Cartoons, Comix, Manga

Cartoons, Comic Strips, and Comic Books

The rise of the comics form is historically tied to the development of mass printing, and, in particular, to daily newspapers and illustrated magazines. Although nonreproductive narratives in images have a long history, including the Bayeux Tapestry, Trajan's Column, and Greek friezes, these protocomics are often excluded from considerations of the form.

The Swiss writer-artist Rodolphe Töpffer is widely credited with the publication of the first books of comics. His Histoire de M. Jabot (Mr. Jabot's Story), first published in 1833, was the first of seven satires that he published during a period of 14 years. In 1865, Wilhelm Busch published Max und Mortiz—Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen (Max and Moritz—A Story of Seven Boyish Pranks), which was a direct inspiration for Rudolph Dirks's early newspaper comic strip, The Katzenjammer Kids (1897). Across Europe in the latter half of the 19th century, there was an explosion of illustrated humor magazines incorporating comics and cartoons that contributed to the development of the comics form.

Richard Felton Outcault's creation of Hogan's Alley for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World in 1985 is widely regarded as the birth of the [Page 159]American newspaper strip tradition. Comic strips became a major selling point of newspapers in the United States in the first decades of the 20th century. Popular characters, like Buster Brown, were widely marketed, later crossing over into radio, television, and film. American newspaper comics of the first half of the 20th century were divided between humorous gag strips and ongoing serialized narratives such as Terry and the Pirates, Dick Tracy, and Little Orphan Annie.

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