An Illustrated History
By Mike Benton (Taylor Publications)
ISBN13: 978-0-87833-659-3
This lavish and informative coffee-table book is also a hugely useful primer into the history and secrets of that purely American graphic invention: The Comic Book.
Beginning with a brief introduction into the birth and nature of comics, covering the years 1896-1932 , the text goes on to summarise the growth and consolidation of the industry with a year by year précis of trends, sales, personalities and significant events starting with the birth of the physical artefact in 1933 all the way through to 1989.
A second section details each and every individual publisher, their output, impact and, most usually, demise, and the text concludes with a final section which features a lively analysis of Genres in comic-books ranging from Crime to Western, by way of such milestones as Educational, Horror, Satire and even Underground Comix.
Sumptuously illustrated with hundreds of beautiful comic covers, many of them incredibly rare, all of them wonderfully attractive and compelling, this is a treat for any fan, and if there is the odd factual inaccuracy, it is more than counterbalanced by the sheer enthusiasm and joyous exuberance of the total package. This is an utter delight.
© 1989 Mike Benton. All Rights Reserved.
While the comic book is pretty much an American invention, they often seem to try and take the credit for inventing comics full stop. Bah.
Preaching to the converted.
If you exclude cave paintings and Hieroglyphics (and I do) you want a narrative, illustrated, with specific intent to communicate a message, and a graphic device using linguistic symbols (that would be the WORD BALLOON – and not necessary the actual words in it) to fit the bill of a comic strip.
And that says Bayeaux Tapestry to me…
Seriously though, the graphic works of William Hogarth and his contemporaries, which pre-date the rise of periodical publishing, are a pretty solid place to start this debate, as they were reproduced and disseminated publicly and commercially, but I have a vague suspicion that a Scottish paper in the 1820s was actually the first to run pictures in a sequence with accompanying dialogue -not just text – on a regular basis.
I’ll do some reading around…
I love a good debate, me …