32 Comics Culture

Mr. Orsu Kasibabu

Introduction

Before we look at Comics Culture, let’s understand what comics is and what culture is. Comics is a medium of expression in which the author exploits images, text and other visual material to convey what he has to convey. Here, the artists of comics often place a series of visual images alongside textual devices such as speech and thought bubbles, captions, and onomatopoeic expressions to carry out their narration. Coming to the techniques of comics, cartooning is the most widely exploited medium; then we have ‘fumetti’, which litterally means ‘little clouds of smoke’. Fumetti entails photographic images rather than drawings. It originated in Italy. However, in Italian, the term ‘Fumetti’ refers to all forms of comics. Comics come in a wide variety of forms such as comic strips, comic books, cartoons, graphic novels, and comic albums. In the recent times, webcomics have also become a hit with the readers.

Having looked at comics, let us now look at what culture is. Culture, in general, is defined as the characteristics of a particular group of people with their own language, social practices, religion, food habits, music, and arts. However, for our purpose of understanding comics culture, we should go in for the definition of culture given by the Center for Advance Research for Language Acquisition, which describes culture as ‘shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs and understanding that are learned by socialization’. This definition helps us understand that culture refers to the development of a group identity shared by the respective group through its common endeavour, and need not be a birth identity.

Therefore, we can define comics culture as the shared identity and practices of not only the artists and publishers involved in comics creation and propagation but also the consumers who enjoy reading or watching those comics. However, this culture could vary from country to country and people to people. So, let us look at how comics culture has originated and evolved from country to country.

Origins and Development of Comics

The origin of comics can be traced as back as to Cave Paintings, Trajan’s Column in Rome, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and Bayeux Tapestry. Trajan’s Column, constructed in Rome in the memory of Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars in 113 CE, is an early surviving example of a narrative told in a series of images. Egyptian hieroglyphs, which consist of 1000 distinct logographic, syllabic and alphabet characters and the Bayeux Tapestry, which is an embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall, depicting the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England, are also examples of narratives that convey a story through sequential images.

Fig. 1: Cave Painting of a Dun Horse at Lascaux (Credit: Wikipedia/Lascaux)

Fig. 2: Trajan’s Column in Rome (Credit Wikipedia/History of comics)

Fig. 3: Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Credit: Wikipedia/Egyptian hieroglyphs)

Fig. 4: Bayeux Tapestry (Credit: Wikipedia/Bayeux Tapestry)

English Traditions of Comics

The term ‘comics’ in English is used to refer to both the medium and individual works such as comic strips, comic books so on and so forth. It is common in the English speaking world to refer to the comics of different cultures by the terms used in their original languages, such as manga for Japanese comics, or bandes dessinées for French-language comics.

Comics culture has evolved in different ways in different countries and different regions. The European tradition has evolved from the Swiss Rodolphe Töpffer from as early as 1827 while the American tradition has seen its origins in Richard F. Outcault’s 1890s newspaper strip, namely, The Yellow Kid. In Japan, there was a long tradition of satirical cartoons and comics. The ukiyo-e artist Hokusai popularized the Japanese term for comics and cartooning, manga, in the early 19th century. And after the World War II, modern Japanese comics began to flourish when Osamu Tezuka produced a prolific body of work. In the final leg of the the 20th century, these three traditions were blended to produce book-length comics: the comic album in Europe, the tankōbon(a) in Japan, and the graphic novel in the English-speaking countries.

Fig. 5: Manga in Japan (Credit: Wikipedia/Comics)

Fig. 6: The Yellow Kid; R. F. Outcault (Credit: Wikipedia/Comics)

In England, humour periodicals were very popular in the 19th century with the earliest periodical being The Glasgow Looking Glass which was in circulation in 1825. Also known as The Northern Looking Glass, it made a large scale of production of stories told through illustrations. It was published by Jane Watson, Glasgow lithographic printer, and the illustrations were done by William Heath. However, it was short-lived. Then came the most popular British weekly magazine of humour and satire Punch. Punch or, The London Charivari was set up in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. It coined and employed the term ‘cartoon’ to refer to its humorous caricatures. It was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, reaching its peak in the 1940s. After that it experienced a steep decline and was eventually closed down in 1992.

