BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Graphic Arts): Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages

DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Graphic Arts): Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages:

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Description of Pictures: Comic Art: 120 Years of Panels and Pages
Opened September 12, 2019
Explore the realm of comic art, where visual and narrative storytelling styles have evolved from panels in early newspapers to contemporary comic images. Through unique original drawings and printed pages, this exhibition features the artistic skills of master artists and emerging talents who have created some of the most famous, funny, and frightening characters to appear in print.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. LOCCOM_190912_011.JPG: Comic Art 120 Years of Panels and Pages Welcome to the world of comic art, where a wide variety of visual and narrative storytelling styles have evolved from panels in early newspapers to contemporary comic images. Through unique original drawings and printed pages, this exhibition features the artistic skills of master artists and emerging talents who have created some of the most famous, funny, and frightening characters to appear in print. One early comic figure, the Yellow Kid, debuted in a full-size panel in the color pages of the New York World newspaper in 1895 and sparked the rise of comics as a popular new American art form. By the mid-1900s, in addition to the growing number of mainstream comic creators, diverse independent artists were creating comic art that examined their own life stories and commented on culture and politics. These innovators and change makers expanded the art form to include mini comics, graphic novels, fanzines, and web comics. The lively visual content, dramatic narrative, and strong character development found in comics have attracted devoted audiences who follow the latest installment in whatever format the story appears. Over time, comic art and its characters have permeated film, television, books, and marketing -- making characters familiar to viewers who may or may not read comics themselves. The generous support of the Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon and gifts in kind from the Small Press Expo have made this exhibition possible. All works are from the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division and the Serial and Government Publications Division at the Library of Congress.
2. LOCCOM_190912_023.JPG: The Yellow Kid Makes His Move Like many cartoonists, Richard Felton Outcault switched from humorous magazine illustration to the newspaper funny pages in the 1890s. In 1896, as he intended to move his ragamuffin character, "The Yellow Kid," from Joseph Pulitzer's New York World to William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, Outcault sought advice from the Copyright Office. He was able to continue drawing the character but could not prevent Pulitzer from hiring George Luks to draw his Yellow Kid for the World. The commercial appeal of this character proved to publishers they could use comic strips to market their newspapers.
3. LOCCOM_190912_030.JPG: First Successful Newspaper Comic Strip Following his move to William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal in October 1896, Outcault created three separate series of cartoons featuring the Yellow Kid, beginning with E.W. Townsend's McFadden's Row of Flats stories. The Yellow Kid and Townsend's Chimmie Fadden were both street urchins whose antics were designed to appeal to adults. The Yellow Kid comic would overshadow the stories it appeared with to become the first successful commercial comic strip and a profitable merchandising venture.
4. LOCCOM_190912_044.JPG: An Alarming Dream Winsor McCay shows Little Nemo, his signature character, caught in the beak of a giant Thanksgiving turkey bent on eating Nemo for dinner. In an attempt to escape, he inches down the turkey's back despite its repeated threats. The turkey then begins spinning rapidly, making Nemo dizzy before waking up from his dream to find himself on the floor. McCay's imaginative flair for creating and drawing adventures for his characters, especially Nemo, continues to inspire artists today.
5. LOCCOM_190912_057.JPG: Bringing Up Father Born of Irish parents, George McManus cast a humorous eye on the immigrant experience in early-twentieth-century America in his very successful comic strip Bringing Up Father (also known as "Jiggs and Maggie" for its married main characters). Characterized by slapstick humor, exquisite drawings, and the story of a family navigating an unfamiliar world, the strip appeared in newspapers worldwide and ran from January 12, 1913, to May 28, 2000 -- eighty-seven years in all.
6. LOCCOM_190912_062.JPG: Generations of Characters Not long after Gasoline Alley debuted in 1918, creator Frank King brought baby Skeezix into the life of Walt Wallet in 1921. From then on, King portrayed his characters aging in real time, an innovative development in comics. Walt displays paternal spirit as he takes his adopted son on a hike, encounters a bear, and escapes. Today, Skeezix is an elderly man with a large extended family in what is now the longest running comic strip in the United States.
7. LOCCOM_190912_070.JPG: Buster Brown: Marketing a Name Unlike his Yellow Kid, Outcault's Buster Brown was a wealthy youth -- dressed in the eponymous suit of a belted tunic, straw hat, and pageboy haircut. Buster Brown featured the mischievous antics of Buster Brown, his sweetheart Mary Jane, and his dog Tige. The strip was so popular that Outcault licensed its characters to a variety of products, most notably the Buster Brown children's shoe. Despite its relative brevity in newspapers (1902–1921), Buster Brown lived on in theater, radio, film, television, and comic books.
