American comic book
Encyclopedia
An American comic book is a small magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 originating in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and containing a narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

 in the form of comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

. Since 1975 the dimensions have standardized at 6 5/8" x 10 ¼" (17 x 26 cm), down from 6 ¾" x 10 ¼" in the Silver Age, although larger formats appeared in the past. This varied based on publisher and wartime supplies, but could be as large as 7 1/2" x by 10 1/4" such as National Comics
National Comics (series)
National Comics was an anthology comic book series published by Quality Comics, from July, 1940 until November, 1949. It ran for 75 issues....

published by Quality Comics
Quality Comics
Quality Comics was an American comic book publishing company that operated from 1939 to 1956 and was an influential creative force in what historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books....

.

Since the invention of the modern comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 format in 1933, the United States has produced the most examples, with only the British comic books (during the inter-war period and up until the 1970s), the Italian fumetti
Fumetti
Fumetti is an Italian word which refers to all comics. In English, the term refers specifically to photonovels or photographic comics, a genre of comics illustrated with photographs rather than drawings. Italians call these fotoromanzi...

and the Japanese manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

as close competitors in terms of quantity.

Sales of comic books began to decline after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when the medium had to face competition with the spread of television and mass-market paperback books. Confirming the trend, mass-media researchers in the period found comic-book reading among the public with television sets in homes "drastically reduced". The 1960s saw a second wave of superhero popularity that became known as the Silver Age and also saw the advent of the underground comics
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...

. Later, the recognition of the comics medium among academics, literary critics and art museums helped solidify comics as a serious artform with established traditions, stylistic conventions
Convention (norm)
A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....

, and artistic evolution.

Proto-comic books and the Platinum Age

The development of the modern American comic book happened in stages. Publishers had collected comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

s in hardcover book form as early as 1833, with The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck
Histoire de M. Vieux Bois
Histoire de M. Vieux Bois, published in English as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, and also known as Les amours de Mr. Vieux Bois or simply Monsieur Vieuxbois, is a 19th-century publication written and illustrated by the Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer. Published first in Europe as Histoire...

, which appeared in New York in 1842, as the first example published in English.

The G. W. Dillingham Company published the first known proto-comic-book magazine in the U.S., The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats, in 1897. It reprinted material – primarily the October 18, 1896 to January 10, 1897 sequence titled "McFadden's Row of Flats" – from cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 Richard F. Outcault
Richard F. Outcault
Richard Felton Outcault was an American comic strip writer-artist. He was the creator of the series The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown, and he is considered the inventor of the modern comic strip.-Early life:...

's newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 Hogan's Alley, starring a character called the Yellow Kid. The 196-page, square-bound, black-and-white publication, which also includes introductory text by E. W. Townsend, measured 5x7 inches and sold for 50 cents. The neologism "comic book" appears on the back cover. Despite the publication of a series of related Hearst comics soon afterward (including the first known full-color comic, The Blackberries, in 1901) the first monthly comic book, Comics Monthly, did not appear until 1922 and only lasted a year. Produced in an 8½-by-9-inch format, it reprinted newspaper comic strips.

The Funnies and Funnies on Parade

In 1929 Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing, an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte, Jr.During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included 1000 Jokes, launched in...

 (founded by George T. Delacorte Jr.
George T. Delacorte Jr.
George T. Delacorte, Jr., founded the Dell Publishing Company in 1921. His goal was to entertain readers who were not satisfied with the genteel publications available at the time. The company was one of the largest publishers of books, magazines, and comics during its heyday...

) published The Funnies
The Funnies
The Funnies was the name of two American publications from Dell Publishing, the first of these a seminal, 1920s precursor of comic books, and the second a standard 1930s comic book.-The Funnies :In 1929, George T...

, described by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 as "a short-lived newspaper tabloid insert". (not to be confused with Dell's later comic book of the same name, which began publication in 1936.) Historian Ron Goulart describes the 16-page, four-color
Color printing
Color printing or Colour printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color...

 periodical as "more a Sunday comic section without the rest of the newspaper than a true comic book. But it did offer all original material and was sold on newsstands". The Funnies ran for 36 issues, published Saturdays through October 16, 1930.

In 1933, salesperson Maxwell Gaines, sales manager Harry I. Wildenberg, and owner George Janosik of the Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, on the Naugatuck River, 33 miles southwest of Hartford and 77 miles northeast of New York City...

 company Eastern Color Printing – which (among other things) printed Sunday-paper comic-strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 sections – produced Funnies on Parade
Funnies on Parade
Funnies on Parade is an American publication of 1933 that was a precursor of comic books.The creation of the modern American comic book came in stages. Dell Publishing in 1929 published a 16-page, newsprint periodical of original, comic strip-styled material titled The Funnies and described by the...

as a way to keep their presses running. Like The Funnies, but only eight pages long, this appeared as a newsprint
Newsprint
Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper most commonly used to print newspapers, and other publications and advertising material. It usually has an off-white cast and distinctive feel. It is designed for use in printing presses that employ a long web of paper rather than individual sheets of...

 magazine. Rather than using original material, however, it reprinted in color several comic strips licensed from the McNaught Syndicate
McNaught Syndicate
The McNaught Syndicate was an American newspaper syndicate founded in 1922. It was established by Virgil Venice McNitt and Charles V. McAdam. Its best known contents were the columns by Will Rogers and O. O. McIntyre, the Dear Abby letters section and comic strips, including Joe Palooka and...

 and the McClure Syndicate
McClure Syndicate
McClure Syndicate , the first American newspaper syndicate, introduced many American and British writers to the masses. Launched in 1884 by publisher Samuel S. McClure, it was the first successful company of its kind...