Fig. 7: George du Maurier, originally published in Punch in 1895

Later, in 20th century Britain, the Amalgamated Press, a conglomerated newspaper and magazine publishing company founded by journalist and entrepreneur Alfred Harmsworth in 1901, brought in a popular style wherein a sequence of images with text beneath them, including illustrated Chips and Comic Cuts, was employed to tell stories. Humour strips predominated at first, and in the 1920s and 1930s strips with continuing stories in genres such as adventure and drama also became popular.

In the UK and the other Commonwealth countries, the DC Thomson-created Dandy (1937) and Beano (1938) enjoyed a tremendous success with a combined circulation of over 2 million by the middle of the last century. Their characters, including “Dennis the Menace”, “Desperate Dan” and “The Bash Street Kids” have been read by generations of British schoolboys.

In case of America, comics culture developed through such magazines as Puch, Judge, and Life. Their success spilled on to such dailies as the New York World, and later the New York American, particularly with the success of Outcault’s The Yellow Kid, which led to the development of comic strips in the newspapers. Early Sunday had comic strips of full-length page. And between 1896 and 1901, newspaper cartoonists experimented with sequentially, movement, and speech balloons.

In the early 20th century, newspaper comic strips got widespread public approval with the success of Bud Fisher’s Mutt and Jeff in 1907.

Fig. 8: Bud Fisher’s Mutt and Jeff 1907-1982 (Credit: Wikipedia/Comics)

Comic books began to roll out in the 1930s. In the beginning, they used to be the compilations of newspaper comic strips. However, by the end of the decade, original works had started to come out in the market. With the success of Action Comics and its Superman character in 1938 unleashed a golden age for comic books. In these books, superhero character played a dominant role.

In the meantime, after the second world war, the popularity of superhero genre began to decline, leading to the proliferation of other genres such as crime, humour, romance and horror. With this kind of proliferation came the scrutiny by both the government agencies and parents. Eventually, this led to the legislation of the Comics Code, which had an adverse impact on the growth of American comics.

In the early 1960s, superhero genre regained its popularity and even the underground comics played its role in boosting the growth of comics, by challenging the Code and presenting the readers with adult, alternative-cultural content in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. A lot of experimental content in superhero genre was unleashed in the 1980s, giving birth to alternative comics in the US.

This widespread popularity coincided the lowbrow reputation in the US as the elite class considered it a threat to the dominant culture because comics had its roots deep in mass culture. However, towards the end of the 20th century, comics received widespread acceptance while the line between high and low culture began to dissipate.

The graphic novel made inroads into the popular comics culture with Will Eisner creating the term for his work A Contact with God in 1978. It became more popular with the success of The Dark Knight Rises, Maus and Watchmen in the 1980s. In this century, graphic novels began to dominate bookstores and libraries. Besides, webcomics are quite common with the internet consumers.

Franco-Belgian and European Comics

Franco-Belgian and European comics began with francophone Swiss national Rodolphe Töpffer, who not only produced comic strips from 1827 onwards but also put forth theories about comics. Cartoons were published in newspapers and magazines in the 19th century. Speech balloons made it to the comic strips in Europe with the success of Zig et Puce in 1925. After that Franco-Belgian comics became dominant with The Adventure of Tintin becoming an iconic work of Franco-Belgian comics.

Later in the mid-20th century, the popularity of Le Journal de Mickey (1934-44) prompted dedicated comic magazines and full-colour comic albums. Even in Europe comics were thought to be a threat to culture and literacy. Some critics described them as “the sabotage of all art and all literature” as “none bear up to the slightest serious analysis”.

In the 1960s, the expression bandes dessinees, which means drawn strips, began to be used in French to imply the medium and afterwards, a new term ‘Ninth Art’ was coined as cartoonists began drawing comics for mature audience, and the comics began attracting public as well as academic attention as an art from. Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo launched a comics magazine Pilote in 1959 to provide a platform for the cartoonists. Their work The Adventures of Asterix turned out to be the best-selling comics series in French. And the satirical work Hara-Kiri defied censorship laws in the countercultural spirit in the 1960s. Frustrated with censorship laws and editorial interference, some Pilote cartoonists launched the L’Écho des savanes in 1972 with adult-only content. This type of content flourished in the 1970s. Even the experimental science fiction of Mœbius and others in Métal hurlant made it to the mainstream publishing houses. Form the 1980s, the number of comics magazines came down as the comics began to be published into albums directly without publishing them in the magazines first. Publishers such as L’Association brought about longer works in non- traditional formats and their number grew exponentially in the 1990s, as the publishing houses began to be amalgamated, which resulted in fewer large publishers for comics. However, sales never dwindled despite shrinking print market.