8. LOCCOM_190912_082.JPG: Mutt and Jeff -- An Unlikely Pair By having his own characters serve in the French Foreign Legion, Bud Fisher encouraged military service on the cusp of the United States entry into World War I. An early daily comic strip, Mutt and Jeff appeared in newspapers from 1907 to 1982, surpassing the life of its own creator. The phrase "Mutt and Jeff" has come to mean a pair of mismatched people and first appeared in the American vernacular when the lanky Mutt met his match in the shorter Jeff.
9. LOCCOM_190912_089.JPG: George Herriman's Krazy Kat Although not a popular feature when it was originally published, Krazy Kat quickly received critical acclaim from the American intelligentsia -- and more importantly -- from George Herriman's publisher, William Randolph Hearst. Registered as a mulatto at his birth in New Orleans in 1880, Herriman passed for white during his entire career. The cartoonist played with language and fluidity of identity in the love triangle between the title character, Krazy Kat, the brick-throwing mouse, Ignatz, and the policeman, Officer Pupp.
10. LOCCOM_190912_096.JPG: Detective Dick Tracy Chester Gould submitted sixty unsuccessful comic strip ideas to publisher Joseph Medill Patterson before succeeding with detective "Plainclothes Tracy." Dick Tracy debuted in the Detroit Mirror in 1931 and ran for forty-six years. Gould's use of heavy bold lines and chiseled faces combined with his convoluted plots delighted readers. Although Gould studied forensics and criminal procedures for authenticity, his improvisations sometimes led to absurd storylines. The strip introduced technology that at the time seemed outlandish -- the two-way wrist radio (1946) and the portable surveillance camera (1948).
11. LOCCOM_190912_104.JPG: Super Heroes The modern comic book as we know it emerged in 1934 with Famous Funnies, no. 1, which was a compilation of reprinted newspaper comic strips. Soon after, the comic book industry began to publish original content and populate their pages with superheroes. Though they appear together in World's Best Comics, Superman first appeared in Action Comics, no. 1 (1938), Batman first appeared in Detective Comics, no. 27 (1939), and Wonder Woman first appeared in All Star Comics, no. 8 (1941). These beloved superheroes remain popular around the world today.
12. LOCCOM_190912_111.JPG: African American Characters Created by African American Artists Journalist Orrin Evans was the first black reporter to cover general news at a mainstream newspaper. He co-founded All-Negro Comics, Inc., with fellow journalist Harry Saylor as a way to show positive representations of African Americans. All-Negro Comics, no. 1, debuted in 1947, created solely by African Americans. Unable to find a wholesaler willing to sell him newsprint for a second issue, Evans returned to newspapers. However, his landmark All-Negro Comics was among the first American small press publications.
13. LOCCOM_190912_114.JPG: A Talented Beagle As Schroeder plays his toy piano, Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, and Patty delight in urging Snoopy to dance faster and faster. They soon tire and go home, leaving Snoopy feeling abandoned and aggrieved. In this early example of Peanuts, Charles Schulz includes themes that he would explore repeatedly and develop in future strips: Schroeder's music, Charlie Brown's cautiousness, and Snoopy's human feelings. This beloved, highly successful comic strip ran from 1950 to 2000 and continues in reruns.
14. LOCCOM_190912_119.JPG: Pogo and the Swamp Walt Kelly initially created the characters of the Okefenokee Swamp for Dell's comic book Animal Stories in 1941 and then placed them in a newspaper comic strip in 1948. Kelly's love of language and irrepressible sense of humor allowed him "to have fun and make money at the same time." Here, several animals, including Albert Alligator, the turtle Churchy LaFemme, Howland Owl, and the diapered infant groundhog, Grundoon, search for the title character, an opossum named Pogo.
15. LOCCOM_190912_131.JPG: Landmark Adventure and Romance Strip The first appearance of Brenda Star, Reporter by Dale Messick in 1940 marked a milestone for leading female characters in comics and for female cartoonists. Here, Starr, a worthy female counterpart of male heroes in adventure strips, enthuses and speculates over her new assignment. Messick builds suspense by first engaging viewers with her heroine's reflections, then shifts to the mysterious, unconscious Miss Welsly who holds a secret. Messick's strip ran in 250 newspapers at its peak.
16. LOCCOM_190912_144.JPG: Historic Comic Book Lobo was the first African American character to have a titular series, which chronicled the post-Civil War adventures of an African American soldier in the West. Although never introduced by name, he was called Lobo for the token he left on his victims, a gold coin inscribed with a wolf's head and the letter "L." The series was a commercial failure, lasting only two issues. Despite its brevity, Lobo made comic book history -- not until Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, in 1972 would another African American star in his own series.
