American Lit' (Comics) L3 S6 LIG

Comics def

A narrative sequence of printed drawings featuring a continuing cast of characters that tells a story in picture (and usually words) over a small but noticeable span of time.

This term is used to indincate newspaper comic strips + comic books

Where do comics come from?

Europe even if today = associated with American Culture

Ancestor:

• stained-glass windows (biblical stories) in churches

• the Bayeux tapestry (11th century, represents the Norman Conquest).

• Hogarth: The Harlot’s Progress (1732) that retraces in 6 gravures the story of an innocent country girl Moll Hackabout who comes to London and becomes a prostitute and dies of syphilis at the age of 23.

Who is generally credited to have consolidated comics?

Rudolph Töpffer (1799-1846)

• Swiss teacher of rhethoric

• Started composing for his pupils and friends

• Used the theory of physiognomy

• Transformed what Hogarth’s work by adding words and by creating an interaction between text and image

Physiognomics def

Science of reading characters and feelings from the signs inscribed on their faces

What is Töpffer very first story called? + what he wrote

• Histoire de Mr. Cryptogame 1830

• Essai de physiognomie 1845

• Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois 1827

• Voyage en Zig-Zag 1838

How did Töpffer call his work? This hybrid form between text and image?

Littérature en estampes

Where was Töpffer printed?

USA

Sequentiality def

idea of narrative flow/ creating continuity and progression

Evolution of The Comics in the USA (4 parts)

• 1900-1920s: period of greatest experimentations

• The format became standardizes, so less experimental. At the same time, the storytelling improved. Most memorable heroes: Popeye, Tarzan

• Mid 1930s: new sensational form of storytelling, famous character: Dick Tracy, Superman, Captain America…

• Mid 1960s: Publication of independant Comics to today (Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter)

Emergence of pre-comics in the USA?

1890s

The Yellow Kid

• Richard Outcault

• Story of Mickey Dugan who wears a yellow shirt and lives in a slum in NY and his head is shed to get rid of head lices.

• text printed on his clothes to mock the avertising that was everywhere in NY at that time

• Speaks in a slang to portray his social origins + putting forwards the minorities

• Published first in Truths (1894) and then in the New York Times

• landmark in the history of American comics.

Winsor McCay

• Born in Canada in 1869

• Childhood in Michigan

• Passion for drawing from early age

• his father didn’t care for his artistic talent => business school

• Dropped school and left

• benefited from private lessons by John Goodison

• articles and drawings for the “Commercial Tribune”

What is McCay’s first major series?

Little Sammy Sneeze (started in July 1904)

• Each me Sammy sneezes he destroys the world around him (simple, relied on the same format: 6 rectangular panels which build up a catastrophe).

= a way to show mvt into a static drawing

Other works from McCay

The story of Hungry Henrietta (1905)

• girl constantly fed by her parents

• while Sammy = the same for 2 years, Henrietta grows up through the years

Dream of the rarebit Fiend (1904-1911)

• changed his name for Silas (contractual reasons)

• About nightmares and phobias => Freud interpretation of Dreams

• claims that the rarebit is responsible for the headache the character has

Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905)

• Three main characters: Nemo (7-8 y.o + is the boy who’s making the dream), Flip (green face + cigar) and the Himp (he belong to a tribe of cannibals)

• Always: we are plunged in Nemo’s dreams in the 1st panel and the last one = Nemo waking up and realising it was all fiction

• plays with perspective (architectural abstractions)

• idea of circularity coming back

McCay’s preoccupa on: instead of focusing on individuals, he drew them in relation to a new landscape.

Jean-Paul Meyer: Bildungstraum

What are the 4 cases possible with comics? And who created it?

Benoît Peeters (belgian critic)

What happened mid 1920s?

• new kind of comic strips

• influenced by the film dvt in Hollywood with more complex types of characters and settings

TARZAN

• 1912: Edgar Rice Burrough published Tarzan of the Apes (adapted to movie in 1918)

Harold Foster made it into a comics (1929)

• Text: very narrative and descriptive, NO speach and thought bubbles (probably because the roman was already famous)

• Was the only adventure, continuity strip comics in the field at 1st

But Foster wasn’t recognised for his work and only Burrough’s name would appear so he decided to create his own comics

Burn Hogarth continued the comics

• images more close

• more dynamic, the strength and muscular shapes = highlighted

• more violence

• variations of POV and focuses

Rex Maxon (1931)

• only did a few =/ the main artist

• less skilled than the others

• No expression on the faces

• Not a lot of details

What were the inspiration during the 20th?

• Greeh mythology

• Middle Ages

• Arthurian stories

• Nibelungen (mit Siegfried)

With supernatural or magical features

Who’s work is this?

Harold Foster

Who’s work is this?

Burn Hogarth

Who’s work is this?

Rex Maxon

With what were associated comics like Tarzan?

Nostalgia for the Golden Ages that were lost

=> WW2 and WW1 and WW2

Notions of:

• nature

• win of good over evil

When and who created Superman?

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (cartoonist) in 1934

Superman became a comics only in 1939

Nicknamed Man of Steel

What has inspired Superman?

Philipp Wylie’s novel: Gladiator

Lester Dent Doc Savage nicknamed Man of Bronze

Who created Batman?

Bill Finger and Bob Kane (cartoonist)

Who are Superman and Batman?

Superman: born on Krypton planet, Clark Kent, a journalist

Batman: Bruce Wane /!\ =/ superpowers = gadgets and machines to fight his ennemies

Because = same publisher, they encounter

Who is a key component on the evolution of comic strips during the 1930s?

Maxwell Gaines

• idea of having a book filled with comic coloured strips but it was hard because the format hat to be adjusted

• decided to publish it on his own

• 1935: comic strips developed

For old comic strips recycled. 2 main syndicate

• United Feature (Tip Top comics)

• King Feature (King comics)

For New comics:

• New Fun Comics

• Newcomics.

= DC (Detective comics)

What genre of comics emerged during the 1950s and 1960s?

Underground comix =self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They depict forbidden content (drug use, sexuality and violence)

Examples of Underground Comix

Harvey Kurtzman MAD

• Parodies of pop culture (superman, Archie, etc)

• Imitation (style, artist, genre)

• humor

Example of a comics that inspired MAD

George McManus Bringing up Father

• 3 main characters from working class

• their life change as they become rich

• Conflict btw the father and the waitress/ daughter because Maggy and Nora want to be accepted by the rich people while Jiggs keeps acting as he alsways did

Harold Grey, Annie (=Fanny)

Mickey Mouse ( =Mickey Rodent) and Donald Duck (=Darnold Duck)

What did Robert Crumb published?

• Fuzzy Bunny (1952) as he was 9 and published in 1970

• Fritz the Cat (1964)

1965:LSD => Fuzzy head and started to imagine different characters

• Zap (1967)

• Meatball 1967

• Cheap Thrills (1968)

• The Many Faces of Robert Crumb 1972

why comiX?

• adult content

• unknown

• X-ray

=> Shows a change in mentality

Underground comics = comix

Where were comix distributed?

in head-shops

= shops specialised in drugs but also counter-cultural art

What’s the plot of Meatball by Crumb?

Americans transformed ( in a good way, life improved) as they get hit by meatballs falling from the sky (=parodies advertising with a quick and great change)

Who was Crumb’s wife? and what did they write together?

Aline Kovinsky (comics artist but not as famous because =/ man)

• A day in our beautiful life (1999)

• Drawn together (2011)