty" would become more mainstream in the 80's. You'll read more about these books soon.

In December 1981, Pacific Comics started putting out comics starting with Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers. This is another comic that isn't worth anything more than the cover price, but is important to comics. It was the first comic book where the company allowed the creators of the characters to retain rights to those characters. This particular book was done by Jack "King" Kirby, who participated in creating a lot of popular Marvel and some DC superheroes.

In 1984, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 come out. This book was in black and white, and hugely successful. It was created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird one night by trying to create the dorkyist, silliest superhero or superhero team they could imagine. After laughing their guts out at this they re-worked it a little and decided to publish it. They both saved up some money and borrowed some from their Uncle, and published a magazine- sized black and white parody of the "grim and gritty" ninja heroes that were becoming popular in comic books.

The Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles became so popular a T.V. cartoon about them was produced, but it toned them down for the youngsters. Then they were licensed out and appeared on every product that you can imagine. This book started a black and white comic boom, and also is the most commercially successful self-published, creator-owned superhero comic book ever. Recently the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles joined with Image comics, a company that lets it keep it's creator-owned and -edited status.

In 1985 DC put together a Crisis of the Infinite Earths series. This was in responce to a confusing mess of alternate "earths" where heroes of one sort or another existed. There were many different worlds, but Crisis highlighted these 6:
Earth 1 (Normal DC Universe)
Earth 2 (Golden Aged DC)
Earth 3 (Villains and heroes were reversed)
Earth 4 (Charlton Comics, 1960's) - This was introduced durring the series
Earth S (Fawcet Comics - Captain Marvel/Shazam and others)
Earth X (Quality Comics 1940-1955)

This series would collapse all the different Earths together, and create one Earth where everyone existed. In doing this DC killed off some of their heroes, old and new, including the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen (I guess this was DC's revenge on Barry for starting this mess!). The problem with doing this was that DC decided to start their whole history and continuity all over again. Meaning the events in every DC book you bought before this point didn't really happen; it had no bearing on today's comics. The writers were starting from scratch again, and if they wanted the old story to have meaning, they would have to re-tell it. Having to start completely from scratch angered some of the professionals and the readers. There was also a mess of what really 'did' and 'didn't' happen in the past with reference to older heroes. Fixing the DC timeline and continuity was a great idea, but DC botched it up completely.

In 1986 a new style of superhero comic books came out. These were realistic superhero stories. If you discovered you had superpowers would you be the perfect person that you read about in the comic books? Probably not. One of the Frank Miller books that really brought "grim and gritty" into the mainstream was done in 1986. It was called Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. This story took place in the future and dealt with an old Bruce Wayne, coming out of superhero retirement and putting on the Batman costume one last time.

Also in 1986, DC created a comic book limited series called The Watchmen. In this comic real people did have superpowers and it had a great effect on the world. The Watchmen was about a group of vigilantes that were forced to stop their actions by the government after a police strike. This book also showed changes that the new superheroes would have on some major historical events, on how our technology would develop, and many other aspects of our society. But in 1985 before The Watchmen came out, DC bought characters from Charlton Comics. Watchman's writer Alan Moore made characters very similar to those from Charlton, and used them in the Watchmen series. Some of the original Charlton heroes would go on to become important heroes in DC and be a part of some major story lines in the future.

The Gimmick Age

In 1986, a business transaction happened that would affect comics until this very day. The owner of Heroes World would sell Marvel Comics to a businessman named Ron Perelman. This started what I call the Gimmick Age. Under the new ownership, Marvel comics would start an aggressive marketing campaign to sell more comics. They would do this with huge storylines that would crossover into every title (forcing readers to buy them all if they wanted to read the story). They would use cover gimmicks like holograms, glow in the dark, extend out into a poster, and many other ideas. A lot of promotional items were offered with comics, heroes would die for the short term and then be brought back to life, heroes would turn into villains, and popular villains into heroes. Marvel comics started this trend, but shortly afterwards all the other comic companies started doing the same thing. Even though many fans reject and grow sick of these gimmicks, companies still use them to draw revenue mainly from the new readers.

