Comics

Yellow Kid, created by Richard F. Outcault
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A comic (from the Greek κωμικός, kōmikos "of or pertaining to comedy" from κῶμος, kōmos "revel, komos",^[1] via the Latin cōmicus), denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual (non-verbal) and verbal side in interaction. Although some comics are picture-only, pantomime strips, such as The Little King, the verbal side usually expand upon the pictures, but sometimes act in counterpoint.^[2] The term derives from the mostly humorous early work in the medium, and came to apply to that form of the medium including those far from comic. The sequential nature of the pictures, and the predominance of pictures over words, distinguishes comics from picture books, although some in comics studies disagree and claim that in fact what differentiates comics from other forms on the continuum from word-only narratives, on one hand, to picture-only narratives, on the other, is social context.^[3]

Social context[link]

Comics as a real mass medium started to emerge in the United States in the early 20th century with the newspaper comic strip, where its form began to be standardized (image-driven, speech balloons, etc.), first in Sunday strips and later in daily strips. The combination of words and pictures proved popular and quickly spread throughout the world.

Comic strips were soon gathered into cheap booklets and reprint comic books. Original comic books soon followed. Today, comics are found in newspapers, magazines, comic books, graphic novels and on the web. Historically, the form dealt with humorous subject matter, but its scope has expanded to encompass the full range of literary genres. Also see: Comic strip and cartoon. In some circles, comics are still seen as low art,^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} though there are exceptions, such as Krazy Kat^[10] and Barnaby. However, such an elitist "low art/high art" distinction doesn't exist in the French-speaking world (and, to some extent, continental Europe), where the bandes dessinées medium as a whole is commonly accepted as "the Ninth Art", is usually dedicated a non-negligible space in bookshops and libraries, and is regularly celebrated in international events such as the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Such distinctions also do not exist in the Japanese manga, the world's largest comics culture. Critical discussions of the form appeared as early as the 1920s,^[10][11] but serious studies were rare until the late 20th century.^[12]

Though practitioners may eschew formal traditions, they often use particular forms and conventions to convey narration and speech, or to evoke emotional or sensuous responses. Devices such as speech balloons and boxes are used to indicate dialogue and impart establishing information, while panels, layout, gutters and zip ribbons can help indicate the flow of the story. Comics use of text, ambiguity, symbolism, design, iconography, literary technique, mixed media and stylistic elements of art help build a subtext of meanings. Though comics are non-linear structures and can be hard to read sometimes, it is simply presented. However, it depends of the reader's "frame of mind" to read and understand the comic.^[13] Different conventions were developed around the globe, from the manga of Japan to the manhua of China and the manhwa of Korea, the comic books of the United States, and the larger hardcover albums in Europe.

History[link]

Comics as an art form established itself in the late 19th and early 20th century, alongside the similar forms of film and animation. The three forms share certain conventions, most noticeably the mixing of words and pictures, and all three owe parts of their conventions to the technological leaps made through the industrial revolution. Though newspapers and magazines first established and popularized comics in the late 1890s, narrative illustration has existed for many centuries.

Early narratives in art[link]

Sequential depictions on Trajan's Column

In Lucas Cranach the Elder's "Adam and Eve" different scenes of the Biblical story are shown in the same painting: on the front, God is admonishing the couple for their sin; in the background to the right are shown the earlier scenes of Eve's creation from Adam's rib and of their being tempted to eat the forbidden fruit; on the left is the later scene of their expulsion from Paradise.

Early precursors of comic as they are known today include Trajan's Column and the work of William Hogarth. Rome's Trajan's Column, dedicated in 113 AD, is an early surviving example of a narrative told through sequential pictures, while Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek friezes, medieval tapestries such as the Bayeux Tapestry and illustrated manuscripts also combine sequential images and words to tell a story. Versions of the Bible relying primarily on images rather than text were widely distributed in Europe in order to bring the teachings of Christianity to the illiterate. In medieval paintings, many sequential scenes of the same story (usually a Biblical one) appear simultaneously in the same painting (see illustration to right).

However, these works did not travel to the reader; it took the invention of modern printing techniques to bring the form to a wide audience and become a mass medium.^[14][15][16]

The 15th–18th centuries and printing advances[link]

Last image in William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress

The invention of the printing press, allowing movable type, established a separation between images and words, the two requiring different methods in order to be reproduced. Early printed material concentrated on religious subjects, but through the 17th and 18th centuries they began to tackle aspects of political and social life, and also started to satirize and caricature. It was also during this period that the speech bubble was developed as a means of attributing dialogue.