17. LOCCOM_190912_148.JPG: Inspiration for Graphic Novels Often credited to comics artist Will Eisner, the term graphic novel was introduced in 1978. Eisner wanted to differentiate more serious comic works from comic books, which were frequently disparaged as childish. Today graphic novels include narratives for both children and adults, ranging from long-running children's series to non-fiction and memoir. The final story and panels from this issue of Impact are cited as among the most influential forerunners of graphic novels and were inspirational to legendary independent artist and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus.
18. LOCCOM_190912_152.JPG: Humor in a Jugular Vein Originally published as a comic book, Mad was created in 1952 by Harvey Kurtzman and William Gaines, the publishers of EC Comics. Known for other titles such as Tales from the Crypt and Weird Science, EC Comics published comics featuring horror, fantasy narratives, and more mature stories. After the implementation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954–1955, which saw comics publishers self-censoring their material to publish "suitable" content, Mad soon became the only title published by EC Comics, eventually transitioning to the magazine format we know today.
19. LOCCOM_190912_163.JPG: A Comix Anthology Editors Fran�oise Mouly and Art Spiegelman considered RAW both a revival of underground comix and a medium for experimenting with art and storytelling. The three-letter title was deliberately chosen to echo Mad magazine. They published the first issue of RAW in 1980 as a large format tabloid -- mirroring the design structure of oversize art magazines. Subsequent issues serialized Spiegelman's Maus, published works of cartoonists such as Chris Ware and Lynda Barry, and introduced American audiences to European commix. RAW took on the smaller digest format when Penguin Books began to publish it in 1990.
20. LOCCOM_190912_164.JPG: Tarzan: From Big Screen to Comic Strip Tarzan first appeared without pictures in a serialized story by Edgar Rice Burroughs for All-Story Magazine in 1912. In an unlikely path for an adventure comic strip character, Tarzan made his movie debut before he entered the newspaper comic strip pages. Set in both an exotic and imagined Africa, Burne Hogarth, who succeeded cartoonist Hal Foster, drew the Sunday stories from 1937 to 1950 (except for 1946). After leaving the feature in 1950, Hogarth taught art at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and wrote several books on drawing and anatomy.
21. LOCCOM_190912_173.JPG: Superhero Hulk In her cover drawing of the Incredible Hulk, artist Marie Severin captures the superhero's dual nature by sharply contrasting images: the creature of monstrous rage versus the chastened captive. Beginning as a colorist of comic books, Severin was one of the few women to advance to drawing major superhero titles for Marvel comics. Since artist Jack Kirby first introduced the Hulk in 1962, the character's story has been told and retold in comic books, television, and movies.
22. LOCCOM_190912_182.JPG: Batman and Robin Although the faded signature of Bob Kane appears on this original Batman comic book illustration, the story was penciled by Sheldon Moldoff, inked by Joe Giella, written by Gardner Fox (1911–1986), and lettered by Gaspar Saladino (1927–2016). Here, in the story "Fright of the Scarecrow" Batman and Robin, who have become temporarily blind, fight two of the Scarecrow's wild cats. Having first appeared in Detective Comics, no. 27 in 1939, Batman has become part of DC Comics pantheon of superheroes that also appear in motion pictures, television shows, and promotional products.
23. LOCCOM_190912_197.JPG: Blondie and Dagwood Blondie Boopadoop was introduced to the newspaper comic strip pages as a flapper by Chic Young in 1930. When she married Dagwood Bumstead on February 17, 1933, the couple settled down to the routine of domestic life that involved working, raising children, enjoying the company of neighbors, and eating extremely large sandwiches. Here, with a congenial sense of humor, Chic Young has Dagwood hatch a plot to convince Blondie to get rid of a new hat he dislikes.
24. LOCCOM_190912_201.JPG: Archie and Friends Beginning as a comic book story in 1941, Archie Andrews and his teenage friends landed their own comic book line four years later -- Archie Comics, which features several additional titles, including Jughead, Betty, and Veronica. Initially written by Vic Bloom and illustrated by Bob Montana, several artists and writers continue to work on the comic book stories. From 1947 until his death in 1975, Bob Montana also led the studio that brought Archie to the newspaper comic strip page, evoking an idealized version of white American teenage culture.
25. LOCCOM_190912_207.JPG: Voices of Children Two boys discuss Martin Luther King, Jr., and non-violent demonstrations in this strip by Brumsic Brandon, who titled his comic after his main character Luther. In this example, Luther tells his friend Pee Wee that he was named after the civil rights leader, and Pee Wee then tells him that his mother was beaten up during a non-violent demonstration. Luther was the second mainstream comic to feature an African American protagonist. It ran from 1968 to 1986.