Japanese Comics

The origins of Japanese comics can be traced back to the anthropomorphic characters in the 12th and 13th century Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga, 17th-century toba-e and kibyōshi picture books and woodblock prints such as ukiyo-e which were popular between the 17th and 20th centuries. The Japanese comics and cartoons are called manga. The kibyōshi genre employed sequential images, movement lines and sound effects. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Western-style satirical cartoons were introduced through illustrated magazines. Then, both the Western and Japanese style comics became very popular. After 1890, American-style newspaper comics began to be rolled out in Japan. The Jiji Manga was launched in the Jiji Shinpo newspaper in 1990. In 1902, Rakuten Kitazawa began the first modern Japanese comic strip. By the 1930s, Japan had serialized comic strips in largely- circulated girls’ and boys’ magazines; these strips were published and sold as hardback volumes.

Fig. 9: The First Modern Japanese Comic Strip by Rakuten Kitazawa

After the second world war, the era of modern Japanese comics began with the success of serialized comics of Osamu Tezuka and the comic strip Sazae-san. In the course of the next few decades, the genres of comics became diverse. The narratives were first published in the newspapers or magazines in the serial format and later on they were collected into tankōbon- format books. At the turn of the 21st century, one-fourth of all the literature produced in Japan are comics. Even their translations of comics became prolific in foreign markets.

Indian Comics

India is a land of multiple languages with millennia of literary history. It also has a long tradition of comic readership and themes relating to religious beliefs and practices. Indian comics, popularly known as Chitrakatha, are part of Indian culture and have been published in English and many Indian languages in the form of comics series and graphic novels. Folk tales have also been presented in the comic format to children for a very long time. Indian comics have always got large publications and the industry reached its zenith in the late ’80s and the early ’90s. At times, each comic was sold over half-a-million copies during its shelf life. However, they sell only about 50, 000 copies in the same period. Once prosperous comic print industry is declining on account of ever-growing television industry which has become a dominant medium in providing comics. Comics industry is also losing out to gaming industry.

In the recent times, comics such as Diamond Comics, Tinkle, Raj Comics and Amar Chitrakatha have got vast distribution networks and thousands of children read them in a wide range of languages. Well-known creators of comics are Uncle Pai, Aabid Surti and Pran Kumar Sharma, and the popular comic characters include Chacha Chaudhury, Bahadur, Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruva, Doga and Detective Moochhwala. Anant Pai, popularly known as “Uncle Pai”, is believed to have launched the India’s comic book industry in the 1960s. He serialized Amar Chitra Katha stories from Indian mythology.

History of Comics in India

The Times of India’s comic series Indrajal Comics marked the beginning of India’s comic industry in the mid-1960s. The industry has evolved later in India than in the Western countries. For a very long time, comics could reach only the children of well-to-do families. However, by the early ’90s the industry had established itself in the market and began to reach everyone in the society.

The evolution of India’s comic industry can be divided into four phases, beginning the 1950s. During the first phase that began in the 1950s, syndicated comic strips such as The Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, and Rip Kirby were translated into Indian languages and published. Their success led to a large number of publishers trying to do the same title in India as well. The second phase began in the late 1960s with the launch of Amar Chitrakatha, which literally means “immortal picture stories”. This comic has entirely Indian content. During this phase that went into the ’70s, the comics with indigenous content, themes and origins countered the western superhero comics in the market.

Meanwhile, the third wave of comics began in the early ’80s with comics composers and publishers trying to cash in on the popularity of superhero genre in the west. But Batul the Great, one of the earliest superheros in India, was created by Narayan Debnath in the 1960s itself. During this time, around 5.5 million copies of comics such as Heroes of Faith were sold in India. Many publishers began to bring about such comics in huge numbers every month. So, we can conclude that this was the golden period for Indian comic industry in the printing arena. However, this trend began to dissipate in the late 1990s in India with the advent of Internet, television, and other modes of entertainment. But not everything was lost. Publishers such as Raj Comics and Diamond Comics, with established comic series Amar Chitrakatha and Suppandi, managed to keep their readership. After a period of lull, new publishing houses such as the Virgin Comic Fenil Comics, and Green Gold have begun to revive the industry in the last few years. However, critics are of the opinion that the Indian comic industry lacks innovation in the face of digital competition.

