A Brief History of American Comics: Part 1- The Creation of the Comic Strip

The American comic strip is often viewed as a pivotally new media and/or art deriving from the United States. Similar to Japanese comics, American comics took conjoined inspiration from popular overseas trends, like caricatures and popular stories, and added plenty of their own material to create what it has now become. However, as we will see, the history of the American comic has often seen a very polarizing difference in evolution compared to the Japanese comic. These differences have molded each respected form in its own particular way, which I hope to discuss in greater detail at a later date.

Just as with the last series, I will attempt to begin our look as early in time as possible, in order to incorporate as many ancestral elements as I can. While I was able to start the last series within the country of interest, Japan, I find this is not as easy with the United States for some fairly obvious reasons (since many Japanese sources are older than the US itself). I appreciate your continued support and hope you enjoy the following series….
Thank you.
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It is worth noting that by some reports, the history of the American cartoon began with Benjamin Franklin’s Join or Die propaganda piece ^[1]. While it is true that the U.S. has an extensive history on the use of propaganda cartoons, I shall be focusing towards the beginnings of the comic strip and book as a form of entertainment within mass or popular culture.

Our story of the American comic strip begins in 1800’s Britain. By this time, the term “cartoon” was already in use, but mostly only used by artists. “Cartoons” were, at that time, a painter’s preliminary sketches done for murals or easel oils. The term was transformed in 1843, when it was first coined in print “as descriptive of a humorous drawing”, for which it stuck ^[2].

Illustration from an 1838 edition of
Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist

The mid 1800’s brought about more to comics than just terminology. According to Blackbeard and Crain, comic strips took inspiration from popularized literature books from within this time period, which used illustrations alongside their narratives. At this point, they claim, it was the drawings done by illustrators/cartoonists, which brought in the larger draw to books done by authors such as Charles Dickens.  However, by the 1870s, fiction illustrations took upon a “hyper-realism” quality, pushing these earlier illustrators to children’s books, where they can be found even today ^[2].

Example of "hyper-realism"; illustration
from an 1878 edition of ClarenceCook's
The House Beautiful

There are also other international roots, such as humor magazines, which took hold in the 1880’s. A rapid popularization and competition took hold among the genre, including America’s own version of Germany’s Puck in 1877. Future comic strip artists, Richard Outcault, Fredrick Burr Opper, and James Swinnerton, could be found illustrating for these magazines. By 1890, artist competition in originality and technique had brought about the various essential elements needed for the comic strip. It was at this point that the elements developed amongst the various magazines, narrative by a series of pictures, dialogue within pictures, and continued characters, would be combined to create the full piece ^[3].

At this time the more talented, well-known cartoonists in the United States had historically put their efforts to use in more political, satire works, as stated earlier. Still, few cartoonists were beginning to engage in small, more entertainment-generated works ^[3]. Graphic storytelling has held a bad rap amongst the highbrow ever since the Victorian Era. From which, society deemed that “anything of value must present a literary obstacle to be overcome” and thus illustrated stories were “deemed fit only for the commoner.”  Thus, the birth of the comic strip must be placed upon the common man, whom “adopted and found it a home in his daily newspaper” ^[4].

In order to attract a greater reaching audience, the frame that cartoons took on until the twentieth century’s first quarter century was “humor, the most universal of qualities” ^[4]. By the 1890s, American public had associated cartoons with “gag panels, political satire, and narrative humor” ^[2]. Many revolved around humorous childish antics, anecdotes, and book/play reviews (which revolve around the same said notions) ^[2].

(Although one source places New York Journal’s “Yankee Doodle” as the first weekly comic ^[4], I have been unable to find anything further about this.)

"Down Hogan's Alley"

In 1896, Richard Outcault drew his cartoon “Down Hogan’s Alley” for the World magazine, meant to highlight the “unsavory doings of the citizens of a New York slum”. One character, bald with large ears and a white shirt, stood out from the rest. With the now available color printing, the decision was later made to make the boy’s shirt yellow, and the Yellow Kid was unveiled to the world. Outcault’s “Yellow Kid”, as a repeatedly used character within a “continued narrative and in-panel dialogue balloon exchange among the characters” ^[2] was the “immediate predecessor” to the comic strip ^[3].