26. LOCCOM_190912_213.JPG: Autobiographies Harvey Pekar's American Splendor was a long running autobiographical series initially drawn by influential Underground Comix artist Robert Crumb. American Splendor, drawn by a rotating set of artists, appeared irregularly between 1976 and 2008 and helped popularize the autobiographical and semi-autobiographical comic genre. Today, many independent creators' works follow in this tradition that Pekar helped to establish.
27. LOCCOM_190912_218.JPG: Women Respond Twisted Sisters, created by Aline Kominsky and Diane Noomin, along with Wimmen's Comix, were all-female anthologies published in response to the male-dominated Underground Comix scene in the 1970s, in which women cartoonists often felt ignored or invisible. Many Underground Comix, including Twisted Sisters and Wimmen's Comix, address more mature subject matter than their mainstream counterparts and are explicitly anti-censorship. First published in 1976, Twisted Sisters started up again in 1994 and featured such artists as Dame Darcy, Julie Doucet, Phoebe Gloeckner, and Carol Tyler.
28. LOCCOM_190912_219.JPG: Fanzines Fanzines -- self-published magazines originating in the Science Fiction community -- became an integral part of comic book culture in the 1950s and 1960s, offering an early avenue for industry news and information as well as providing a platform for burgeoning artists to publish their own art inspired by popular characters and stories. Comic fanzine The Comic Reader was published by Jerry Bails, creator of the long running publication Alter Ego. Fanzines and zine culture can be seen as forerunners to today's self-published mini-comics and web comics.
29. LOCCOM_190912_223.JPG: Minicomics Minicomics are self-published, limited edition, and usually small-sized publications. They grew out of the Underground Comix movement of the 1960s and 1970s and helped cultivate the work of now renowned comics artists, such as Trina Robbins and Art Spiegelman. Known for her award-winning graphic novels, including Smile and Sisters, Raina Telgemeier started her comics career creating minicomics that were sold and distributed at conventions such as SPX. Telgemeier's publisher plans an initial print run of one million for her next book.
30. LOCCOM_190912_229.JPG: Super Villains Where would superheroes be without super villains? If superheroes are the ultimate protagonists within comic books, villains serve as the all-important antagonists who bring complexity to the story narrative. The Joker, now known as Batman's arch nemesis, made his first appearance in issue no. 1 of Batman's eponymous series in 1940. He has become one of the most iconic comic book characters in contemporary pop culture.
31. LOCCOM_190912_234.JPG: Disney Characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, first published in print form as newspaper comic strip characters, made early appearances in Dell's Four Color comic books. This early series featured an individual comic figure for each issue. It presented licensed characters and stories, from popular comic strips, including Walt Disney's famous mouse. Four Color was so named because of early printing processes that used four colors -- cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
32. LOCCOM_190912_235.JPG: A Tale from the Small Press Expo Jared Cullum is an independent cartoonist, plein-air artist, and teacher, now based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2013, while still living and working in Richmond, Virginia, Cullum created an eight-page story based on his experience at SPX. Told in a gentle and heartfelt way, using animals to represent the people around him, Cullum tells the story of the excitement of an introverted artist selling his art on the crowded expo floor.
33. LOCCOM_190912_247.JPG: Zippy at the Small Press Expo Twenty-five years ago, in 1994, Small Press Expo (SPX) hosted its first festival in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2007, cartoonist Jacob Covey incorporated Bill Griffith's illustration featuring his signature character Zippy the Pinhead into the promotional poster design. In 2011, the Library of Congress and SPX forged a partnership, acknowledging the importance of acquiring, preserving, and making accessible independently produced graphic novels, comic strips, mini-comics, web comics, posters, drawings, and ephemera to the Library's researchers.
34. LOCCOM_190912_249.JPG: Zippy Goes National Actively working in the San Francisco underground comic book scene, Bill Griffith introduced Zippy the Pinhead as a comic book character in 1971. When Griffith began drawing his feature daily for the San Francisco Examiner in 1985, the devotion of his followers led to national distribution a year later. Here, Zippy and his friend Intal spend days poring over the contents of crates of Atomic Duck comic books left by fictional cartoonist Morty Mishkin. They later learn, to their disappointment, that the archive is intended for the Library of Congress.
35. LOCCOM_190912_253.JPG: Awkward Encounter Using a stroller to balance as she walks with her prosthetic leg, the unnamed protagonist of the graphic novel Building Stories interacts uncomfortably with a man she had not seen for years. Artist Chris Ware zooms in on their expressive faces in some frames and pulls back in others to reveal their body language. Telling insightful, often sad stories about characters in the Chicago area, Ware also includes moments of joy in his innovative novel that won high praise in reviews.