The last phase began in the early 2000s with webcomics beginning to make inroads into the Indian market. They have been phenomenal success as they reach a wide range of audience “for free”. They play an important role in spreading awareness among the people about such social issues as politics, social reform, feminism, so on and so forth. Their reach has further been enhanced by the spread of social media such as Facebook.

Finally, India is also in the forefront in supporting and sustaining the comics industry. It hosted its first ever comics convention in February, 2011. The popularity of manga and anime in India has inspired the comic artists to come up with Japanese manga-like comic works such as Mythology, a comic book based on Indian mythology. It has been launched in India, Singapore, Malaysia and a host of European countries. According to a 2012 estimate, India’s comic industry was worth over $ 100 million.

Forms and Formats

Comic strips are usually short and brought about in multipanel format. Multipanel formats are mostly used in newspapers. In the US, daily comics are usually printed in a single tier while Sunday comics are in multiple tiers. In the early part of the last century, daily comics were in black and white print and Sunday comics in colour and often occupied the full page.

Formats for specialized comics periodicals differ from culture to culture. Comic books are thin periodicals published in colour. They mostly comprise an American format. European and Japanese comics are often printed in serial format in magazines and newspapers on daily, weekly or monthly basis. Usually, in Japan, there are in black-and-white print and come as weeklies. The comic books here run into hundreds of pages.

European book-length comics are mostly printed in A4-size format in colour. In English- speaking countries, the trade paperback format which is used for collected comic books is also used for original work. And the bound volumes of comics are termed as “graphic novels”. Even though the title has the term ‘novel’, which is usually used to refer to fiction, graphic novels also have non-fiction content and are collections of short works. Japanese comics are published in volumes named tankōbon.

Gags and editorial cartoons have single panels and are often with a caption or speech balloon. However, gags and editorial cartoons are not usually included in the comics genre by those who stress on the sequence as an indispensable feature of a comic. They are put under the combination of word and image. Gag cartoon flourished first in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the term cartoon was first used in 1843 to refer to gags published in the British humour magazine Punch.

The latest genre called webcomics has begun to dominate the humour industry online. They can reach a large number and variety of audiences and they can also be accessed by new readers from the archives, which is not an easy possibility in case of a printed comic. The artists, in case of webcomics, can explore an infinite canvas, which means they are not constrained by size and other dimensions of the page.

Some consider even storyboards and wordless novels to be comics. Film studios, especially those in animation industry, often use a sequence of images as guides for movie sequences. These storyboards are not intended to be the end product and are not often seen by the public. Wordless novels, on the other hand, use a sequence of caption less images to make a narrative.

The Spread of Comics Culture

Comic culture has a great impact on motion picture. However, the motion picture is late in adapting the comics genre or the issues that comics have dealt with. Natalie Haynes in her article titled “Why comic books are more radical than you think” argues that comic books have influenced Hollywood and are decades ahead of it in dealing with issues of race, gender and sexuality. “Many comic book movies are far behind the comics that inspired them,” she observes. For instance, the character called Wonder Woman who will figure in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” to be released in 2016 has been almost continually in print in the comics genre for more than 70 years.

Comics culture has also spread to countries like Bangladesh. The reader base has been expanding in the country. From a situation where it was almost impossible to survive in the ’80s and ’90s the country has moved to a situation where people in the comic industry can make a career for themselves. Earlier, Bangladeshis used to bring comic books from western publishers such as DC, Marvel, Icon, and Vertigo. Now, they have publishers of their own. They are publishing around 10 titles.

The spread is also visible in Nigeria, where a startup Comic Republic based in Lagos is creating a plethora of superheroes for not only African readership but also black readers around the world. The characters include Guardian Prime, a 25-year old Nigerian fashion designer by profession, who strives to build a better Nigeria and Hilda Avonomemi Moses, a remote village woman in Edo state who can see spirits, and Marcus Chigozie, a privileged but angry teenager who can move at supersonic speeds.

Fig.10: African Superhero Characters (Credit: Quartz Africa)

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