Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 21:01:43 +0100 Sender: COMIC Writers Workshop <[COMICW L] at [UNLVM.UNL.EDU]> From: goukens <[Lode Goukens] at [sp1.y-net.be]> Subject: Re: History of comic strips (with a detour) Info comes from my upcoming textbook: Visual Communication: Images With Messages Introduction date is August 1 by Wadsworth Publishing Company >From Chapter 11: Cartoons Comic Strips The German Wilhelm Busch has been called the founder of the modern comic strip because his cartoon, Max and Moritz was the first published in a newspaper in 1865 (Figure 11.13). Following Busch's lead in the 1880s, A.B. Frost created sequential drawings for the newspaper, but they were simply commentaries about social mannerisms without plots. During the last decade of the 19th century, William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were locked in a bitter circulation war in New York (see Chapter 6). Color graphics were viewed as important in gaining readership. Although magazines had started using color since the 1870s, it took until 1893 before color presses were used for newspapers in New York. Publisher James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald was the first newspaper to begin a Sunday edition in 1841. The first color Sunday comic strip section was published in Joseph Pulitzer's Sunday World. The first color comic strip was Richard Outcault's Hogan's Alley, first published on May 5, 1895. It was instantly a smash hit. The cartoon was social commentary disguised as a collection of orphaned, unkempt children living among the tenement houses in New York City. The central character was a tow-headed, unnamed boy in a nightshirt who smoked cigars. A printer in Pulitzer's backshop originally gave the boy in Outcault's cartoon a blue nightshirt. But as he became a central character, yellow was selected to help him stand out in the crowd of children. Soon afterward the strip was known as The Yellow Kid of Hogan's Alley. Sensational tactics used by journalists in order to secure a higher circulation were thereafter labeled "Yellow Journalism." In a battle between the two giant egos, Hearst and Pulitzer publicly bid over the services of Outcault. The famous cartoonist was hired by Hearst's New York Morning Journal, but later returned to the Pulitzer paper at a higher salary. But Hearst was determined and hired Outcault back. Although Pulitzer lost Outcault, he still retained the rights to the popular strip. He hired George Luks to continue to draw the Yellow Kid (Figure 11.14). For all the attention that Outcault received over the comic, he expressed annoyance that he was only known for the one strip. He once wrote, "When I die don't wear yellow crepe, don't let them put a Yellow Kid on my tombstone and don't let the Yellow Kid himself come to my funeral. Make him stay over on the east side, where he belongs." Outcault in 1902 turned his attention to another popular cartoon, Buster Brown about the adventures of a mischievous rich kid living in a far different neighborhood from that of the Kid. A colorful Sunday comics section proved to be enormously popular with the public. Hearst described his paper's comic strip insert as "eight pages of iridescent polychromous effulgence that makes the rainbow look like a piece of lead pipe." There were many other successful comics introduced in the highly popular color comics section in Sunday newspapers. Most of the cartoons featured continuing characters, but the story lines were not in serial form. The grandfather of Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts strip, created Foxy Grandpa. The Grandpa was not meant to be sexy, but constantly played tricks on little boys. Winsor McCay drew one of the most artistically rendered cartoons ever to grace the pages of a comics section. His Little Nemo in Slumberland was about children who dreamed of flying over cities and exploring buildings and back alleys. But one of the most popular cartoons begun in 1897 was written by a German immigrant artist, Rudolph Dirks who developed The Katzenjammer Kids. Inspired by Busch's Max and Moritz cartoon, the strip told the often humorous adventures of a group of children living on an island. The cartoon had several name changes. When Dirks abandoned Hearst for a lucrative contract from Pulitzer in 1912, Hearst sued for the rights to the name of the cartoon and won. Dirks and his son continued the strip under the name of The Captain and the Kids. When anti-German sentiment was high during World War I, Hearst renamed the popular strip The Shenanigan Kids, but the original title was later restored. Because of the success of the Sunday comics, publishers started to run cartoons as a daily feature in their newspapers. The innovator for daily comic strips was Hearst. The first daily comic strip was H.C. "Bud" Fisher's Mutt and Jeff started in 1907. The cartoon originally ran in the San Francisco Chronicle, was purchased by Hearst for his San Francisco Examiner and ran as a daily cartoon feature in all of his newspapers that same year. Originally the strip was named simply A. Mutt about an unsuccessful racetrack gambler. In 1917 Mutt's partner at the track, Jeff was added to the name to acknowledge their vaudeville-like comedy team. The years following