William Hogarth is often identified in histories of the comics form. His work, A Rake's Progress, was composed of a number of canvases, each reproduced as a print, and the eight prints together created a narrative. As printing techniques developed, due to the technological advances of the industrial revolution, magazines and newspapers were established. These publications utilized illustrations as a means of commenting on political and social issues, such illustrations becoming known as cartoons in the 1840s. Soon, artists were experimenting with establishing a sequence of images to create a narrative.

French Liberty. British Slavery, James Gillray's 1792 caricature poking fun at the French Revolution, anticipates the modern comic strip in having both separate panels and charactes speaking via speech balloons.

While surviving works of these periods such as Francis Barlow's A True Narrative of the Horrid Hellish Popish Plot (c.1682) as well as The Punishments of Lemuel Gulliver and A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth (1726), can be seen to establish a narrative over a number of images, it wasn't until the 19th century that the elements of such works began to crystallise into the comic strip.

The speech balloon also evolved during this period, from the medieval origins of the phylacter, a label, usually in the form of a scroll, which identified a character either through naming them or using a short text to explain their purpose. Artists such as George Cruikshank helped codify such phylacters as balloons rather than scrolls, though at this time they were still called labels. They now represented narative, but for identification purposes rather than dialogue within the work, and artists soon discarded them in favour of running dialogue underneath the panels. Speech balloons weren't reintroduced to the form until Richard F. Outcault used them for dialogue.^[17]

The 19th century: a form established[link]

A page by Rodolphe Töpffer, whose work is considered influential in shaping the comics form.

Rodolphe Töpffer, a Francophone Swiss artist, is seen as the key figure of the early part of the 19th century. Though speech balloons fell from favour during the middle 19th century, Töpffer's sequentially illustrated stories, with text compartmentalized below images, were reprinted throughout Europe and the United States. The lack of copyright laws at the time allowed these pirated editions, and translated versions created a market on both continents for similar works.^[18]

In 1843, Töpffer formalised his thoughts on the picture story in his Essay on Physiognomics: "To construct a picture-story does not mean you must set yourself up as a master craftsman, to draw out every potential from your material—often down to the dregs! It does not mean you just devise caricatures with a pencil naturally frivolous. Nor is it simply to dramatize a proverb or illustrate a pun. You must actually invent some kind of play, where the parts are arranged by plan and form a satisfactory whole. You do not merely pen a joke or put a refrain in couplets. You make a book: good or bad, sober or silly, crazy or sound in sense."^[19][20][21]

In 1845, the satirical drawings, which regularly appeared in newspapers and magazines, gained a name: cartoons. (In art, a cartoon is a pencil or charcol sketch to be overpainted.) The British magazine Punch, launched in 1841, referred to its 'humorous pencilings' as cartoons in a satirical reference to the Parliament of the day, who were themselves organising an exhibition of cartoons, or preparatory drawings, at the time. This usage became common parlance, lasting to the present day.^[22] Similar magazines containing cartoons in continental Europe included Fliegende Blätter and Le Charivari, while in the U.S. Judge and Puck were popular.^[23]

1865 saw the publication of Max and Moritz by Wilhelm Busch by a German newspaper. Busch refined the conventions of sequential art, and his work was a key influence within the form, Rudolph Dirks was inspired by the strip to create The Katzenjammer Kids in 1897.^[24]

It is around this time that Manhua, the Chinese form of comics, started to formalize, a process that lasted up until 1927.^[25] The introduction of lithographic printing methods derived from the West was a critical step in expanding the form within China during the early 20th century. Like Europe and the United States, satirical drawings were appearing in newspapers and periodicals, initially based on works from those countries. One of the first magazines of satirical cartoons was based on the United Kingdom's Punch, snappily re-branded as "The China Punch".^[25] The first piece drawn by a person of Chinese nationality was "The Situation in the Far East" from Tse Tsan-Tai, printed 1899 in Japan. By the 1920s, a market was established for palm-sized picture books like Lianhuanhua.^[26]

In 1884, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday was published, a magazine whose selling point was a strip featuring the titular character, and widely regarded as the first comic strip magazine to feature a recurring character. In 1890, two more comic magazines debuted to the British public, Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips, establishing the tradition of the British comic as an anthology periodical containing comic strips.^[16]

In the United States, R.F. Outcault's work in combining speech balloons and images on Hogan's Alley and The Yellow Kid has been credited as establishing the form and conventions of the comic strip,^[27] though academics have uncovered earlier works that combine speech bubbles and a multi image narrative. However, the popularity of Outcalt's work and the position of the strip in a newspaper retains credit as a driving force of the form.^[28][29]