In 1988, another Batman story line made comic history. This story line was called "A Death in the Family." In this issue the second character to be called Robin was killed. This book is important because Robin's fate was decided by the fans. At the end of the third part of this series, Robin was blown up by a bomb set by the Joker. At this time fans were asked to call in and vote for Robin's life or death. The actual vote was 5343 to 5271; a mere 72 votes killed off the Boy Wonder. Later, a third character (Timothy Drake) was created to fill the Robin role.

The CCA got new guidelines in 1989. They are the latest version of the guidelines, so when you read a comic book today with a CCA seal these are the standards it had to meet to carry the seal. When comparing this document with the 1954 and 1971 versions you'll notice a drastic change!

In 1989, the "Batman" movie came out, and was a smash hit. The movie would help boost comic books to a new-found popularity that hadn't been seen since the Marvel Age. But it wasn't just the movie that made comics popular again, it was also older readers. Collecting comics was usually seen as a kids thing, something that teen-agers or adults shouldn't be doing. But the 80's changed that. Comics became more adult-oriented, they dealt more with mature issues while keeping the comic fun without being too corny. This resulted in a shift in the age of comic collectors. Those who read comics as a kid, kept reading them or returned to reading them. Today comics are not just for kids (some are not for kids period), the average comic reader today is between the ages of 15 and 23. About 30% of the consumers are over 20 years old. This, along with the new influx of Batman-inspired fans, made comics more popular for a few years.

As well, there was the "speculator" market. This market was comprised of people who bought several copies of a certain comic issue, with the intent of re-selling them later at a higher price, if the demand for the issue was higher than the stores could satisfy. The speculator market would play a big factor in the entire comic market's future success and downfall.

Also in 1989, Sandman #1 came out. This book was different than any other superhero comic book. It was so unique, I have trouble calling it a superhero book. The main character, Morpheus, also known as The Sandman, was a supernatural being with powers. He wasn't really a hero but instead a deity that was the God of the Dreamworld. This title was meant for mature readers and was the flagship for DC's Vertigo line which is still a very successful line today. The writer Neil Gaiman has won several awards for his work in this book. Sadly Morpheus died in #69 and the title ended in 1996 at issue #75. It was done at the writers request, and not because of poor sales. Today Sandman reprints are being published and Sandman Trade Paper Backs are sought after by fans didn't collect the regular series.

In 1990, an extremely popular artist named Todd McFarlane got his own Spider-Man title to draw and write. The result was Spider-Man #1 became the best-selling comic book to that date. Another reason why it sold so well was that there were several different cover versions for this issue. Lots of fans went out and bought the same comic more than once to collect the different covers. Some of them were shipped to the comic stores already bagged for protection. Altogether there were 9 different versions of Spider-Man #1. Some of them bagged, some of them in a different color, some were second print, and even one was a platinum version.

In 1991 Marvel would repeat this success, and create another record-breaking comic book when they gave another very popular artist named Rob Liefeld his own book to draw and plot. This book was called X-Force #1. Like the Spider-Man book, this book had gimmicks that would cause some fans to buy several issues of the same comic. Different X-Force #1 issues had different cards of the characters inside. Altogether there were 7 different versions of this comic, 5 came with different cards, while others came without a polybag wrapping or a second print of the comic.

A third Marvel comic would repeat this success in the same year. This was called X-men #1, by writer Chris Claremont and artist Jim Lee. Once again a gimmick was used to ensure repeat sales of the same issue. This comic came with 5 different covers, 4 of them making up one big cover picture, and the fifth would have the whole picture all in one gatefold cover. This comic would sell over 8 million issues and remains the world's best-selling comic book.

In 1992 Superman died. Well, for a while he died. In Superman #75 he was killed by a supervillain called Doomsday. This event created major media attention. It also resulted in many mourners around the world for Superman. Seven issues later (these were devoted to his funeral and four characters who claimed to be the renewed or reincarnated versions of Superman, such as 'Superboy'), in Superman #82 the real one was brought back to life. Lo and behold, DC sold more comics.