the introduction of Mutt and Jeff saw many long-lasting and influential cartoons. The Krazy Kat comic strip by George Herriman helped inspire the Dada art movement (see Chapter 9). Introduced in 1915, the cartoon described a surreal and often violent world of an alley cat (Figure 11.15). The strip inspired Tex Avery and Chuck Jones to produce Bugs Bunny and other popular characters in an equally wise-cracking, absurd and often violent style. Following in that "violence resolves conflicts" tradition was a 1929 strip drawn by Elzie Crisler Segar titled, Popeye. Inspired from a character, Popeye Vitelli, in William Faulkner's novel Sanctuary, the main character was rough and headstrong, but had a soft place in his heart for his girlfriend, Olive Oyl. A year later, one of the most popular strips in the history of the funnies was introduced by Chic Young that was not violent. Blondie told the story of the housewife, her husband Dagwood Bumstead, his boss and their family in a strip that eventually secured a readership of more than 50 million readers within 1,600 newspapers in 50 countries around the world. The 1920s and 1930s also saw an important innovation for the continuing popularity of comic strips -- the serial. Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie in 1924 championed the virtues of helping yourself without the need for governmental aid. Al Capp's Li'l Abner in 1934 criticized big business practices at first, but turned much more right-wing conservative through the years. Strips with not so hidden political messages were a link between the funnies and the editorial cartoon. Adventure stories that continued from day-to-day were enormously popular as many newspapers were dependent on the success of a comic strip for their survival. In 1929, two important strips were introduced that also had a life as motion pictures. Richard Calkins and Phil Nowlan produced the 25th century space traveler, Buck Rogers. Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan character was brought to visual life by Harold Foster and later by Burne Hogarth. These adventure cartoons inspired all kinds of western, detective and superhuman strips. Chester Gould's Dick Tracy (1931), Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates (1934) and later his Steve Canyon (1947) continued the adventure strip tradition. Inspired by the liberal social messages within Walt Kelly's Pogo, the 1950s and 1960s was a time when satire was employed to poke fun at social hypocrisies by cartoonists. Kelly ridiculed the powerful Senator McCarthy with a character named "Senator Simple J. Malarkey." Mort Walker satirized army life in his Beetle Baily. From a pre-historic perspective, Johnny Hart in B.C. gave his views. Robert Crumb's irreverently humorous characters, Fritz the Cat, the Fabulously Furry Freak Brothers, and Mr. Natural poked fun at the hypocrisies Crumb saw in the emerging "hippie" social movement. But the most popular cartoon strip of this or any other era was Peanuts by Charles Schultz, originally published on October 2, 1950. His tale of a band of small children and a dog in a minimalist artistic tradition became a symbol for America as sure as that of apple pie (Figure 11.16). In over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, in books and on television, the strip had over 100 million fans. A copy of the cartoon was even carried into space by the Apollo 10 astronauts. Distributed by the United Features press syndicate, the strip has helped make Schultz "the wealthiest contemporary cartoonist in the history of the comic." The National Cartoonists Society gives out its Reuban Award for the "Best Cartoonist of the Year." Milton Caniff was the first recipient while the 1993 winner was Cathy Guisewite who produces the popular Cathy comic strip. Other cartoonists inspired by such blatantly political strips as Annie, Abner and Pogo, create social commentary disguised as humorous comic strips. But it is a tradition that has its roots as far back as the Yellow Kid. Jeff MacNelly's Shoe, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes and Berke Breathed Bloome County and later renamed Outland are contemporary examples. Another brilliant social critic is Jules Feiffer whose syndicated strip is seen in newspapers around the world. Feiffer was particularly active during the 1950s civil rights era with his individual comic strip and cartoon book collections. Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury is often moved from the comic pages of newspapers because of its controversial content. Begun in 1970 in only 28 newspapers, Doonesbury can be seen in almost 1,000 papers today. In 1975, Trudeau won a Pulitzer Prize for his cartoons about Vietnam, former President Richard Nixon and the Watergate political scandal. hope this helps...keep smiling les is Paul Lester, Ph.D. Associate Professor First Vice Head and Program Chair of the Visual Communication Division for the AEJMC Department of Communications H-230 California State University, Fullerton Fullerton, California 92634 VOX1: 714) 449-5302 VOX2: 714) 773-3517 FAX: 714) 773-2209 VAX: [l--st--r] at [fullerton.edu] "les" CIS: 70372, 3217 AOL: les321 "'To Serve Man' . . . it's . . . it's a COOKBOOK." --The Twilight Zone [PC ID 20:YN5180030:40534]