. These included such popular strips as cartoonist Al Smith
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith. , known in private and public life as Al Smith, was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York three times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928...

's Mutt and Jeff, Ham Fisher
Ham Fisher
Hammond Edward Fisher was an American comic strip writer and cartoonist who signed his work Ham Fisher...

's Joe Palooka
Joe Palooka
Joe Palooka was an American comic strip about a heavyweight boxing champion, created by cartoonist Ham Fisher in 1921. The strip debuted in 1930 and was carried at its peak by 900 newspapers....

, and Percy Crosby
Percy Crosby
Percy Leo Crosby was an American author, illustrator and cartoonist best known for his popular comic strip Skippy. Adapted into movies, a novel and a radio show, Crosby's creation was commemorated on a 1997 U.S. Postal Service stamp...

's Skippy
Skippy (comic strip)
Skippy was an American comic strip written and drawn by Percy Crosby that was published from 1923 to 1945. A highly popular, acclaimed and influential feature about rambunctious fifth-grader Skippy Skinner, his friends and his enemies, it was adapted into movies, a novel and a radio show. It was...

. Eastern Color neither sold this periodical nor made it available on newsstands, but rather sent it out free as a promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....

 soap and toiletries products. The company printed ten-thousand copies. The promotion proved a success, and Eastern Color that year produced similar periodicals for Canada Dry
Canada Dry
Canada Dry is a brand of soft drinks owned since 2008 by the Texas-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group. For over a century Canada Dry has been known for its ginger ale, though the company also manufactures a number of other soft drinks and mixers...

 soft drinks, Kinney Shoes, Wheatena
Wheatena
Wheatena is an American high-fiber, toasted-wheat cereal that originated on Mulberry Street in New York City, New York, circa 1879, when a small bakery owner began roasting whole wheat, grinding it, and packaging it for sale under this brand name.-History:...

 cereal
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...

 and others, with print runs of from 100,000 to 250,000.

Famous Funnies and New Fun

Also in 1933 Gaines and Wildenberg collaborated with Dell to publish the 36-page Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, which historians consider the first true American comic book; Goulart, for example, calls it "the cornerstone for one of the most lucrative branches of magazine publishing". Distribution took place through the Woolworth's
F. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...

 department-store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

 chain, though it remains unclear whether it was sold or given away; the cover displays no price, but Goulart refers, either metaphorically or literally, to "sticking a ten-cent pricetag [sic
Sic
Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, —when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source...

] on the comic books".

When Delacorte declined to continue with Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, Eastern Color on its own published Famous Funnies
Famous Funnies
Famous Funnies is an American publication of the 1930s that represents what popular culture historians consider the first true American comic book, following seminal precursors.-Immediate precursors:...

#1 (cover-dated July 1934), a 68-page giant selling for 10¢. Distributed to newsstands by the mammoth American News Company
American News Company
American News Company was a magazine distribution company founded in 1864 by Sinclair Tousey, which dominated the distribution market in the 1940s and 1950s...

, it proved a hit with readers during the cash-strapped Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, selling 90 percent of its 200,000 print — though putting Eastern Color more than $4,000 in the red. That quickly changed, with the book turning a $30,000 profit each issue starting with #12. Famous Funnies would eventually run 218 issues, inspire imitators, and largely launch a new mass medium.

When the supply of available existing comic strips began to dwindle, early comic books began to include a small amount of new, original material in comic-strip format. Inevitably, a comic book of all-original material, with no comic-strip reprints, debuted. Fledgling publisher Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was an American pulp magazine writer and entrepreneur who pioneered the American comic book, publishing the first such periodical consisting solely of original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips...

 founded National Allied Publications – which would evolve into DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 – to release New Fun
More Fun Comics
More Fun Comics, originally titled New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine a.k.a. New Fun Comics, was a 1935-1947 American comic book anthology that introduced several major superhero characters and was the first American comic-book series to feature solely original material rather than reprints of...

 #1 (Feb. 1935). This came out as a tabloid-sized, 10-inch by 15-inch, 36-page magazine with a card-stock, non-glossy cover. An anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

, it mixed humor features such as the funny animal
Funny animal
Funny animal is a cartooning term for the genre of comics and animated cartoons in which the main characters are humanoid or talking animals, with anthropomorphic personality traits. The characters themselves may also be called funny animals...

 comic "Pelion and Ossa" and the college-set "Jigger and Ginger" with such dramatic fare as the Western
Western fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century...

 strip "Jack Woods" and the "yellow-peril
Yellow Peril
Yellow Peril was a colour metaphor for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with immigration of Chinese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid 20th century, due to Japanese military expansion.The term...

" adventure "Barry O'Neill", featuring a Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century...

-styled villain, Fang Gow. Issue #6 (Oct. 1935) brought the comic-book debut of Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...

 and Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...

, the future creators of Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

, who began their careers with the musketeer swashbuckler "Henri Duval" (doing the first two installments before turning it over to others) and, under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

s "Leger and Reuths", the supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

-crimefighter adventure Doctor Occult
Doctor Occult
Doctor Occult is a fictional character, a magic user in the . Created by Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Doctor Occult is the earliest character created by DC Comics still currently in use in its shared universe fiction....