The 20th century and the mass medium[link]

Little Sammy Sneeze (1904–06) by Winsor McCay

The 1920s and 1930s saw further booms within the industry. In China, a market was established for palm-sized picture books like Lianhuanhua,^[26] while the market for comic anthologies in Britain had turned to targeting children through juvenile humor, with The Dandy and The Beano launched. In Belgium, Hergé created the Tintin newspaper strip for a comic supplement; this was successfully collected in a bound album and created a market for further such works. The same period in the United States had seen newspaper strips expand their subject matter beyond humour, with action, adventure and mystery strips launched. The collection of such material also began, with The Funnies, a reprint collection of newspaper strips, published in tabloid size in 1929.

A market for such comic books soon followed, and by 1938 publishers were printing original material in the format. It was at this point that Action Comics#1 launched, with Superman as the cover feature. The popularity of the character swiftly enshrined the superhero as the defining genre of American comics. The genre lost popularity in the 1950s but re-established its domination of the form from the 1960s until the late 20th century.

In Japan, a country with a long tradition for illustration and whose writing system evolved from pictures, comics were hugely popular. Referred to as manga, the Japanese form was established after World War II by Osamu Tezuka, who expanded the page count of a work to number in the hundreds, and who developed a filmic style, heavily influenced by the Disney animations of the time. The Japanese market expanded its range to cover works in many genres, from juvenile fantasy through romance to adult fantasies. Japanese manga is typically published in large anthologies, containing several hundred pages, and the stories told have long been used as sources for adaptation into animated film. In Japan, such films are referred to as anime, and many creators work in both forms simultaneously, leading to an intrinsic linking of the two forms.

During the latter half of the 20th century comics have become a very popular item for collectors and from the 1970s American comics publishers have actively encouraged collecting and shifted a large portion of comics publishing and production to appeal directly to the collector's community.

Alan Moore, whose works have done much to popularise the medium.

Writing in 1972, Sir Ernst Gombrich felt Töpffer had evolved a new pictorial language, that of an abbreviated art style, which allowed the audience to fill in gaps with their imagination.^[30]

The modern double use of the term comic, as an adjective describing a genre, and a noun designating an entire medium, has been criticised as confusing and misleading. In the 1960s and 1970s, underground cartoonists used the spelling comix to distinguish their work from mainstream newspaper strips and juvenile comic books. Their work was written for an adult audience but was usually comedic, so the "comic" label was still appropriate.^[31] The term graphic novel was popularized in the late 1970s, having been coined at least two decades previous, to distance the material from this confusion.^[32]

In the 1980s, comics scholarship started to blossom in the U.S.,^[33] and a resurgence in the popularity of comics was seen, with Alan Moore and Frank Miller producing notable superhero works and Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes being syndicated.

In 2005, Robert Crumb's work was exhibited in galleries both sides of the Atlantic, and The Guardian newspaper devoted its tabloid supplement to a week long exploration of his work and idioms.^[34]

Comics have been a popular source for film and television adaptations. For a list of film adaptations, see List of films based on comics.

Forms[link]

Donald Duck cartoonist Carl Barks signing autographs in 1994.

Comics have been presented within a wide number of publishing and typographical formats, from the very short panel cartoon to the more lengthy graphic novel. The cartoon, traditionally containing satirical or humorous content in the manner of those seen in The New Yorker or Private Eye, originate from the mid nineteenth century. This form of comics is still popular, though the last few years has seen a reduction in the number of editorial cartoonists employed in the US media.^[35] There is dispute as to whether the cartoon is a form of comics, a precursor, or a related form—but some argue that since the cartoon combines words with image and constructs a narrative, it is a form of comic.

The comic strip is simply a sequence of cartoons that unite to tell a story. Originally, the term comic strip applied to any sequence of cartoons, no matter the venue of publication or length of the sequence, but now, mainly in the United States, the term refers to the strips published in newspapers as Sunday or daily strips. These strips are now typically humorous or satirical strips, such as Hägar the Horrible and Doonesbury, but have often been action themed, educational or even biographical. In the United States the term "comics" is sometimes used to describe the page of a newspaper upon which comic strips are found, with the term "comic" quickly adopting through popular usage to refer to the form rather than the content.^[36][37] Said pages are also referred to as the "funny pages", and comics are hence sometimes called "the funnies".^[38] In the United Kingdom, the term comic strip still applies to longer stories that appear in comics, such as 2000 AD or The Beano.

