A Brief History on Comics

14 Pages 3446 Words

s including: "B!
arney Google"; "Thimble Theater" forerunner to "Popeye"; "Moon Mullins" "Orphan Annie" and "Andy Gump" which was the first comic to tell a continuing story. Hearst pushed comics in all of his newspapers and began King Features, a syndication service, to deliver comics to his and other papers. King Features continues syndicating today along with company's such as Universal Press Syndicate in Kansas City, Kansas. Today, a popular comic can run in more than 1,200 newspapers daily. By the Time Buck Rogers started in the 1920's, the comic strip was fully developed. At this time, some of the most popular comics to be were drawn, and continue to this day. "Blondie" started in the 20's is now one of the longest running comic strips. Other comics of that time include: "Dick Tracy"; "Joe Palooka" and "Lil'Abner" which was retired in 1977. These comics led into others continuing today, such as "Peanuts" in 1950, and Gary Trudeau's "Doonesbury" of 1970. The Comic Book Soon after the turn of the century, comic strips were collected into book form. Comic books were then used for promotion, such as "Buster Brown" Shoes, and breakfast cereals. Comic magazines soon followed, the first to be the Famous Funnies in 1934, and by the late 30's comic books were being produced independently of newspaper strips. Action Comics began in 1938, in which Superman was the main attraction, and was in his first appearance. Detective Comics (DC Comics) started a chain reaction in 1938 by devoting each issue to a certain comic or subject, which continues into the modern day comic books. Comic books spread like wildfire, and estimation show that they outsold all magazines combined during World War II. A nation survey conducted by Fawcett Publications in 1943 showed outstanding results. The survey showed 95 percent of all males and 91 percent of all females between 6 and 11 read comic books regularly. They were read by 87 percent of all males and 80 perce...