.

Superheroes and the Golden Age

In 1938, after Wheeler-Nicholson's partner Harry Donenfeld
Harry Donenfeld
Harry Donenfeld was an American publisher who is known primarily for being the owner of National Allied Publications, which distributed Detective Comics and Action Comics, the originator publications for the superhero characters Batman and Superman...

 had ousted him, National Allied editor Vin Sullivan
Vin Sullivan
Vincent "Vin" Sullivan was a pioneering American comic book editor, artist and publisher.As an editor for National Allied Publications, the future DC Comics, he was responsible for buying Superman from creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and edited that archetypcal superhero in his first...

 pulled a Siegel/Shuster creation from the slush pile
Slush pile
In publishing, the slush pile is the set of unsolicited query letters or manuscripts sent either directly to the publisher or literary agent by authors, or to the publisher by an agent not known to the publisher....

 and used it as the cover feature (but only as a backup story) in Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...

#1
Action Comics 1
Action Comics #1 is the first issue of the comic book series Action Comics. It features the first appearance of several comic book heroes, most notably the Jerry Siegel/Joe Shuster creation Superman.-Contents:...

 (June 1938). The duo's alien hero, Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

, dressed in colorful tights and a cape evoking costumed circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 daredevil performers, became the archetype of the "superheroes" that would follow. Action would become the American comic book with the second-largest number of issues, next to Dell Comics
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

' Four Color
Four Color
Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and One Shots, was a long-running American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962...

, with over 860 issues published .
Siegel and Shuster's Superman, influenced by the pulp fiction
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

 stories and by the legend of the Golem
Golem
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....

 of Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, had superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman can mean an improved human, for example, by genetic modification, cybernetic implants, or as what humans might evolve into, in the near or distant future...

 strength, speed and other abilities, and lived day-to-day in his secret identity
Secret identity
A secret identity is an element of fiction wherein a character develops a separate persona , while keeping their true identity hidden. The character also may wear a disguise...

 as a mild-mannered reporter named Clark Kent. Within two years, most comic-book companies had started publishing large lines of superhero titles, and Superman has gone on to become one of the world's most recognizable characters.

Aficionados know the period from the late 1930s through roughly the end of the 1940s as the Golden Age of comic books
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...

. It featured extremely large print-runs, with Action and Captain Marvel selling over half a million copies a month each; comics provided very popular cheap entertainment during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 especially among soldiers, but erratic quality in stories, art, and in printing. Unusually, the comics industry provided jobs to an ethnic cross-section of Americans (particularly Jews), albeit often at low wages and in sweatshop
Sweatshop
Sweatshop is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have...

 working-conditions.

Following World War II the popularity of superhero comics rapidly declined. Publishers began to phase them out around 1945 and replace them with teen humor (epitomized by Archie Comics
Archie Comics
Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

), funny animal
Funny animal
Funny animal is a cartooning term for the genre of comics and animated cartoons in which the main characters are humanoid or talking animals, with anthropomorphic personality traits. The characters themselves may also be called funny animals...

 comics (such as those featuring Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 characters), science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

, Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

, romance
Romance novel
The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...

, and satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 comics. Timely
Timely Comics
Timely Comics, an imprint of Timely Publications, was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics....

's superhero line ended in 1950 when it canceled Captain America
Captain America
Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...

, which had already been converted into a horror title for its final issues. Except for National's Superman, Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

, and Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 . The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986....

, superheroes practically went extinct by 1952.

Comics as an overall genre continued to increase their readership into the 1950s, however, with Walt Disney's Comics and Stories selling almost three million copies a month in 1953).
Close to a dozen Dell funny-animal titles sold over one million copies each per month. EC Comics' more adult-oriented horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

 titles sold 400,000 a month.

The Comics Code

In the late 1940s and early 1950s horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

 and true-crime
True crime (genre)
True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.The crimes most commonly include murder, but true crime works have also touched on other legal cases. Depending on the writer, true crime can adhere strictly to...

 comics flourished, many containing violence and gore. EC ("Educational Comics", later renamed "Entertaining Comics") owned by Max Gaines' son, William M. Gaines, became the most successful and artistically creative of all the publishers. The careers of many famous artists such as Al Feldstein
Al Feldstein
Albert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...

, Wallace Wood, Reed Crandall
Reed Crandall
Reed Crandall was an American illustrator and penciller of comic books and magazines. He was best known for the Quality Comics character Blackhawk and for stories in the critically acclaimed EC Comics of the 1950s.Crandall was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.-Early...

, Jack Davis
Jack Davis (cartoonist)
Jack Davis is an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories...

, Will Elder
Will Elder
William Elder was an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art, but is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952....

 and others began in the offices of EC. However, in spite of the quality of the work, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham was a Jewish German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of violent imagery in mass media and comic books on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent , which purported that comic books are...

 singled out Gaines as the most infamous of the comic moguls.

Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent
Seduction of the Innocent
Seduction of the Innocent is a book by German-American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book was a minor bestseller that created alarm in parents and galvanized...

(1954), concerned with what he perceived as sadistic and homosexual undertones in horror comics and in superhero comics respectively, raised public anxiety about comics. Soon moral crusader
Moral panic
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...

s blamed comic books as a cause of poor grades, juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency
Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...