36. LOCCOM_190912_259.JPG: 1980s Mexican American Punk Culture Independent artist, Jaime Hernandez, with his brothers Mario and Gilbert, self-published Love and Rockets in 1981. Jaime's love of comic book illustration meshed with the Los Angeles punk rock scene in the 1980s as he created two characters grounded in the world he saw around him in Oxnard, California: Maggie and Hopey -- both complicated and strong Latinas. Fantagraphics, then a new imprint, began to publish their stories in 1982, and the brothers have remained in print continuously since.
37. LOCCOM_190912_266.JPG: Comics and Identity Growing up as a Christian Palestinian American, Marguerite Dabaie portrays herself beset with multiple expectations for girls in her family's culture. Gazing upward with a determined air, her many-armed figure wields drawing tools, boldly counterpointing the words and arms of family members holding tools of domestic labor in this final page of her autobiographical story "Domestic Goddess." As she struggles to forge her identity as an artist, Dabaie faces her challenges with humor.
38. LOCCOM_190912_271.JPG: Science Fiction Takes on Civil Rights The 1953 story "Judgment Day," first appeared in Weird Fantasy. It recounts an Earth astronaut's visit to the robot planet of Cybrinia to evaluate its potential membership in the Galactic Empire. Ultimately, the planet is rejected because their robots are segregated by color and function. On the story's final page, the astronaut expresses hope for the future, with the last panel revealing that he is a black man. The Comics Code Authority, established in 1954, rejected republication of the story, but publisher William Gaines reprinted this unauthorized version anyway.
39. LOCCOM_190912_275.JPG: Fantasy in Alternative Comics Against a psychedelic backdrop, Trina Robbins depicts a young woman dancing joyfully with Wonder Warthog, a parody of Superman created by underground cartoonist Gilbert Shelton. With wry humor, Robbins pays tribute to her fellow artist and the freewheeling atmosphere of the late 1960s in a page for the story 1969. An early, influential female cartoonist in underground comix, Robbins became a founding contributor and editor of Wimmen's Comix, an important title in this movement.
40. LOCCOM_190912_282.JPG: Mother Goose and Grimm Creating his zany comic strip in 1984, Mike Peters' Mother Goose and Grimm centers on an elderly goose and her dog Grimmy. He says of his art, "I know where the line is for bad taste, because I've been doing this for a long time, but if something is really, really funny to me, I've gotta put it in." Peters has won both a Pulitzer Prize as an editorial cartoonist and a Reuben Award for his comic strip.
41. LOCCOM_190912_286.JPG: Inspiration from Real Family Life When Canadian cartoonist Lynn Johnston began her comic chronicle of the Patterson family in 1979, she drew upon her own life. In this strip, when John takes Michael, along with his son's coach and teammates, out for root beer after losing the hockey tournament, Michael tells his father he values the game's camaraderie more than winning. Embracing the ups and downs of family life, Johnston's stories have captivated readers worldwide for decades. Though she retired in 2008, her comic is still published in reruns.
42. LOCCOM_190912_292.JPG: Impersonating Winnie-the-Pooh Initially created for the pages of the Washington Post Sunday Magazine section in 2004, Richard Thompson brought Beltway culture alive in the panels of his comic strip Cul de Sac. He earned something almost unheard of in the twenty-first century -- syndication. Just as Thompson won acclaim from his fellow artists, Parkinson's disease robbed him of his ability to draw. He retired the feature in 2012. Here, the Blisshaven Academy Preschool guinea pig, Mr. Danders, has escaped and has a Winnie-the-Pooh moment in the air with a hungry hawk.
43. LOCCOM_190912_299.JPG: Inspiration for Alternative Comics The Fort Thunder Arts Collective of Providence, Rhode Island, began publishing the free comic tabloid newspaper Paper Rodeo in 2000. Although it ran a mere nineteen issues, its influence was considerable to the world of alternative and minicomics publishing. Paper Rodeo drew upon the hand-made comics techniques of the 1990s combined with an underground art aesthetic and provocative subject matter. And like its underground comics predecessors, issues were often distributed at musical venues and conventions.
44. LOCCOM_190912_321.JPG: Superheroes from Real Life Renowned comic-book artist Alex Ross upends tradition in this breathtaking image of Superman and his dog Krypto admiring the heroes of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Depicting the legendary icon as a small figure standing in awe below people from everyday occupations, Ross portrays firemen, rescue workers, health care professionals, and other ordinary people, as larger-than-life figures to celebrate those proving themselves superhuman in heroic deeds of sacrifice.
