The Timeline of the Comic Medium

1837
‘The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck’ by Rudolphe Rudolph Töpffer was published in Europe and is considered to be the first comic book. It was released in United States in 1942.

1887
‘The Brownies: Their Book’ by Palmer Cox was considered the first internationally successful North-American comic.

1895
‘Yellow kid’ by Richard Felton Outcault is the first comic to use balloon dialogue or speech bubbles. It was also one of the first continuing and consecutive comic strips to be released into newspapers and was released into the New York World. The main character lived in poverty stricken urban environment called Hogan’s Alley.

1897
The ‘Yellow kid’ newspaper comic strips were published into book form by the Heart Syndicate.

1901
‘The Blackberries’ was the first full colour comic book to be released.

1922
‘Comics Monthly’ was the first monthly comic to be released and included popular comic strip characters from King Features.

1929
‘The Funnies’ was the first comic strip to include original comic strips rather than used reprints from newspapers.

1930-1931
‘Mickey Mouse Book’ created by Walt Disney was first released.

1930
‘Tintin in the Land of the Soviets’ was released by Herge who was Belgian.

Early 1930’s
Because of the depression, free comics were released in the United States and were used for advertising.

1933
‘Detective Dan, Secret Op #48” by Norman Marsh was the first comic of it’s type to have original content in it.

‘Funnies on Parade’ was the first comic to use the format that comics use up to this day. By folding a tabloid comic four times, Harry I. Wildenburg discovered a suitable format for a comic book, which he used for the funnies. Comics that followed were ‘Famous Funnies’.

1934
M. C. Guines proposed an idea to his boss Wildenburg to price and sell comic books that were previously free and included with newspapers. Wildenburg did not believe anybody would pay for comics. Guines put 10 cent price stickers on to each comic and gave them to news stands to sell. By the next Monday they had all sold out.

1936
‘The Clock’ was the first masked character ‘The Phantom’ was the first costumed hero.

1937
‘Detective Comics #1’ was the first DC comic to be released.

1938
‘Action Comics #1’ was the first comic to feature Superman who was also the first character to have such powerful super human abilities. The character was created by Siegal and Shuster.

1939
‘Detective comics #27’ included the first appearance of Batman who was created by Bob Kane.

‘Superman #1’ was the first comic book that involved only the main hero’s stories.

‘Marvel comics #1’ was released.

1940
‘Brenda Starr’ was the first comic strip released that was written by a women.

‘Robin the boy wonder’ was the first sidekick and first appeared in ‘Detective Comics #38’.

‘Justice Society of America’ was the first superhero team to be released in a comic.

1941
‘Peanuts’ by Charles Schultz was first released.

‘All Star Comics #8’ included the first appearance of Wonder Women.

“Captain America #1’ was the first comic to be created for a super hero without first being included in another comic book unlike other super heroes.

‘Pep Comics #22’ included the first appearance of Archie. Later the company that created the comics called MTL Magazines changed its name to Archie Comics.

DC Comics formed a committee to defend their comic industry because of the bad name comics were beginning to gain.

1948
Dr. Frederic Wertham expressed his views in a symposium in New York called “The Psychopathology of Comic Books’. Negative reactions from society towards comic books began almost immediately after this.

Comic books were collected from house to house burned in masses on the streets.

The ‘Association of Comic Magazine Publishers’ was formed. They censored aspects of comics by before they were released by changing and editing the images within them.

1949
The Canadian Government enacted a law against crime comics because how they were believed to instigate actual crime.

1950
‘Cincinnati Parents Committee’ started to rate comic books.

The U.S. Senate’s special committee blamed crime comics for real crimes committed by juvenile delinquents.

1952
‘Mad Magazine’ published by William Gaines, started to be released monthly and was a popular satire despite of all the restrictions for comics at the time.

1953
Companies such as Marvel and DC attempted to bring back old super hero comics.

1954
‘Seduction of the Innocent’ was released by Wertham. This was research on the effects of comic books on the youth. This influenced anti comics campaigns that would cause the comics industry to suffer economically. This not only happened in the United States but also 17 other countries.

The ‘Comic Magazine Association of America’ began and also established the ‘Comics Code Authority (CCA).

1955
The U.S. Senate committee approved the CCA so comic book companies could do independent self-policing.

1958
‘Strange Worlds #1’ was the first comic to be created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby who started working for Marvel.

1961
‘Fantastic Four #1’ was released that involved the first group of super heroes that did not always get along, particularly the character Ben Grim.

‘Asterix the Gaul’ was released by Goscinny and Uderzo who were Belgian.

1963
The ‘Amazing Spider-man #1’ was released and created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. The hero was a character that people could relate to because of his real life challenges that all people faced He also seemed to be more of human being than previous super heroes.

‘X-Men #1’ was released and was created by Jack Kirby and Sol Brodsky. It involved a story where humans were racist to the mutants much like the racism that occurs in real society.

1966
‘Fantastic Four #52’ includes the first black main super hero called the ‘Black Panther.

1968
“Zap #1” and “Zap #0” were created by Robert Crumb and sold on the streets of San Fransisco by Crumb himself.

1970
Jack Kirby who was hired by DC comics from Marvel Comics created ‘New Gods’.

1971
The ‘Amazing Spider-Man #96-98’ was not approved by the CCA because it involved drug abuse. The comic was successful despite this. From then on CCA started to reduce its restrictions.

1973
In ‘Amazing Spider-Man #121’ Spider-man’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacey, was murdered by the Green Goblin. An evil villain has never succeeded before in such a manner.

1973-4
Anti-heroes begin to emerge such as the Punisher in ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ and Wolverine in ‘Incredible Hulk #181’. These heroes had distinct flaws and were not as pure hearted as previous heroes, therefore people could relate to them.

1977
‘Cerebrus’ created by Dave Sim, was the first comic from an independent company that was successful.

1979
Frank Miller pencilled ‘Dare Devil’ # 158 and brought a darker style to comics.

1984
‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1’ was released.

1986
Frank Miller created ‘Batman the Dark Knight Returns’.

The owner of Heroes World sold Marvel Comics to the businessman Ron Perelman. He influenced Marvel to use gimmicks to sell more comics such as twists in stories or stories that would cross over to other comic books so the reader would have to buy more. Other companies also followed this trend.

1989
‘Sandman #1’ was released and involves a super natural being in a dream world instead a super hero unlike most of other comic book characters made by DC comics. This was the first of DC’s Vertigo line of comics.

1992
‘Spawn #1’ is the best selling independent comic up to date.


References:

Bellis, M. “The History of Comic Books”. 2008. http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/comics.htm

Coville, J. “The History of Comic Books”. http://www.collectortimes.com/~comichistory/frames.html (accessed 09 2008)

Hastings, W. “Art Spiegelman (1948- )” 2003. http://lupus.northern.edu/hastingw/maus.htm

McAllister, M.P., Sewell, Jr., E. H., & Gordon. “Comics and Ideology”. 2001. http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/m/p/mpm15/C&IChapter1.pdf

Santos, D. “CBW Comic History”. 2008 http://www.dereksantos.com/comicpage/comicpage.html

Tychinski, S. “A Brief History of the Graphic Novel”. 2004. http://www.graphicnovels.brodart.com/history.htm

Walker, B. D. “The American comic book: A cultural history”. 1998. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dissertations/AAI9900405/

Wood, “The History of Crumb”. http://www.crumbproducts.com/history/history4.htm (accessed 11 2008)