Keywords
comic books, Oldbuck, cartoons, yellow kid, famous funnies
Abstract
Historians generally agree that American comic books got their start in 1842 with Rodolphe Töpffer’s The Adventures of Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck,1 but pairing images with text is far from a novel idea—it is practically as old as the invention of writing. By the late 1800s, cartoons and caricatures were staples in papers. Satirical editorial cartoons poked at serious issues, and single- panel gag cartoons showed a humorous picture with a caption. Short comic strips like The Yellow Kid featured regularly appearing characters,2 and in 1933, Famous Funnies (a reprinting of popular humorous news comic strips) finally made the jump to publishing outside of a newspaper.3
Recommended Citation
Henricksen, Ella
(2024)
"Superheroes to Regular Joes The Vietnam War Through the Lens of American Comic Books and Cartoons,"
The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing: Vol. 53:
Iss.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thetean/vol53/iss1/8
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