A Brief History of American Comics: Part 3- The Continuation of the Comic Strip

The 1940’s Part I: The Continuation of the Comic Strip 

Comics ended strong in the 1930s and carried the momentum into the 1940s, providing a “panorama of impressive dimensions” in comic variety. As American comic strips surpassed those of Europeans in regards to production (who still mostly focused on children’s works), the majority of titles were exported for international consumption. However, several elements to come would create a shift in comic strips that would develop a devastating downturn ^[3].

 

A 1964 The Spirit cover. Note the above
newspaper title and the more mature nature
compared to previous comic images

The newspaper wars of the 1930’s continued as The Chicago Sun quickly introduced a color comic section and a 16-page comic book-sized section (soon to feature Will Eisner’s new Spirit), which included a new storyline concept for American comics. The Chicago Tribune moved quickly to create their own comic section (creatively named Comic Book Magazine). The Tribune’s Magazine was a clear example of scrambling for content as it contained “a bizarre array” of never before published comics from the 1920’s ^[2]. 

Some artists of the 1930’s attempted to transition the western adventure literature and other material to comics, starting with King of the Royal Mounted in 1935, followed by Fred Harmon’s Red Ryder and Fran Stiker’s Lone Ranger. Despite the positive outlook, the western genre didn’t receive much traction past their film counterparts ^[4]. Highlights like Dick Tracy (police detective-genre), The Shadow (mystery/caped crusader-genre), and Secret Agent X-9 (sci fi-genre) were also in the forefront of the sale stands ^[2]. 

 

Although many recognize content from The Spirit,
few will recognize its retaliation, the Comic Book
Magazine. Cover notes featured comics included.

 
In 1936, Lee Falk premiered The Phantom, the first masked costume hero in comics. His visualization, set by Ray Moore, portrayed the “no pupil” mask and tights outfit of the “Phantom with the ‘muscles of a Goliath’, which was fore setting for the following of heroes to come” ^[4]. The Phantom is also described as a “more conventional” hero in comparison to others, stating he is “the only comic strip hero who is capable of dying” ^[3]. Falk was originally inspired by early 1900’s edgier shows and utilized cliff hangers within the stories quite often ^[4].

The War within Comics

With the battle front lines forming overseas, the people of the United States tried to help fight battles at home in any way that they could via rations, war bonds, and even encouraging their favorite comic strip title characters ^[4]. By 1937, the war was already showing itself in comics, as heroes fight Japanese opponents, which are coined as “the invaders” by comic narratives ^[3]. With international conflict starting in 1939, the comic world was jump-starting into a movement to put any efforts available towards the war ^[3].

Ultimately, thanks to the re-introduction to wartime paper rations during World War II, “the panel space necessary to sustain work of such quality was swiftly and brutally reduced”.  New newspaper commuter patterns, as well as the introduction of the television, transformed newspaper comic strip space into a collective of authors and writers fighting for space amongst their pages. The shrewd reality this produced was “a healthy number of well-handled strips” coming to light in the 1940s with the majority including content focused on realistic crime, western, and sci-fi ^[2].

“As a result, realistic action and fine-art humor strips faded from the comic pages, and an increasing number of simplistically drawn he-said, she-said repeater-gag strips filled newspaper strip space” ^[2]. By 1940, “the papers had humor strips by the hundreds” ^[4], and the comic strip industry was “bursting”, although content varied more on quantity than quality, by most standards ^[3]. With the exception of few “witty and wonderfully imaginative” strips like The Wizard of Id and Peanuts, “most were little better than space fillers” ^[2].

A strip from Barnaby. Readers may also recognize the artwork of Crockett
Johnson from another of his famous works, Harold and the Purple Crayon.

It is important to note that while Politics and detective work remained popular, they did by no means consume all of comic stands. “Barnaby”, by Crockett Johnson, is one of those which stand apart from this period. Barnaby’s journeying to a “fantastic universe” via train provides a thought back to “Little Nemo”, while its stylistic wit and contextual poetry reminded readers of “Krazy Kat”. Although it was short lived (original: 1942-1946; revived until 1954), its content along with its use of printed balloons within the comic rather than lettered ones gave it a sense of originality and modernity ^[3].

Although comic strips continued to change and develop through the 30s and 40s, as we will continue to track, the biggest thing to happen to comics within these two decades wasn’t in the strip pages at all. As newspapers began slashing back the space for comic strips in the 1940s ^[2], comics began to find space within their own format, the comic book!

To be continued…

[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.

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