, drug use, and ultimately, "crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

" itself. This led the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency
The United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was established by the United States Senate in 1953 to investigate the problem of juvenile delinquency.- Background :...

 to take an interest in comic books (April–June, 1954). Schools and parent groups held public comic-book burnings, and some cities banned
Ban (law)
A ban is, generally, any decree that prohibits something.Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some see this as a negative act and others see it as maintaining the "status quo"...

 comic books. Industry circulation declined drastically.

In the wake of these events, many comics publishers, most notably National and Archie, founded the Comics Code Authority
Comics Code Authority
The Comics Code Authority was a body created as part of the Comics Magazine Association of America, as a tool for the comics-publishing industry to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. Member publishers submitted comic books to the CCA, which screened them for adherence to...

 in 1954 and drafted the Comics Code, intended as "the most stringent code in existence for any communications media". A Comic Code Seal of Approval soon appeared on virtually every comic book carried on newsstands. EC, after experimenting with less controversial comic books, dropped its comics line to focus on the satiric Mad — a comic book that changed to magazine format in order to circumvent the Code.

Silver Age of Comic Books

The Silver Age
Silver Age of Comic Books
The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those in the superhero genre. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books and an interregnum in the early to mid-1950s, the Silver Age is considered to cover the...

 represents the period in which superheroes returned and came to dominate the comic book lines of the two major publishers, DC and Marvel. In the mid-1950s, following the popularity of the television series The Adventures of Superman, publishers experimented with the superhero once more. Showcase
Showcase (comics)
Showcase has been the title of several comic anthology series published by DC Comics. The general theme of these series has been to feature new and minor characters as a way to gauge reader interest in them, without the difficulty and risk of featuring "untested" characters in their own ongoing...

#4 (National, 1956) re-introduced
Reboot (continuity)
The verb reboot, in media dealing with serial fiction, means to discard much or even all previous continuity in the series and start anew with fresh ideas...

 The Flash and began a second wave of superhero popularity that became known as the Silver Age. National expanded its line of superheroes over the next six years, introducing new versions of Green Lantern
Green Lantern
The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...

, the Atom
Atom (comics)
The Atom is a name shared by several fictional comic book superheroes from the DC Comics universe.There have been five characters who have shared the Atom codename. The original Golden Age Atom, Al Pratt, was created by Ben Flinton and Bill O'Connor and first appeared in All-American Publications'...

, Hawkman
Hawkman
Hawkman is a fictional superhero who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Dennis Neville, the original Hawkman first appeared in Flash Comics #1, published by All-American Publications in 1940....

, and others.

In 1961 writer/editor Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....

 and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....

 created the Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four is a fictional superhero team appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The group debuted in The Fantastic Four #1 , which helped to usher in a new level of realism in the medium...

 for Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

. With an innovation that changed the comic-book industry, The Fantastic Four #1 initiated a naturalistic
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...

  style of superheroes with human failings, fears, and inner demons - heroes who squabbled and worried about the likes of rent-money. In contrast to the super-heroic do-gooder archetypes of established superheroes at the time, this ushered in a revolution. With dynamic artwork by Kirby, Steve Ditko
Steve Ditko
Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange....

, Don Heck
Don Heck
Don Heck was an American comic book artist best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, and for his long run penciling the Marvel superhero-team series The Avengers during the 1960s Silver Age of comic books.-Early life and career:Born in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New...

, and others complementing Lee's colorful, catchy prose, the new style was known to be very popular among college students who could identify with the angsty and irreverent nature of the characters such as the likes of Spider-Man,X-Men and the Fantastic Four during a time period of massive social upheaval which birthed a new generation of hipper and more countercultural young men and women who found a voice in these books. Marvel was initially restricted in the number of titles it could produce in that its books were distributed by rival National, a situation not alleviated until the late 1960s.

Other notable companies included the American Comics Group
American Comics Group
American Comics Group was a New York City-based comic book publisher which operated during the Golden and Silver Age of comic books. ACG published one of the first horror comics titles, Adventures into the Unknown. Another of ACG's claims to fame was the character of Herbie Popnecker, who starred...

 (ACG), the low-budget Charlton
Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics was an American comic book publishing company that existed from 1946 to 1985, having begun under a different name in 1944. It was based in Derby, Connecticut...

, where many professionals such as Dick Giordano
Dick Giordano
Richard Joseph "Dick" Giordano was an American comic book artist and editor best known for introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes, and serving as executive editor of then–industry leader DC Comics...

 got their start; Dell
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

; Gold Key
Gold Key Comics
Gold Key Comics was an imprint of Western Publishing created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984.-History:...

; Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers Robert B...

, home of the Harvey cartoon-characters (Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. As his name indicates, he is a ghost, but is quite personable...

) and non-animated others (Richie Rich); and Tower
Tower Comics
Tower Comics was an American comic book publishing company best known for Wally Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a strange combination of secret agents and superheroes; and Samm Schwartz's Tippy Teen, an Archie Andrews clone...

, best-known for T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is a fictional team of superheroes that appeared in comic books originally published by Tower Comics in the 1960s. They were an arm of the United Nations and were notable for their depiction of the heroes as everyday people whose heroic careers were merely their day jobs...

.

