History of comics
[4] Early printed material concentrated on religious subjects, with densely illustrated versions of the Bible as a widely distributed medium that combined many images with text in order to bring the teachings of Christianity to the illiterate.
Occasionally, prints would contain several images to relate multiple scenes of a narrative, for instance in Frans Hogenberg's depictions of the Spanish Fury (1576) and the murder of Henry III of France (1589).
The speech balloon also evolved over the centuries, from the medieval origins of the phylacter, a label, usually in the form of a scroll, which identified a character either through naming them or using a short text to explain their purpose.
[10][11][12] It had most of the elements that make up the modern comic, including pictures with captions that display a continuous narrative told often in installments, and the use of speech bubbles, satire and caricature.
[14] The lack of copyright laws at the time meant that pirated editions proliferated, and translated versions created a market on both continents for similar works.
[15] In 1845, Töpffer formalised his thoughts on the picture story (French: histoire en estampes) in his Essay on Physiognomics (Essai de physiognomonie): "To construct a picture-story does not mean you must set yourself up as a master craftsman, to draw out every potential from your material—often down to the dregs!
[19] Similar magazines containing cartoons in continental Europe included Fliegende Blätter and Le Charivari, while in the U.S. Judge and Puck were popular.
Busch refined the conventions of sequential art, and his work was a key influence within the form, Rudolph Dirks was inspired by the strip to create The Katzenjammer Kids in 1897.
[21] The first weekly comic to feature a regular character was Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, which debuted in the British humour magazine Judy in 1867 and was created by C. H. Ross and illustrated by his French wife Émilie de Tessier.
[22][23] In 1884 the then highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday published by Dalziel Brothers, eight pages long and printed in black and white at tabloid size.
Referred to as manga, the Japanese form was established after World War II by Osamu Tezuka, who expanded the page count of work to number in the hundreds, and who developed a filmic style, heavily influenced by the Disney cartoons of the time.
Japanese manga is typically published in large anthologies, containing several hundred pages, and the stories told have long been used as sources for adaptation into animated film.
The modern double use of the term comic, as an adjective describing a genre, and a noun designating an entire medium, has been criticised as confusing and misleading.
Scott McCloud described in 2000 how creators of online comics can revolutionize the medium by embracing the digital space and making use of techniques such as infinite canvas.