In Alpha Flight #106 The first mainstream gay superhero arrived, or a better description would be that he 'came out of the closet.' The character was called Northstar, and he was a member of a Canadian team of superheroes called Alpha Flight. The bit of media attention that this received caused demand for the book to go up, and caused a bit of predictable controversy. Another social issue was covered in the issue of The Incredible Hulk, where a former supporting character became HIV positive. Since then Marvel has stopped doing socially controversial stories.

The Image Age

Another very important event happened in 1992. This was the formation of Image Comics. This company was started up by a group of disgruntled artists and some artist/writers from Marvel comics. Their complaint was that they were not given enough creative freedom in regards to new characters, or enough editorial control over the new characters. So they left Marvel and formed Image Comics. The new company would take the industry by storm with high-quality artwork that had never been seen in a comic book. Another improvement to comic art was computerized color separation. This new technology would enhance the art several times over. The Image books were printed on higher quality paper, which was better for those wishing to keep their comic from degrading after a long period of time.

The group of people that left Marvel and formed Image were: Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, Whilce Portacio, and Marc Silvestri. Since then many others have joined, and some have left. The first of their books to come out was Youngblood #1 by Rob Liefeld. This comic is about a group of government-sponsored heroes who are together to protect the world. Although Image is not popular with some long time readers, Image has captured the attention of newer readers, and like Marvel before them, they got some of their characters into cartoons and movies only a few short years after they were started.

Spawn #1 is the best selling independent comic to date. It has a cover date of May 1992 and it sold 1.7 million copies. This comic book was created by Todd McFarlane, and it became the first book to consistently outsell the popular comic titles of the big comic book companies. Since this book, Todd has gone on to create his own toy company (against all advice) for the purpose of making Spawn action figures. The company is now called McFarlane Toys and it has made changes in the entire toy industry by focusing on the design of the figure. Todd's goal is to make Spawn a household name, like Superman or Spider-man. Currently there is a Spawn cartoon for adults on HBO, and a Spawn movie in the theaters. If this level of success continues, Todd may soon acheive his goal.

In 1993 other companies started their own superhero comic lines. The two main companies are Malibu and Dark Horse comics. Malibu had been a publisher for Image comics when it was starting up, and was later bought by Marvel Comics. Dark Horse had connections to Hollywood that would get them the rights to do books on Hollywood characters like Robocop, Alien, Predator, Star Wars, and Terminator. They would also succeed in getting some of their superheroes on the big screen with characters such as The Mask, Time Cop, and Barb Wire.

It was around this time that the "speculator" market died out. Because many new comics were being over-hyped by the publishers, speculators and fans alike bought several copies of certain comics only to find that the expected future demand for the comic didn't materialize. Comics that were promoted as the next "hot" book were no longer well-received by the majority of comic readers. With the demand for over-hyped comics disappearing, the speculators found they were unable to make any money. As well, some fans who were also buying over-hyped comics and finding them unentertaining or worth their dollars, also left the comic market.

In 1994-1996, Marvel made Peter Parker a clone of the original true Spider-Man, causing Peter Parker to leave the guise of Spider-Man and have a new character take over the superhero's role. This angered fans so much Marvel comics had a 60% sales drop in their Spider-Man titles. Marvel then did some reversing, and brought back Peter Parker as the true wall-crawler in Spider-Man #75. This is probably the most dramatic consumer back-lash to a storyline event for such a popular character in recent years.

In 1994, DC tried to solve the mess that they created in Crisis of the Infinite Earths, with another mini-series called Zero Hour. At the end of this series, some previously "wiped out" time lines were re-instated. As well, a straight continuity was established. But there are still problems within the DC Universe in figuring out what did and didn't happen.

In 1996, DC and Marvel comics did a major crossover. This crossover involves their characters fighting each other to see who would win, under the conditions laid out in the books. Some of the winners were decided by popular vote, both by post-office mail and E-mail, while others were decided by the two companies. During this limited series Both Marvel and DC put out a string of one-shot stories involving a weird merger of two of their characters. An example would be Spider-Boy (Spider-Man and Superboy combined) and Super Soldier (Superman and Captain America combined).