Publication formats[link]

George Herriman's Krazy Kat (January 6, 1918)

Over time, a number of formats, from the comic book to the webcomic, have become closely associated with the form. The American comic book originated in the early part of the 20th century and grew from magazines that repackaged newspaper comic strips. Eventually, publishers commissioned original work, and the material developed from its humorous origins to encompass adventure stories, romance, war and superheroes, with the latter genre dominating comic book publishing by the late 20th century. Though called comic books, these publications are more like magazines, having soft covers printed on glossy paper, with interiors of newsprint or higher grade paper. In Europe, magazines were always a venue for original material in the form, and such comic magazines or comic books soon grew into anthologies that serialized a number of stories. In continental Europe a market soon established itself to support collections of these strips. All of these publications are generally referred to as "comics" for short, with typical American and British comic books or magazines running 32 pages, including advertisements and letter column. (These are sometimes known as 36-page books, counting the covers.) European comic magazines have wildly varying page numbers, currently ranging mostly between 52 and 120 pages, while European comic albums traditionally had between 32 and 62 pages.

Graphic novels on display for sale in a specialist shop.

In the United States, when a publisher collects previously serialized stories, such a collection is commonly referred to as either a trade paperback or as a graphic novel. These are books, typically squarebound and published with a card cover, containing no advertisements. They generally collect a single story, which has been broken into a number of chapters previously serialized in comic books, with the issues collectively known as a story arc. Such trade paperbacks can contain anywhere from four issues (for example, there is Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross) to as many as twenty (The Death of Superman). In continental Europe, especially Belgium and France, such collections are usually somewhat larger in size and published with a hardback cover, a format established by the Tintin' series in the 1930s. These are referred to as comic albums,^[39] a term that in the United States refers to anthology books. The United Kingdom has no great tradition of such collections, though during the 1980s Titan publishing launched a line collecting stories previously published in 2000 AD.

The graphic novel format is similar to typical book publishing, with works being published in both hardback and paperback editions. The term has proved a difficult one to fully define, and refers not only to fiction but also factual works, and is also used to describe collections of previously serialised works as well as original material. Some publishers distinguish between such material, using the term "original graphic novel" for work commissioned especially for the form.

Newspaper strips also get collected, both in Europe and in the United States. In the US, the selection of strips to be reprinted in books has often been somewhat haphazard, but there have been several recent efforts to produce complete collections of the more popular newspaper strips.

In the UK, it is traditional for the children's comics market to release comic annuals, which are hardback books containing strips, as well as text stories and puzzles and games.^[40][41][42] In the United States, the comic annual was a summer publication, typically an extended comic book, with storylines often linked across a publisher's line of comics.

In Japan, comics are usually first serialized in manga magazines and latter compiled in tankōbon format. In South Africa, Supa Strikas, a weekly comic book reaching more than a million readers worldwide, uses advertising embedded in each frame of the comic strip to generate revenue, rather than charging its readers.

Webcomics, also known as online comics, are comics that are available on the Internet. Many webcomics are exclusively published online, while some are published in print but maintain a web archive for either commercial or artistic reasons. With the Internet's easy access to an audience, webcomics run the gamut from traditional comic strips to graphic novels and beyond.

Webcomics are similar to self-published print comics in that almost anyone can create their own webcomic and publish it on the Web. Currently, there are thousands of webcomics available online, with some achieving popular, critical, or commercial success. The Perry Bible Fellowship is syndicated in print, while Brian Fies' Mom's Cancer won the inaugural Eisner Award for digital comics in 2005 and was subsequently collected and published in hardback.

The comics form can also be utilized to convey information in mixed media. For example, strips designed for educative or informative purposes, notably the instructions upon an airplane's safety card. These strips are generally referred to as instructional comics. The comics form is also utilized in the film and animation industry, through storyboarding. Storyboards are illustrations displayed in sequence for the purpose of visualizing an animated or live-action film. A storyboard is essentially a large comic of the film or some section of the film produced beforehand to help the directors and cinematographers visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. Often storyboards include arrows or instructions that indicate movement.

Like many other media, comics can also be self-published. One typical format for self-publishers and aspiring professionals is the minicomic, typically small, often photocopied and stapled or with a handmade binding. These are a common inexpensive way for those who want to make their own comics on a very small budget, with mostly informal means of distribution. A number of cartoonists have started this way and gone on to more traditional types of publishing, while other more established artists continue to produce minicomics on the side. In Japan self-published comics, know as dōjinshi, have their own very popular comic convention, the Comiket, that has an attendance of more than half million people.