Underground comics

During the late 1960s and early 1970s a surge of underground comics
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...

 occurred. These comics, published independently of the established comic-book publishers, mostly reflected the youth counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...

 and drug culture of the time. Many featured an uninhibited, irreverent style, which hadn't been seen in comics before. The movement is often considered to have been started by R. Crumb's publication of Zap Comix
Zap Comix
Zap Comix is the best-known and one of the most popular of the underground comics that emerged as part of the youth counterculture of the late 1960s. While not believed to be the first underground comic to have been published, Zap is considered to mark the beginning of the "underground comix"...

#1 in 1968, though there were antecedents such as pornographic "Tijuana bibles", dating to the 1920s, and Frank Stack
Frank Stack
Frank Huntington Stack is an American underground cartoonist. Working under the name Foolbert Sturgeon to avoid persecution for his work while living in the bible belt, Stack published what is considered by many to be the first underground comic book, The Adventures of Jesus, in 1962.He graduated...

's The Adventures of Jesus, published in 1962.

Although many of the underground artists continued to produce work, most historians regard the underground comix movement as having ended by 1980, to be replaced that decade by a rise in independent, non-Comics Code Authority
Comics Code Authority
The Comics Code Authority was a body created as part of the Comics Magazine Association of America, as a tool for the comics-publishing industry to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. Member publishers submitted comic books to the CCA, which screened them for adherence to...

 compliant alternative comics
Alternative comics
Alternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...

 and the stigma amongst critics and the general public of regarding comic books as "child's play" being shedded off gradually.

Bronze Age of Comic Books

Wizard
Wizard (magazine)
Wizard or Wizard: The Magazine of Comics, Entertainment and Pop Culture was a magazine about comic books, published monthly in the United States by Wizard Entertainment from July 1991 to January 2011...

originally used the phrase "Bronze Age" in 1995 to denote the Modern Horror age. But historians and fans use "Bronze Age"
Bronze Age of Comic Books
The Bronze Age of Comic Books is an informal name for a period in the history of mainstream American comic books usually said to run from 1970 to 1985. It follows the Silver Age of Comic Books....

 to describe the period of American mainstream comics history that begins with a period of concentrated changes to comic books circa 1970. Unlike the Golden/Silver Age transition, the Silver/Bronze transition involved many continually published books, making the transition less sharp; not every book entered the Bronze Age at the same time.

Changes commonly considered to mark the transition between Silver and Bronze ages include:
  • A reshuffling of popular creators, including the retirement of Mort Weisinger
    Mort Weisinger
    Mortimer Weisinger was an American magazine and comic book editor best known for editing DC Comics' Superman during the mid-1950s to 1960s, in the Silver Age of comic books...

    , editor of the Superman books, and the movement of Jack Kirby
    Jack Kirby
    Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....

     to DC.
  • A boom in non-superhero and borderline superhero comics such as Conan the Barbarian
    Conan (comics)
    Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard was first adapted into comics published Marvel Comics beginning with the series Conan the Barbarian in 1970...

    , Tomb of Dracula
    Tomb of Dracula
    The Tomb of Dracula is a horror comic book series published by Marvel Comics from April 1972 to August 1979. The 70-issue series featured a group of vampire hunters who fought Count Dracula and other supernatural menaces...

    , Kamandi
    Kamandi
    Kamandi is an American comic book character, created by artist Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. The bulk of Kamandi's appearances occurred in the comic series Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth, which ran from 1972 to 1978....

    , Swamp Thing
    Swamp Thing
    Swamp Thing, a fictional character, is a plant elemental in the created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He first appeared in House of Secrets #92 in a stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century . The Swamp Thing then returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world and in...

    , Man-Thing
    Man-Thing
    The Man-Thing is a fictional character, a monster in publications from Marvel Comics. Created by writers Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and Gerry Conway and artist Gray Morrow, the character first appeared in Savage Tales #1 , and went on to be featured in various titles and in his own series, including...

    , Ghost Rider
    Ghost Rider (comics)
    Ghost Rider is the name of several fictional supernatural antiheroes appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Marvel had previously used the name for a Western character whose name was later changed to Night Rider and subsequently to Phantom Rider.The first supernatural Ghost Rider is...

    , and the revived Doctor Strange
    Doctor Strange
    Doctor Stephen Strange is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was co-created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, and first appeared in Strange Tales #110 ....

    and Phantom Stranger
    Phantom Stranger
    The Phantom Stranger is a fictional character of unspecified paranormal origins who battles mysterious and occult forces in various titles published by DC Comics, sometimes under their Vertigo imprint.-Publication history:...

    .
  • "Relevant" comics which attempted to address serious social issues, such as the drug-abuse issues of The Amazing Spider-Man
    The Amazing Spider-Man
    The Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the fictional superhero Spider-Man. Being the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a monthly periodical and was published continuously until it was...

    and Green Lantern
    Green Lantern
    The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...

    /Green Arrow
    Green Arrow
    Green Arrow is a fictional superhero that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, he first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 in November 1941. His secret identity is Oliver Queen, billionaire and former mayor of fictional Star City...

    .
  • The Comics Code Authority
    Comics Code Authority
    The Comics Code Authority was a body created as part of the Comics Magazine Association of America, as a tool for the comics-publishing industry to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. Member publishers submitted comic books to the CCA, which screened them for adherence to...

    's first update, in 1971 — prompted by Stan Lee
    Stan Lee
    Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....