45. LOCCOM_190912_351.JPG: Shocking Reality Legendary creator of comics and graphic novels, Will Eisner conveyed the collective shock felt by millions as the destruction and loss caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks unfolded in real time on broadcast television. Watching in horror, an Everyman covered in smoke and debris embodies the intense pain widely experienced that day. Eisner's compassionate, haunting response to the tragedy demonstrates the narrative and expressive capacity of a single panel. He continued to be a powerful visual storyteller late into his life.
46. LOCCOM_190918_013.JPG: The Yellow Kid Makes His Move Like many cartoonists, Richard Felton Outcault switched from humorous magazine illustration to the newspaper funny pages in the 1890s. In 1896, as he intended to move his ragamuffin character, "The Yellow Kid," from Joseph Pulitzer's New York World to William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, Outcault sought advice from the Copyright Office. He was able to continue drawing the character but could not prevent Pulitzer from hiring George Luks to draw his Yellow Kid for the World. The commercial appeal of this character proved to publishers they could use comic strips to market their newspapers.
47. LOCCOM_190918_026.JPG: First Successful Newspaper Comic Strip Following his move to William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal in October 1896, Outcault created three separate series of cartoons featuring the Yellow Kid, beginning with E.W. Townsend's McFadden's Row of Flats stories. The Yellow Kid and Townsend's Chimmie Fadden were both street urchins whose antics were designed to appeal to adults. The Yellow Kid comic would overshadow the stories it appeared with to become the first successful commercial comic strip and a profitable merchandising venture.
48. LOCCOM_190918_048.JPG: An Alarming Dream Winsor McCay shows Little Nemo, his signature character, caught in the beak of a giant Thanksgiving turkey bent on eating Nemo for dinner. In an attempt to escape, he inches down the turkey's back despite its repeated threats. The turkey then begins spinning rapidly, making Nemo dizzy before waking up from his dream to find himself on the floor. McCay's imaginative flair for creating and drawing adventures for his characters, especially Nemo, continues to inspire artists today.
49. LOCCOM_190918_084.JPG: Bringing Up Father Born of Irish parents, George McManus cast a humorous eye on the immigrant experience in early-twentieth-century America in his very successful comic strip Bringing Up Father (also known as "Jiggs and Maggie" for its married main characters). Characterized by slapstick humor, exquisite drawings, and the story of a family navigating an unfamiliar world, the strip appeared in newspapers worldwide and ran from January 12, 1913, to May 28, 2000 -- eighty-seven years in all.
50. LOCCOM_190918_091.JPG: Generations of Characters Not long after Gasoline Alley debuted in 1918, creator Frank King brought baby Skeezix into the life of Walt Wallet in 1921. From then on, King portrayed his characters aging in real time, an innovative development in comics. Walt displays paternal spirit as he takes his adopted son on a hike, encounters a bear, and escapes. Today, Skeezix is an elderly man with a large extended family in what is now the longest running comic strip in the United States.
51. LOCCOM_190918_103.JPG: Buster Brown: Marketing a Name Unlike his Yellow Kid, Outcault's Buster Brown was a wealthy youth -- dressed in the eponymous suit of a belted tunic, straw hat, and pageboy haircut. Buster Brown featured the mischievous antics of Buster Brown, his sweetheart Mary Jane, and his dog Tige. The strip was so popular that Outcault licensed its characters to a variety of products, most notably the Buster Brown children's shoe. Despite its relative brevity in newspapers (1902–1921), Buster Brown lived on in theater, radio, film, television, and comic books.
52. LOCCOM_190918_108.JPG: Mutt and Jeff -- An Unlikely Pair By having his own characters serve in the French Foreign Legion, Bud Fisher encouraged military service on the cusp of the United States entry into World War I. An early daily comic strip, Mutt and Jeff appeared in newspapers from 1907 to 1982, surpassing the life of its own creator. The phrase "Mutt and Jeff" has come to mean a pair of mismatched people and first appeared in the American vernacular when the lanky Mutt met his match in the shorter Jeff.
53. LOCCOM_190918_118.JPG: George Herriman's Krazy Kat Although not a popular feature when it was originally published, Krazy Kat quickly received critical acclaim from the American intelligentsia -- and more importantly -- from George Herriman's publisher, William Randolph Hearst. Registered as a mulatto at his birth in New Orleans in 1880, Herriman passed for white during his entire career. The cartoonist played with language and fluidity of identity in the love triangle between the title character, Krazy Kat, the brick-throwing mouse, Ignatz, and the policeman, Officer Pupp.
54. LOCCOM_190918_151.JPG: African American Characters Created by African American Artists Journalist Orrin Evans was the first black reporter to cover general news at a mainstream newspaper. He co-founded All-Negro Comics, Inc., with fellow journalist Harry Saylor as a way to show positive representations of African Americans. All-Negro Comics, no. 1, debuted in 1947, created solely by African Americans. Unable to find a wholesaler willing to sell him newsprint for a second issue, Evans returned to newspapers. However, his landmark All-Negro Comics was among the first American small press publications.