Just one year after the introduction to the “Yellow Kid”, the New York Journal developed a picture series in its Sunday edition entitled “The Katzenjammmer Kids” by German-immigrant Rudoph Dirks. This publication, said to be in part inspired by the German work ‘Max and Moritz’, is portrayed as America’s first in “a new artistic method of expression that not until very much later would be given the name of ‘comic strip’” ^[3].

Although there were some examples of illustrators using parts of what is known today as a comic strip, Dirks is the first recognized as putting them all together in one project. As an example, “Little Bears and Tigers”, by James Swinnerton for The Chronicle, was printed in 1892. However, this series was mostly only a series of pictures rather than what we would recognize today as a full comic strip. However, by 1897, he dropped the bears and released a supplement in The Journal entitled “The Little Tiger”. Taking influence from “The Katzjammer Kids”, this tale would be seen as the next true comic strip. By including text bubbles, continuous characters and story, it included everything necessary of a comic strip ^[3]. As evidence to how influential and/or memorable this particular series was and is, once may recognize a similar drawing style and feel from “The Little Tiger” as is adapted by Walt Disney in his earliest released cartoons ^[3].

“Kin-der Kids” was “The Tribune’s ‘answer’ to parents and church groups’ fussing over lowbrow and brutal slapstick” strips… with Harald’s “Little Nemo” to follow (even though they would both later use the very elements they were presented to avoid) ^[2]. One may or may not recognize a play on words within the comics title, “Kin-der Kids”, as kinder is the German word for kids and it was the author’s attempt at presenting a gentler or kinder comic.

"Little Nemo in Slumberland"

1905 became a wonderful time for comics when Winsor McCay’s “Little Nemo in Slumberland” appeared in the New York Harald. The simple plot, a boy goes to Slumberland in his dreams and night and is awoken by reality in the morning, transpired an elegant “masterpiece”. Described as “poetry”, the series ran from 1905 to 1911 and was recreated 1924-1927. This beloved comic, with its artfully depicted surroundings and thoughtful characters, brought the idea of comics to a higher form of culture and art within mainstream society. While McCay would continue his work in creating comic strips, he would develop later works, “Little Sammy Sneeze”, “Hungry Henrietta” and “The Dream of the Rarebit Fiend” under a pseudonym, “Silas” ^[3].

 

The first decade of the twentieth century brought about many experiments with the new comic strip medium. “Foxy Grandpa” (1900) came about from Charles Schultze as a work described as “anti-Katzenjammer Kids”, which depicted a sly grandfather outwitting his nephews and companions. Charles Kahles provided two of the first indicators of adventure strips with his “Sandy Highflyer” and “Hairbreadth Harry” in 1903 and 1906, respectively. Other lesser known strips worthy of note are “Alphonse and Gaston” (1905) and “And Her Name Was Maud!” (1905), which each provided their own insight and narrative for the society of the day ^[3].

As the decade came to a close, Bud Fisher brought the comic to a daily strip placement from the Sunday supplement papers in 1907. “Mr. A. Mutt”, a year later to renamed “Mutt and Jeff”, brought comics to American’s doors every day, creating a tenfold influential effect and brought about the appearance of a genuine social phenomenon ^[3]. The age of comics was at once beginning and also coming to a decade’s end as what is dubbed (by at least one writer) as the “golden age of the cartoonist” ended in 1910 and opened up a new wide world of possibilities ^[4].

Thank you for reading and join with me next time as we look into the developments of the American comic strip through the early twentieth century in the next installment.

References/Sources:
[1] Marschall, Richard. America’s Great Comic-Strip Artists. New York, NY. 1989. Print.
[2] Blackbeard, Bill and Crain, Dale. The Comic Strip Century: Celebrating 100 Years of an American Art Form. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1995. Print.
[3] Couperie, Pierre, Maurice Horn, Proto Destefanis, Edouard François, Claude Moliterni, Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, and Eileen Hennessy. A History of the Comic Strip. New York: Crown, 1968. Print.
[4] Steranko, James. The Steranko History of Comics. Reading, PA. 1970.Print.