    's defiance of the code for a story on narcotics at the behest of the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
  • Revamping of several popular characters, including a "darker" Batman closer to the original 1930s conception, several changes to Superman such as the disappearance of Kryptonite
    Kryptonite
    Kryptonite is a fictional material from the Superman mythos —the ore form of a radioactive element from Superman's home planet of Krypton. It is famous for being the ultimate physical weakness of Superman, and the word kryptonite has since become synonymous with an Achilles' heel —the one weakness...

    , and a temporary non-powered era for Wonder Woman.
  • The death of major characters such as Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy
    Gwen Stacy
    Gwendolyn "Gwen" Stacy appears as a supporting character in Marvel Comics' Spider-Man series. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, she first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #31 ....

    , the Doom Patrol
    Doom Patrol
    The Doom Patrol is a superhero team appearing in publications from DC Comics. The original Doom Patrol first appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80...

    , and several members of the Legion of Super-Heroes
    Legion of Super-Heroes
    The Legion of Super-Heroes is a fictional superhero team in the 30th and 31st centuries of the . The team first appears in Adventure Comics #247 , and was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino....

    .

The Modern Age

The development of a non-returnable "direct market
Direct market
The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for North American comic books. It consists of one dominant distributor and the majority of comics specialty stores, as well as other retailers of comic books and related merchandise...

" distribution system in the 1970s coincided with the appearance of comic-book specialty store
Specialty store
Specialty stores are small stores which specialize in a specific range of merchandise and related items. Most stores have an extensive depth of stock in the item that they specialize in and provide high levels of service and expertise...

s across North America. These specialty stores were a haven for more distinct voices and stories, but they also marginalized comics in the public eye. Serialized comic stories became longer and more complex, requiring readers to buy more issues to finish a story. Between 1970 and 1990, comic-book prices rose sharply because of a combination of factors: a nationwide paper shortage, increasing production values, and the minimal profit incentive for stores to stock comic books (due to the small unit price of an individual comic book relative to a magazine).

In the mid-to-late 1980s, two series published by DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is a four-issue comic book limited series written and drawn by Frank Miller, originally published by DC Comics under the title Batman: The Dark Knight in 1986. When the issues were released in a collected edition later that year, the story title for the first issue...

and Watchmen
Watchmen
Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colourist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form...

, had a profound impact upon the American comic-book industry. Their popularity, along with mainstream media attention and critical acclaim, combined with changing social tastes, led to a considerably darker tone in comic books during the 1990s nicknamed by fans as the "grim-and-gritty" era. The growing popularity of antiheroes such as the Punisher
Punisher
The Punisher is a fictional character, an anti-hero appearing in comic books based in the . Created by writer Gerry Conway and artists John Romita, Sr., and Ross Andru, the character made its first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 .The Punisher is a vigilante who employs murder,...

 and Wolverine
Wolverine (comics)
Wolverine is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Born as James Howlett and commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant, possessing animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, three retracting bone claws on each hand and a healing...

 underscored this change, as did the darker tone of some independent publishers such as First Comics
First Comics
First Comics was an American comic-book publisher that was active from 1983–1991, known for titles like American Flagg!, Grimjack, Nexus, Badger, Dreadstar, and Jon Sable...

, Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...

, and (founded in the 1990s) Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...

. This tendency towards darkness and nihilism was manifested in DC's production of heavily promoted comic book stories such as "A Death in the Family
Batman: A Death in the Family
"A Death in the Family" is a Batman comic book story arc first published in the late 1980s which gave fans the ability to influence the story through voting with a 900 number. "A Death in the Family" ran in Batman #426-429, published in 1988-1989...

" in the Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

series (in which The Joker
Joker (comics)
The Joker is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain published by DC Comics. He is the archenemy of Batman, having been directly responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, including the paralysis of Barbara Gordon and the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin...

 brutally murdered Batman's sidekick Robin
Robin (comics)
Robin is the name of several fictional characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, originally created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson, as a junior counterpart to DC Comics superhero Batman...

), while at Marvel the continuing popularity of the various X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...

books led to storylines involving the genocide of superpowered "mutants" in allegorical stories about religious and ethnic persecution.

Though a speculator boom in the early 1990s temporarily increased specialty store sales — collectors "invested" in multiple copies of a single comic to sell at a profit later — these booms ended in a collectibles glut, and comic sales declined sharply in the mid-1990s, leading to the demise of many hundreds of stores. In the 2000s, fewer comics sell in North America than at any time in their publishing history. The large superhero-oriented publishers like Marvel and DC are still often referred to as the "mainstream" of comics and are still considered a mass medium like in previous decades.

While the actual publications are no longer as widespread, however, licensing and merchandising
Merchandising
Merchandising is the methods, practices, and operations used to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer...

 have made many comic-book characters, aside from such perennials as Superman and Batman, more widely known to the general public than ever. In particular, several movies and videogames
VideoGames
VideoGames may refer to:*VideoGames, a mid-1990s magazine about video games.*Video games in general....

 based on comic-book characters have been released, and such heavily promoted events as Spider-Man's wedding, the death of Superman, and the death of Captain America received widespread media coverage.

Prestige format

Prestige format
Prestige format
Prestige format is a term coined by DC Comics and later came into wider use to refer to a square-bound comic book with cardstock covers. A prestige format comic book is usually longer than a normal, stapled 32-page comic...

 comic books are typically longer than standard comic books, typically being of between 48 and 72 pages, and printed on glossy paper with a spine and card stock cover. The format was first used by DC on Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...

