The first modern comic book was created by the American artist Richard Outcault in 1895. “The language of comics, with the adoption of a fixed character, fragmented action in frames and little text balloons, appeared in the sensationalist newspapers of New York with the Yellow Kid (‘Yellow Boy’)”, says historian and journalist Álvaro de Moya, author of the book History of Comics.
The Outcault comic strip was so successful that the major New York newspapers went on the warpath to have the Yellow Kid in their pages. But of course, this original format for telling a story didn’t pop into Outcault’s mind overnight. If we look for the first roots of comics, we can get to cave paintings made by prehistoric men, which served to tell, for example, what their hunting adventures were like.
The paintings in medieval churches that portrayed the Via Sacra – the last moments of Jesus’ life on Earth – can also be considered ancestors of comic strips. The big difference is that these ancestors of comics had no text, the plots were developed only with a sequence of drawings.
“Comic books are a means of mass communication that combine two distinct codes to convey a message: the linguistic (text) and the pictorial (image)”, says researcher Waldomiro Vergueiro, coordinator of the Research Center for Comics History , from the University of São Paulo (USP). It was only in the 19th century that things began to change, with pioneers such as the Swiss Rudolph Töpffer, the French Georges Colomb and even the Italian Angelo Agostini, living in Brazil since he was 16 years old.
Although these artists created works combining text and image years before Yellow Kid, important characteristics of modern comics, such as the use of little balloons with the “lines”, for example, would only really appear in the strips of the American character.
Unforgettable characters and adventures
From the first strips to the ultramodern heroes, ten remarkable moments from comics
1869 – THE ADVENTURES OF NHÔ QUIM
By Angelo Agostini
This Italian author, based in Brazil, launched one of the first magazines in our country, the Illustrated Magazine. Agostini was also one of the pioneers of comics. The Adventures of Nhô Quimpublished in the magazine Fluminense life, narrated the experiences of a redneck in the big city. And it brought something new: stories with a fixed character.
1895 – YELLOW KID
By Richard Outcault
Angelo Agostini and other pioneers created embryos of comics, but the first modern comic was yellow kid. In fact, that was the name of the main character in the strip. At the Circus in Hogan’s Alleywhich appeared once a week in the newspaper New York World.
1929 – TARZAN
By Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth
Hal Foster drew the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel in strips for publication in newspapers. The audience loved it tarzan and to this day the hero’s stories continue to be published. In 1937, Hogarth started designing the character and created the more vigorous trait of the “King of the Monkeys”, giving the stories non-stop action.
1930 – MICKEY MOUSE
by walt disney
Mickey Mouse, symbol of the Walt Disney empire, made his debut in a 1928 cartoon. It was only two years later that he became a newspaper strip. With the initial success, the little mouse would soon win a monthly magazine, the Mickey Mouse Magazine.
1934 – FLASH GORDON
by Alex Raymond
The character emerged to compete with another space hero: Buck Rogers. But, thanks to Raymond’s talent, in a short time the intergalactic adventures of Flash Gordon surpassed the popularity of his great rival.
1940 – THE SPIRIT
by Will Eisner
The revolutionary language, with unusual angles, made “The Spirit” already be called the “Citizen Kane of comics”, a reference to what many critics consider to be the greatest film of all time. Danny Colt was a presumed dead criminologist chasing down bad guys.
1952 – MAD
By Harvey Kurtzmann
Mad was a magazine that revolutionized the genre with its derisive humor. It was an original way of reacting to the growing censorship of comics in the United States, when more violent themes began to lose ground.
1959 – BIDU
By Maurício de Sousa
The dog Bidu was the first character of the famous Turma da Mônica created by Maurício de Sousa. His debut strip appeared in the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. In the early 60s, the characters Cebolinha, Cascão, Mônica and Magali would appear.
1985 – THE DARK KNIGHT
By Frank Miller
This artist inaugurated a new phase in comics: the author comic. In The dark Knight (The Dark Knight Returns, in the original in English), Miller portrays a vulnerable and insecure Batman. With this humanization of the character, the artist created one of the best stories of the hero.
1986 – MAUS
By Art Spiegelman
Jews are portrayed as mice and Nazis as cats in the story of a holocaust survivor. S saga won a special Pulitzer, the highest journalistic award in the United States.
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