Comic book

A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication made of comics art. Its sequential panels show individual scenes, and the characters' words usually appear in word balloons, which are a symbol of the comics art form. For the comics art medium itself, see Comics.

Comic Cuts was a British comic published from 1890 to 1953. Before it, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884) used a series of cartoons to tell a story. British readers also enjoyed lurid "penny dreadfuls" such as Spring-heeled Jack, boys' "story papers", and the humorous magazine Punch, which was the first to use the word "cartoon" in its modern sense of a funny drawing.

The first modern American-style comic book, Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, was released in the United States in 1933. It reprinted earlier newspaper comic strips, which had already developed many of the storytelling methods used in comics. The term "comic book" comes from American comics that were once collections of funny comic strips. Later, comic books began to tell stories of all kinds, which were usually not humorous.

Japan has the largest comic book market. By 1995, the manga market in Japan was valued at ¥586.4 billion ($6–7 billion), with 1.9 billion manga books sold each year, including tankōbon volumes and manga magazines. In 2020, the Japanese manga market reached a new record value of ¥612.5 billion. In the United States, the largest comic book publisher is Viz Media, a distributor of manga, followed by DC Comics and Marvel Comics, which publish superhero comics such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, and the X-Men.

Structure

Main article: Comics § Terminology

Comic books rely a lot on how they are organized and how they look. Creators pay attention to the page, its size and direction, and where each panel sits, so that the story comes across clearly. Important parts of a comic book include panels, speech bubbles (also called balloons), lines of text, and characters. Speech balloons are rounded containers that hold dialogue or other information, and they are usually linked to a character by a small tail. Making a comic book takes several steps, such as writing, drawing, and coloring. In the United States, people usually use the term "comic book" for periodicals and trade paperbacks, while "graphic novel" is the word used for books that stand on their own.

Main article: American comic book

Comics in the United States date back to 1842, when The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck was printed in hardcover. The first comic in standard size was Funnies on Parade, which set the size and format of the modern comic book. Dell Publishing then released Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, the first true American comic book sold at newsstands. In 1938, Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, turned comic books into a major industry and began the Golden Age of Comic Books. Historians divide later years into the Silver Age of Comic Books, the Bronze Age of Comic Books, and the Modern Age of Comic Books, which runs from the mid-1980s to today. During the Silver Age, Marvel Comics changed the medium with heroes such as Spider-Man.

In 1954, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham criticized comics in his book Seduction of the Innocent. This led the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency to look into comic books. The industry responded by creating the Comics Code Authority, which required comics to be approved before they were published. This process lasted until the 1970s. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, underground comix were published independently of the main industry. In the 1970s, comic book stores began to appear, and alternative comics grew in popularity. In 1964, Richard Kyle coined the term "graphic novel." Comics were once marketed mainly to children, but many adults now enjoy them too.

East Asian comics

Main article: Manga Main article: Dōjinshi Main article: Manhwa Main article: Webtoons Main article: Manhua Main article: Truyện tranh

Manga (漫画) are comic books or graphic novels from Japan. Most manga follow a style that developed in Japan in the late 19th century, though the art form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. In Japan, the word manga refers to both comics and cartooning in general. Outside Japan, it usually means comics that were first published in Japan. Japan also has dōjinshi (同人誌, fan magazine), fan-made comics. This market is much larger in Japan than the American "underground comix" market. The biggest dōjinshi fair, Comiket, attracts 500,000 visitors twice a year.

Manhwa (만화) are comic books or graphic novels from Korea. In Korea, the word manhwa refers to both comics and cartooning in general. Outside Korea, it usually means comics first published in Korea. Manhwa is greatly influenced by Japanese manga, but it has its own distinct features and differs from both manga and manhua. Webtoons have become popular in South Korea as a new way to read comics. This is partly due to different censorship rules, color and unique visual effects, and designs that make reading on smartphones and computers easier. More manhwa have moved from print to online webtoons, which offer better pay and more freedom. The webtoon format has also spread to other countries, including China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Western countries. Major webtoon distributors include Lezhin, Naver, and Kakao.

European comics

Main article: European comics

France and Belgium have a long tradition of comics, often called BDs in French, short for bandes dessinées, meaning "drawn strips." In Dutch or Flemish they are called strips. Belgian comics written in Dutch show the influence of Francophone "Franco-Belgian" comics but have their own style.

British comics began with Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884), which was aimed at adults, but publishers quickly turned to younger readers. Early British comics grew out of illustrated penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era, which featured Sweeney Todd, Dick Turpin and Varney the Vampire. The two most popular British comic books, The Beano and The Dandy, were first published by DC Thomson in the 1930s, and by 1950 each had a weekly circulation of 2 million. Dennis the Menace was created in the 1950s. In 1954, Tiger introduced Roy of the Rovers, a football strip about Roy Race and his team, Melchester Rovers. Other comics, such as Eagle, Valiant, Warrior, Viz and 2000 AD, also did well, and Judge Dredd was published in tabloid form. In the 1980s, British writers and artists such as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis and Mark Millar became well known in mainstream comic books, a time called the "British Invasion."

In Spain, comic books (also known as historietas or tebeos) first appeared around 1857, and the magazine TBO helped make them popular. After the Spanish Civil War, the Franco regime imposed strict censorship, so superhero comics were banned and comic heroes were often based on historical fiction. Spanish artists have also found success in the American and British markets and in Franco-Belgian comics. Italian comics, known as fumetti, started as humor strips at the end of the 19th century and later grew into adventure stories. Artists like Hugo Pratt and Guido Crepax brought Italian comics to an international audience, and popular titles such as Diabolik and the Bonelli line remain best-sellers. Italy is also famous for producing many Walt Disney comic stories, and Donald Duck's superhero alter ego, Paperinik, was created there.

Comics in other countries

See also: List of comics by country

Distribution

Getting comic books into stores has long been a challenge for the comic book industry. Many mainstream shops chose not to carry large amounts of popular comics.

On 13 November 2007, Marvel Comics launched Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, a subscription service that lets readers read many comics from Marvel's history online. The service also adds new comics from time to time that are not available anywhere else. With the release of Avenging Spider-Man #1, Marvel also became the first publisher to give free digital copies along with the printed comic. As smartphones and tablets became more popular, many major publishers began releasing comics in digital form. The most popular platform is comiXology. Some platforms, such as Graphicly, have shut down.

Comic collections in libraries

Many libraries have large collections of comics and graphic novels.

Guinness World Records

In 2015, Japanese manga artist Eiichiro Oda received a Guinness World Records title for the "Most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author." He writes and draws the manga series One Piece, which has been published in the Japanese magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump since December 1997. By 2015, 77 collected volumes had come out, and Guinness World Records reported that they had sold 320,866,000 copies. The series also holds a record for the "Most copies published for the same manga series."

In 2018, the Brazilian comic book Turma da Mônica—O Maior Gibi do Mundo!, published by Panini Comics Brasil and Mauricio de Sousa Produções, was named the "Largest comic book ever published." It measures 69.9 by 99.8 centimetres and has 18 pages, with a print run of 120 copies. In July 2021, Japanese manga artist Takao Saito received a record for the "Most volumes published for a single manga series" when the 201st collected volume of his series Golgo 13 came out. Golgo 13 has been serialized in the magazine Big Comic since October 1968, which also makes it the oldest manga still being published.