's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The success of this work led to the establishment of the format, and it is now used generally to showcase works by big name creators or to spotlight significant storylines.

These storylines can be serialized over a limited number of issues, or can be stand-alone. Stand-alone works published in the form, such as Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke is an influential one-shot superhero graphic novel written by Alan Moore and drawn by Brian Bolland. First published by DC Comics in 1988, it has remained in print since then, and has also been reprinted as part of the trade paperback DC Universe: The Stories of Alan...

, are sometimes referred to either as graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

s or novellas.

Independent and alternative comics

Comic specialty stores did help encourage several waves of independent-produced comics, beginning in the mid-1970s. The first of these was generally referred to as "independent" or "alternative" comics; some of these, such as Big Apple Comix
Big Apple Comix
Big Apple Comix is an early independent comic book published by Flo Steinberg in 1975. An historically important link between underground comix and what would later be called alternative comics, this 36-page, 6 3/4" x 9 3/4" hybrid with glossy color covers and black-and-white interiors contains 11...

, continued somewhat in the tradition of underground comics, while others, such as Star Reach
Star Reach
Star Reach was an influential, American science fiction and fantasy comics anthology published from 1974 to 1979 by Mike Friedrich...

, resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned ventures or by a single artist; a few (notably RAW
RAW (magazine)
RAW was a comics anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly and published by Mouly from 1980 to 1991. It was a flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement, serving as a more intellectual counterpoint to Robert Crumb's visceral Weirdo, which followed squarely in the...

) represented experimental attempts to bring comics closer to the world of fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....

.

The "small press" scene continued to grow and diversify, with a number of small publishers in the 1990s changing the format and distribution of their books to more closely resemble non-comics publishing. The "minicomic
Minicomic
A minicomic is a creator-published comic book, often photocopied and stapled or with a handmade binding. In the United Kingdom and Europe the term "small press comic" is equivalent with minicomic reserved for those publications measuring A6 or less...

s" form, an extremely informal version of self-publishing, arose in the 1980s and became increasingly popular among artists in the 1990s, despite reaching an even more limited audience than the small press. "Art comics" has sometimes been used as a general term for alternative, small-press, or minicomic artists working outside of mainstream traditions. Publishers and artists working in all of these forms stated a desire to refine comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

 further as an art form.

Artist recognition

Some comic books have gained recognition and earned their creators awards from outside the genre. Thus Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...

's Maus
Maus
Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...

won a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

, and an issue of Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...

's The Sandman won the World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...

 for "Best Short Story". Though not a comic book itself, Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon born May 24, 1963) is an American author and "one of the most celebrated writers of his generation", according to The Virginia Quarterly Review....

's comic-book themed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a 2000 novel by American author Michael Chabon that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. The novel follows the lives of two Jewish cousins before, during, and after World War II. They are a Czech artist named Joe Kavalier and a Brooklyn-born...

won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 for fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

.

Popular interest in superheroes increased with the success of feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

s such as X-Men
X-Men (film)
X-Men is a 2000 superhero film based on the fictional Marvel Comics characters of the same name. Directed by Bryan Singer, the film stars Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Famke Janssen, Bruce Davison, James Marsden, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn, Ray Park and Tyler Mane...

(2000) and Spider-Man
Spider-Man (film)
Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp...

(2002). To capitalize on this interest, comics publishers launched concerted promotional efforts such as Free Comic Book Day
Free Comic Book Day
Free Comic Book Day is an annual promotional effort by the North American comic book industry to help bring new readers into independent comic book stores. Retailer Joe Field of in Concord, CA brainstormed the event in his "Big Picture" column in the August 2001 issue of Comics & Games Retailer...

 (first held on May 5, 2002). In addition, filmed adaptations of non-superhero comic books, such as Ghost World
Ghost World
Ghost World is a comic book written and illustrated by Daniel Clowes. It was originally serialized in issues #11 through #18 of Clowes's comic book series Eightball, and was first published in book form in 1997 by Fantagraphics Books...

, A History of Violence
A History of Violence
A History of Violence is a graphic novel written by John Wagner and illustrated by Vince Locke, originally published in 1997 by Paradox Press and later by Vertigo, both imprints of DC Comics....

, Road to Perdition
Road to Perdition
Road to Perdition is a 2002 American crime film directed by Sam Mendes. The screenplay was adapted by David Self, from the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins. The film stars Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig...

, and American Splendor
American Splendor
American Splendor is a series of autobiographical comic books written by the late Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the most recent in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular intervals...

, followed.

Production

Mainstream American comic books generally come to be collaboration. Generally, a writer/scripter/plotter will outline the whole story and act as a core of the storytelling process. (At EC, Al Feldstein
Al Feldstein
Albert B. Feldstein is an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. Since retiring from Mad, Feldstein has concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife...

 and Bill Gaines came up with a new story every working day for over five years - an accomplishment unequaled in the field.)

The penciller
Penciller
A penciller is an artist who works in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms.The penciller is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout to showcase...

 is the first step in rendering the story in visual form and may require several steps of feedback with the writer. These artists are concerned with layout (positions and vantages on scenes) to showcase steps in the plot. In earlier generations it was more common for artists to use a loose pencilling approach, in which the penciller does not take much care to reduce the vagaries of the pencil art, leaving it to the inker
Inker
The inker is one of the two line artists in a traditional comic book or graphic novel. After a pencilled drawing is given to the inker, the inker uses black ink to produce refined outlines over the pencil lines...

 to interpret the penciller's intent and render the art in a more finished state.