55. LOCCOM_190918_156.JPG: A Talented Beagle As Schroeder plays his toy piano, Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, and Patty delight in urging Snoopy to dance faster and faster. They soon tire and go home, leaving Snoopy feeling abandoned and aggrieved. In this early example of Peanuts, Charles Schulz includes themes that he would explore repeatedly and develop in future strips: Schroeder's music, Charlie Brown's cautiousness, and Snoopy's human feelings. This beloved, highly successful comic strip ran from 1950 to 2000 and continues in reruns.
56. LOCCOM_190918_168.JPG: Pogo and the Swamp Walt Kelly initially created the characters of the Okefenokee Swamp for Dell's comic book Animal Stories in 1941 and then placed them in a newspaper comic strip in 1948. Kelly's love of language and irrepressible sense of humor allowed him "to have fun and make money at the same time." Here, several animals, including Albert Alligator, the turtle Churchy LaFemme, Howland Owl, and the diapered infant groundhog, Grundoon, search for the title character, an opossum named Pogo.
57. LOCCOM_190918_204.JPG: Landmark Adventure and Romance Strip The first appearance of Brenda Star, Reporter by Dale Messick in 1940 marked a milestone for leading female characters in comics and for female cartoonists. Here, Starr, a worthy female counterpart of male heroes in adventure strips, enthuses and speculates over her new assignment. Messick builds suspense by first engaging viewers with her heroine's reflections, then shifts to the mysterious, unconscious Miss Welsly who holds a secret. Messick's strip ran in 250 newspapers at its peak.
58. LOCCOM_190918_216.JPG: Historic Comic Book Lobo was the first African American character to have a titular series, which chronicled the post-Civil War adventures of an African American soldier in the West. Although never introduced by name, he was called Lobo for the token he left on his victims, a gold coin inscribed with a wolf's head and the letter "L." The series was a commercial failure, lasting only two issues. Despite its brevity, Lobo made comic book history -- not until Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, in 1972 would another African American star in his own series.
59. LOCCOM_190918_218.JPG: Inspiration for Graphic Novels Often credited to comics artist Will Eisner, the term graphic novel was introduced in 1978. Eisner wanted to differentiate more serious comic works from comic books, which were frequently disparaged as childish. Today graphic novels include narratives for both children and adults, ranging from long-running children's series to non-fiction and memoir. The final story and panels from this issue of Impact are cited as among the most influential forerunners of graphic novels and were inspirational to legendary independent artist and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus.
60. LOCCOM_190918_225.JPG: User comment book. Note the doodle by Craig Frank who was at the Small Press Expo this weekend.
61. LOCCOM_190918_238.JPG: Tarzan: From Big Screen to Comic Strip Tarzan first appeared without pictures in a serialized story by Edgar Rice Burroughs for All-Story Magazine in 1912. In an unlikely path for an adventure comic strip character, Tarzan made his movie debut before he entered the newspaper comic strip pages. Set in both an exotic and imagined Africa, Burne Hogarth, who succeeded cartoonist Hal Foster, drew the Sunday stories from 1937 to 1950 (except for 1946). After leaving the feature in 1950, Hogarth taught art at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and wrote several books on drawing and anatomy.
62. LOCCOM_190918_254.JPG: Superhero Hulk In her cover drawing of the Incredible Hulk, artist Marie Severin captures the superhero's dual nature by sharply contrasting images: the creature of monstrous rage versus the chastened captive. Beginning as a colorist of comic books, Severin was one of the few women to advance to drawing major superhero titles for Marvel comics. Since artist Jack Kirby first introduced the Hulk in 1962, the character's story has been told and retold in comic books, television, and movies.
63. LOCCOM_190918_266.JPG: Batman and Robin Although the faded signature of Bob Kane appears on this original Batman comic book illustration, the story was penciled by Sheldon Moldoff, inked by Joe Giella, written by Gardner Fox (1911–1986), and lettered by Gaspar Saladino (1927–2016). Here, in the story "Fright of the Scarecrow" Batman and Robin, who have become temporarily blind, fight two of the Scarecrow's wild cats. Having first appeared in Detective Comics, no. 27 in 1939, Batman has become part of DC Comics pantheon of superheroes that also appear in motion pictures, television shows, and promotional products.
64. LOCCOM_190918_273.JPG: Blondie and Dagwood Blondie Boopadoop was introduced to the newspaper comic strip pages as a flapper by Chic Young in 1930. When she married Dagwood Bumstead on February 17, 1933, the couple settled down to the routine of domestic life that involved working, raising children, enjoying the company of neighbors, and eating extremely large sandwiches. Here, with a congenial sense of humor, Chic Young has Dagwood hatch a plot to convince Blondie to get rid of a new hat he dislikes.
