The Comic Book History: Influence Of Comics

Chapter 2
Influence of Comics

Today people live in an increasingly visual world, where we are engaged not only by texts but also by images. We are influenced by internet, magazines, advertisement, games, picture books, film, anime, comic books and so many more. Those media are using images to communicate, entertain and gain profit. It has shown an increasing usage proportion of visual or graphi c representation and less text. We are now living in images dominated world. Berger (1972: 10) explained they are important because images or visuals can actually attach to somebody’s consciousness stronger and longer.

2.1. Comic Books History
It is striking that comic book has escalated into one of the popular cultures. They are entering into people’s

Obadiah Oldbuck was the first book to combine pictures and words in Europe at that time, though later it will be translated into English and published in America. The term of comic books were first did not exist but started with comic (means to joke or humor). They were really popular in the newspapers as comic strips. Comics at that time created legendary characters such as Happy Hooligan. In 1896, a book called The Yellow Kid came out. It was the first time where a comic strip was printed into a magazine format and distributed along with the newspapers. The Yellow Kid was one work which helped established the comic books we know these days. It did not stop there, another major step was when comic artists then realized, their works can be further expanded into other genres and not only humors. But comics in that time did not create enough impressions to the audience. Historically speaking, in 1929, one of the first proper comics in Europe was released. It was Hergé’s (George Remi) The Adventures of Tintin (Fig. 3), with the story of Tintin in the Land of Soviets publish in Le Petit Vingtième which told a story about little humors and racism and politics, a theme which later Hergé regretted later (Forbes 2007). But Tintin is one of the most well-known works which established the term of Franco-Belgian comics and foundation of comics identity at that time. Not only that, it was also established a style which known as ‘clear-lines’ style, where it lacks of shadows and its masking effect . Tintin was the first to create deep impressions to audience and later would influence American’s