comics

toc =**Comics: What are they?**=

Although comics may be difficult to define, according to Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, comics are "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer". In other words, comics are adjacent visual images that are put together in a sequence in order to express a message or a story.

=**History Tidbits About Comics**=

“Comics” and “comic strips” were common terms used around the 1900s in the United States. The term originated from strips of comedic pictures printed in newspapers and magazines initially termed “funnies”.

As a small tidbit, Benjamin Franklin is cited to have created the first editorial cartoon in 1754. A newspaper in the United States published the cartoon with words dictating “Join or Die” and illustrating a decapitated snake. It was a form of propaganda intending to push different colonies to join the United States.

Contemporary comics were greatly influenced by satirical artworks from many artists. Many experts felt that works of artists such as Angelo Agostini, Rudolp Topffer, and Wilhelm Bush were the precursors to today’s comics.

In 1827, Rudolph Topffer produced a comic strip that eventually led him to publish seven graphic novels eventually giving birth to the graphic novel. 1837 marked the year of the earliest recognized comic book. It was call “The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck”. Four years later, it was the first published comic book in the US containing 40 pages. Dell Publishing persisted this development with monthly issues of “The Funnies” in 1910. Distributed through newsstands, this big “tabloid-sized” book sold along with newspapers.

On the contrary, some believe that Richard Outcault’s “Yellow Kid”, from 1895, is the first comic strip. Grounds for this thought surfaces from the fact that he was the first artist to use balloons to write character’s speeches. The only underlying problem was, other comic books and strips were published prior to “Yellow Kid” debut in “The World”, a newspaper in New York City.



By 1859, Wilhelm Bush (a known German poet and artist) created caricatures for a newspaper called Fliegende Blatter and in due course created the well-known [|“Max and Moritz”] comic.

There is a belief that that the first “true” comic book arrived in 1933 and thousands of this, now typical 8” X 11”, comic book called “Funnies on Parade” were printed. A subsequent comic book by M.C Gaines was released called “Famous Funnies: a Carnival of Comics” retailing for 10 cents making it the first retail comic.



By the time June 19, 1940 rolled around, a female wrote the first comic strip. It was created by a woman by the name of Brenda Starr.

=ARCHIE COMICS - 6 DECADES OF CARTOONS=

While Archie Andrews and his friends made their first appearance in //Pep Comics o//n December 22, 1942, it wasn't until 1946 that the name Archie Comics became the official name for the publication.

The enduring Archie legacy has spanned dozens of //Archie// titles, including spin-offs, digest collections, and magazines focused on particular characters. These include //Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Katy Keene// and //Josie and the Pussycats// to name a few.

There has also been an Archie movie, a children's cartoon and, of course, the famous band //The Archies// who had a hit with their song "Sugar Sugar".

Archie comic is a very popular comic that brings fourth hours of entertainment. Personally I love the Archie comic book especially Betty. Even thought comic can be looked up as an entertainment, what grabs my curiosity is that kids can relate to this. Young boys will think that it is alright to have two girlfriends and that its the best thing to have two girls crazy over you, where one you can depend on without her leaving and the other as your fantasy girl who you want to be seen walking down the street with. Realistically that can be very upsetting for girls because girls that are like Betty are left hurt and alone and girls that are like Veronica are self-fish and stubborn and always believe that they can get their way. The positive aspect is the group of friends, where it is amazing to have those few friends that you know you can always depend on. Archie comic are still popular and have even come out on a T.V series where children can watch it instead of reading. It is interesting how these comic strips are now coming out with a T.V series in order to grab the readers’ attention in a different form of media. The Archie comic book selection is loved by many and personally this has been the first comic book that I have read.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/5408/archie.jpg

=**Characteristics of comics: The “Onpos”**=

One major part of comics is its verbalism, which expresses sounds and noises. The term “onomatopoeia" has its seeds in the Greek language and stands for “creating names”. Comics are filled with words such as “Crash,” “Splash,” “Bang,” and many other expressions. Even though these expressions are in daily language not much recognised, they are indispensable for living up a comic.

The expressions were introduced when authors were looking for a way to illustrate sounds within pictures without introducing a new symbolic. The words, which are called “Onpos,” are thus made up of conventional characters and there is no limit for further creations.

Each “onomatopoeia” reflects an acoustic reality. Since there is a wide conformity among different languages regarding phonetics, “Onpos” occupy international validity. However, some Onpos cannot be understood by children due to the words’ linkage to specifics within a foreign language. These “significants” cannot be immediately decoded by children. Yet, through ongoing iteration, the reader can link the expression, which he/she does not know from an acoustic experience, to its meaning. Children thus quickly learn to understand German expressions for instance, such as “Peng”, “Zack". or “Wumm”. Hence, “onomatopoeia” allows for another way of decoding words. = =

Related Links
>
 * Manga
 * Shonen