Today many pencillers prefer to create very meticulously detailed pages, which indicate in pencil every nuance that they expect to see in the inked art - a technique known as "tight pencilling". Because the inking and the pencilling align so closely there are strong cross influences.

Then the colorist
Colorist
In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates...

 comes into the picture - with the responsibility for adding color to the black-and-white (possibly shaded) line-art. Almost all comic books are rendered in color and have been for much of the history of comic books. Sometimes color is not added for specific effect or when production resources don't allow for a colorist. A colorist also can add to or shift the emphasis of a page of comic art—the penciller laid out the basic scene—the inker emphasizes the depth and drama of the edges of things and their weight on the page, and the colorist can further emphasize what draws the eye and adds or subtracts to the realism of the scene.

Finally the letterer
Letterer
A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and...

 renders what needs to be said on a page of art for the story: dialogue and the content of signs or print (if shown). This may seem like an easy job, but the right use of fonts, letter sizes, and layout of the words inside the balloons all contribute to the impact of the art. A good letterer has good calligraphy skills, and a great letterer has as much to do with the quality of the comic as the writer, penciller, inker, or colorist

However, most independent works leave all of the art to one person, or sometimes the entire work is the result of one person.

The superhero and other genres

Superhero drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

tic-adventure
Adventure
An adventure is defined as an exciting or unusual experience; it may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome. The term is often used to refer to activities with some potential for physical danger, such as skydiving, mountain climbing and or participating in extreme sports...

 and science-fiction stories have dominated American comic books for most of the medium
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

's history. Before the 1960s the comic-book format featured many genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

s, including humor, Western
Western comics
Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier and typically set during the late nineteenth century...

s, romance
Romance comics
Romance comics is a comics genre depicting romantic love and its attendant complications such as jealousy, marriage, divorce, betrayal, and heartache. The term is generally associated with an American comic books genre published through the first three decades of the Cold War...

, horror
Horror comics
Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. Horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the imposition of the self-censorship Comics Code Authority contributed to...

, military fiction
War comics
War comics is a genre of comic books that gained popularity in English-speaking countries following World War II.-American war comics:Shortly after the birth of the modern comic book in the mid- to late 1930s, comics publishers began including stories of wartime adventures in the multi-genre...

, crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

, biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...

, and adaptations of classic literature. Non-superhero comics have continued to exist as niche publishing, with humor titles, such as those from Archie Comics
Archie Comics
Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

 and Bongo Comics
Bongo Comics
Bongo Comics Group is a comic book publishing company founded in 1993 by Steve and Cindy Vance, Bill Morrison, and Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening. It publishes comics related to the animated television series The Simpsons and Futurama, along with original material...

, the most visible alternatives. DC's Vertigo imprint publishes a wide range of non-superhero series, while originally heavily supernatural or fantastic (currently limited mainly to Hellblazer
Hellblazer
Hellblazer is a contemporary horror comic book series, originally published by DC Comics, and subsequently by the Vertigo imprint since March 1993, the month the imprint was introduced, where it remains to this day...

, House of Mystery
House of Mystery
The House of Mystery is the name of several horror-mystery-suspense anthology comic book series. It had a companion series, House of Secrets.-Genesis:...

, Madame Xanadu
Madame Xanadu
Madame Xanadu is a fictional character, a comic book mystic published by DC Comics. The character is identified with Nimue, the sorceress from Arthurian mythology made popular by Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.-Publication history:...

, and Fables--all but the latter having some connection to the DC Universe
DC Universe
The DC Universe is the shared universe where most of the comic stories published by DC Comics take place. The fictional characters Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are well-known superheroes from this universe. Note that in context, "DC Universe" is usually used to refer to the main DC continuity...

), more of their comics have been crime or music oriented over the years.

Pricing

Timing varies slightly by publisher, as not all publishers changed prices at the same time. (Data samples taken from X-Men, Action Comics, and Avengers cover-price listings in ComicBase
ComicBase
ComicBase is a popular computer program for tracking comic book collections, and is considered one of the most comprehensive databases of American comic books...

 10 Archive Edition.) Typical prices of a new, standard-size, mainstream American comic book, in US$:

  • Until 1962:    .10
  • 1962–1969:   .12
  • 1969–1971:   .15
  • 1971–1974:   .20
  • 1974–1976:   .25
  • 1976–1977:   .30
  • 1977–1979:   .35
  • 1979–1980:   .40
  • 1980–1981:   .50
  • 1982–1985:   .60

  • 1985–1986:     .65
  • 1986–1988:     .75
  • 1988–1991:   1.00
  • 1992–1995:   1.25
  • 1995–1996:   1.50
  • 1996–1997:   1.95
  • 1997–2000:   1.99
  • 2000–2005:   2.25
  • 2005–2006:   2.50
  • 2006–2010:   2.99 - 3.99


See also



External links


Further reading

  • Garrett, Greg, Holy Superheroes! Exploring the Sacred in Comics, Graphic Novels, and Film, Lousville (Kentucky): Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. (Translated into Spanish: La fe de los superhéroes. Descubrir lo religioso en los «comics» y en las películas, Sal Terrae, Santander 2009.)
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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