A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
Maxwell Charles Gaines was an American publisher and a pioneering figure in the creation of the modern comic book.
Frank Gelett Burgess was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclastic little magazine, The Lark, and association with The Crowd literary group. He is best known as a writer of nonsense verse, such as "The Purple Cow," and for introducing French modern art to the United States in an essay titled "The Wild Men of Paris." He was the illustrator of the Goops murals, in Coppa's restaurant, in the Montgomery Block and author of the popular Goops books. Burgess coined the term "blurb."
An American comic book is a thin periodical originating in the United States, on average 32 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics, which included the debut of the superhero Superman. This was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the comic book industry rapidly expanded and genres such as horror, crime, science fiction and romance became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television and the impact of the Comics Code Authority. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a superhero revival and superheroes remained the dominant character archetype throughout the late 20th century into the 21st century.
Seduction of the Innocent is a book by German-born American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book was taken seriously at the time in the United States, and was a minor bestseller that created alarm in American parents and galvanized them to campaign for censorship. At the same time, a U.S. Congressional inquiry was launched into the comic book industry. Subsequent to the publication of Seduction of the Innocent, the Comics Code Authority was voluntarily established by publishers to self-censor their titles. In the decades since the book's publication, Wertham's research has been disputed by scholars.
Frank W. Bolle was an American comic-strip artist, comic book artist and illustrator, best known as the longtime artist of the newspaper strips Winnie Winkle and The Heart of Juliet Jones; for stints on the comic books Tim Holt and Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom; and as an illustrator for the Boy Scouts of America magazine Boys' Life for 18 years. With an unknown writer, he co-created the masked, Old West comic-book heroine the Black Phantom. Bolle sometimes used the pen name FWB and, at least once, F. L. Blake.
Frank Merriwell is a fictional character appearing in a series of novels and short stories by Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pseudonym Burt L. Standish. The character appeared in over 300 dime novels between 1896 and 1930, numerous radio dramas in 1934 and again from 1946 through 1949, a comic strip from 1928 through 1936, a comic book Frank Merriwell At Yale, and a 12-chapter serialized film in 1936. The book series was relaunched in 1965, but only three books were published.
Wee Pals is an American syndicated comic strip about a diverse group of children, created and produced by Morrie Turner. It was the first comic strip syndicated in the United States to have a cast of diverse ethnicity, dubbed the "Rainbow Gang".
The Eastern Color Printing Company was a company that published comic books, beginning in 1933. At first, it was only newspaper comic strip reprints, but later on, original material was published. Eastern Color Printing was incorporated in 1928, and soon became successful by printing color newspaper sections for several New England and New York papers. Eastern is most notable for its production of Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies, two publications that gave birth to the American comic book industry.
You Can with Beakman and Jax, also known in its Spanish-language version as El Mundo de Beakman, is an American science and education syndicated comic strip by Jok Church, which ran from July 14, 1991 to July 17, 2016. The comic strip, and associated television series, featured facts about science and languages.
The Adventures of Dick Cole was a 1940s comic book series, created by Bob Davis. It was published by Novelty Press, and later, Star Publications. Dick Cole is a heroic cadet at the fictional Farr Military Academy. The character was introduced in the "Origin of Dick Cole," in the first issue of Novelty Press' Blue Bolt Comics.
Dave Strickler is an American reference librarian noted for his compilation of Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924–1995: The Complete Index, regarded as a major reference work by researchers and historians of newspaper comic strips.
The history of comics has followed different paths in different parts of the world. It can be traced back to early precursors such as Trajan's Column, in Rome, Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Bayeux Tapestry.
George Matthew Adams was an American newspaper columnist and founder of the George Matthew Adams Newspaper Service, which syndicated comic strips and columns to newspapers for five decades. His own writings were circulated widely to The Gettysburg Times and many other newspapers.
Cupples & Leon was an American publishing company founded in 1902 by Victor I. Cupples (1864–1941) and Arthur T. Leon (1867–1943). They published juvenile fiction and children's books but are mainly remembered today as the major publisher of books collecting comic strips during the early decades of the 20th century.
The Bell Syndicate, launched in 1916 by editor-publisher John Neville Wheeler, was an American syndicate that distributed columns, fiction, feature articles and comic strips to newspapers for decades. It was located in New York City at 247 West 43rd Street and later at 229 West 43rd Street. It also reprinted comic strips in book form.
The Gelett Burgess Children's Book Award is an annual award presented by the Gelett Burgess Center for Creative Expression. Named for Gelett Burgess, an artist and writer famous for his humorous Goops series (1900-1950), this award recognizes outstanding books that inspire imagination and creativity, and helps support childhood literacy and lifelong reading.
"Little Things" is a 19th-century poem by Julia Abigail Fletcher Carney, written in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Public Ledger Syndicate was a syndication company operated by the Philadelphia Public Ledger that was in business from 1915 to circa 1950. The Ledger Syndicate distributed comic strips, panels, and columns to the United States and the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia. The syndicate also distributed material from the Curtis Publishing Company's other publications, including The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, and The Country Gentleman.
The Complete Little Orphan Annie is a hardcover book series collecting the complete output of the American comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, written and drawn by Harold Gray from the strip's debut in 1924 to Gray's death in 1968. The newspaper comic strip title as a whole was published uninterrupted during 86 years straight (1924–2010) under the Tribune Media Services syndicate. A strip ranked as the most popular comics strip in its heyday according to a Fortune poll. The publisher of this book series is The Library of American Comics, the series' first volume was released in June, 2008.