65. LOCCOM_190918_296.JPG: Archie and Friends Beginning as a comic book story in 1941, Archie Andrews and his teenage friends landed their own comic book line four years later -- Archie Comics, which features several additional titles, including Jughead, Betty, and Veronica. Initially written by Vic Bloom and illustrated by Bob Montana, several artists and writers continue to work on the comic book stories. From 1947 until his death in 1975, Bob Montana also led the studio that brought Archie to the newspaper comic strip page, evoking an idealized version of white American teenage culture.
66. LOCCOM_190918_301.JPG: Voices of Children Two boys discuss Martin Luther King, Jr., and non-violent demonstrations in this strip by Brumsic Brandon, who titled his comic after his main character Luther. In this example, Luther tells his friend Pee Wee that he was named after the civil rights leader, and Pee Wee then tells him that his mother was beaten up during a non-violent demonstration. Luther was the second mainstream comic to feature an African American protagonist. It ran from 1968 to 1986.
67. LOCCOM_190918_307.JPG: Awkward Encounter Using a stroller to balance as she walks with her prosthetic leg, the unnamed protagonist of the graphic novel Building Stories interacts uncomfortably with a man she had not seen for years. Artist Chris Ware zooms in on their expressive faces in some frames and pulls back in others to reveal their body language. Telling insightful, often sad stories about characters in the Chicago area, Ware also includes moments of joy in his innovative novel that won high praise in reviews.
68. LOCCOM_190918_317.JPG: Comics and Identity Growing up as a Christian Palestinian American, Marguerite Dabaie portrays herself beset with multiple expectations for girls in her family's culture. Gazing upward with a determined air, her many-armed figure wields drawing tools, boldly counterpointing the words and arms of family members holding tools of domestic labor in this final page of her autobiographical story "Domestic Goddess." As she struggles to forge her identity as an artist, Dabaie faces her challenges with humor.
69. LOCCOM_190918_321.JPG: Fantasy in Alternative Comics Against a psychedelic backdrop, Trina Robbins depicts a young woman dancing joyfully with Wonder Warthog, a parody of Superman created by underground cartoonist Gilbert Shelton. With wry humor, Robbins pays tribute to her fellow artist and the freewheeling atmosphere of the late 1960s in a page for the story 1969. An early, influential female cartoonist in underground comix, Robbins became a founding contributor and editor of Wimmen's Comix, an important title in this movement.
70. LOCCOM_190918_324.JPG: Inspiration from Real Family Life When Canadian cartoonist Lynn Johnston began her comic chronicle of the Patterson family in 1979, she drew upon her own life. In this strip, when John takes Michael, along with his son's coach and teammates, out for root beer after losing the hockey tournament, Michael tells his father he values the game's camaraderie more than winning. Embracing the ups and downs of family life, Johnston's stories have captivated readers worldwide for decades. Though she retired in 2008, her comic is still published in reruns.
71. LOCCOM_190918_333.JPG: Mother Goose and Grimm Creating his zany comic strip in 1984, Mike Peters' Mother Goose and Grimm centers on an elderly goose and her dog Grimmy. He says of his art, "I know where the line is for bad taste, because I've been doing this for a long time, but if something is really, really funny to me, I've gotta put it in." Peters has won both a Pulitzer Prize as an editorial cartoonist and a Reuben Award for his comic strip.
72. LOCCOM_190918_338.JPG: Impersonating Winnie-the-Pooh Initially created for the pages of the Washington Post Sunday Magazine section in 2004, Richard Thompson brought Beltway culture alive in the panels of his comic strip Cul de Sac. He earned something almost unheard of in the twenty-first century -- syndication. Just as Thompson won acclaim from his fellow artists, Parkinson's disease robbed him of his ability to draw. He retired the feature in 2012. Here, the Blisshaven Academy Preschool guinea pig, Mr. Danders, has escaped and has a Winnie-the-Pooh moment in the air with a hungry hawk.
73. LOCCOM_190918_369.JPG: Zippy Goes National Actively working in the San Francisco underground comic book scene, Bill Griffith introduced Zippy the Pinhead as a comic book character in 1971. When Griffith began drawing his feature daily for the San Francisco Examiner in 1985, the devotion of his followers led to national distribution a year later. Here, Zippy and his friend Intal spend days poring over the contents of crates of Atomic Duck comic books left by fictional cartoonist Morty Mishkin. They later learn, to their disappointment, that the archive is intended for the Library of Congress.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
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