Comic Book Art

"Comic Book Confidential" by Ron Mann was a very entertaining documentary on the history of comic books. Ron Mann starts talking about the history of comics beginning with the fictional private detective named Slam Bradley who came on the scene in "Superman" in 1938. When looking up information on comic books, I found out that Benjamin Franklin created the first editorial cartoon called "Join or Die". It was published in 1754 in an American newspaper. Rudolphe Topffer created a comic strip in 1827 and then in 1837 created what is believed to be the first known comic book called "The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck". In 1842, it became the first comic book published in the United States. In 1895, Richard Outcault created "Yellow Kid" which is considered to be the first comic strip. "The reason being is that Richard Outcault was the first artist to use the balloon, an outlined space on the page where what the characters spoke was written. However, comic strips and comic books were published before 'Yellow Kid' debuted in the New York City newspaper 'The World'." "Brenda Starr" was the first cartoon strip that created by a woman in 1940 and was published in the Chicago Tribune Syndicate by Dale Messick. It was a comic strip that was like a soap opera with a working woman theme.

Over the years, comics and comic books made a pretty big impact on society. In the 1950's, comic books like "Tales of the Crypt" were censored due to their use of horror and terror in fear to what they might do to the minds of kids. It seemed like the more they were censored, the more people were drawn to different types of censored comic books. "Underground Comix" that wanted to "fight the oppressor" became popular among those that did not like their comic books to be censored. They were known as "comix" instead of "comics" because they were a bit x-rated. Comics still have an influence on society today and will probably continue to do so in the future as people continue to show their views and opinions through comics or cartoons.