Artistic medium[link]

Defining comics[link]

Scholars disagree on the definition of comics; some claim its printed format is crucial, some emphasize the interdependence of image and text, and others its sequential nature. The term as a reference to the medium has also been disputed.

Will Eisner, who established the term sequential art and is considered to have popularized the graphic novel.

In 1996, Will Eisner published Graphic Storytelling, in which he defined comics as "the printed arrangement of art and balloons in sequence, particularly in comic books."^[43] Eisner's earlier, more influential definition from Comics and Sequential Art (1985) described the technique and structure of comics as sequential art, "the arrangement of pictures or images and words to narrate a story or dramatize an idea."^[44]

In Understanding Comics (1993) Scott McCloud defined sequential art and comics as "juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer."^[45] this definition excludes single-panel illustrations such as The Far Side, The Family Circus and most political cartoons from the category, classifying those as cartoons. By contrast, The Comics Journal's "100 Best Comics of the 20th Century",^[46] included the works of several single-panel cartoonists and a caricaturist, and academic study of comics has included political cartoons.^[47]

R. C. Harvey, in his essay Comedy at the Juncture of Word and Image, offered a competing definition in reference to McCloud's: "... comics consist of pictorial narratives or expositions in which words (often lettered into the picture area within speech balloons) usually contribute to the meaning of the pictures and vice versa."^[48] This, however, ignores the existence of pantomime comics, such as Carl Anderson's Henry.^[49]

Most agree that animation, which creates the optical illusion of movement within a static physical frame, is a separate form, though ImageTexT, a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on comics, accepts submissions relating to animation as well,^[50] and the third annual Conference on Comics at the University of Florida focused on comics and animation.^[51]

Art styles[link]

Scott McCloud, whose work Understanding Comics identified the different styles of art used within comics.

While almost all comics art is in some sense abbreviated, and also while every artist who has produced comics work brings their own individual approach to bear, some broader art styles have been identified. Comic strip artists Cliff Sterrett, Frank King and Gus Arriola often used unusual, colorful backgrounds, sometimes veering into abstract art.

The basic styles have been identified as realistic and cartoony, with a huge middle ground for which R. Fiore has coined the phrase liberal. Fiore has also expressed distaste with the terms realistic and cartoony, preferring the terms literal and freestyle, respectively.^[52]

Scott McCloud has created The Big Triangle^[53] as a tool for thinking about comics art. He places the realistic representation in the bottom left corner, with iconic representation, or cartoony art, in the bottom right, and a third identifier, abstraction of image, at the apex of the triangle. This allows placement and grouping of artists by triangulation.

• The cartoony style uses comic effects and a variation of line widths for expression. Characters tend to have rounded, simplified anatomy. Noted exponents of this style are Carl Barks and Jeff Smith.^[52]
• The realistic style, also referred to as the adventure style is the one developed for use within the adventure strips of the 1930s. They required a less cartoony look, focusing more on realistic anatomy and shapes, and used the illustrations found in pulp magazines as a basis.^[54] This style became the basis of the superhero comic book style, since Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel originally worked Superman up for publication as an adventure strip.^[55]

McCloud also notes that in several traditions, there is a tendency to have the main characters drawn rather simplistic and cartoony, while the backgrounds and environment are depicted realistically. Thus, he argues, the reader easily identifies with the characters, (as they are similar to one's idea of self), whilst being immersed into a world, that's three-dimensional and textured.^[53] Good examples of this phenomenon include Herge's The Adventures of Tintin (in his "personal trademark" Ligne claire style), Will Eisner's Spirit and Osamu Tezuka's Buddha, among many others.

Language[link]

As noted above, two distinct definitions have been used to define comics as an art form: the combination of both word and image; and the placement of images in sequential order. Both definitions are lacking, in that the first excludes any sequence of wordless images; and the second excludes single panel cartoons such as editorial cartoons. The purpose of comics is certainly that of narration, and so that must be an important factor in defining the art form.

Comics, as sequential art, emphasise the pictorial representation of a narrative. This means comics are not an illustrated version of standard literature, and while some critics argue that they are a hybrid form of art and literature, others contend comics are a new and separate art; an integrated whole, of words and images both, where the pictures do not just depict the story, but are part of the telling. In comics, creators transmit expression through arrangement and juxtaposition of either pictures alone, or word(s) and picture(s), to build a narrative.

The narration of a comic is set out through the layout of the images, and while, as in films, there may be many people who work on one work, one vision of the narrative guides the work. Artists can use the layout of images on a page to convey passage of time, build suspense or highlight action.^[56]

For a fuller exploration of the language, see Comics vocabulary.

Comic creation[link]

Comics artists usually sketch a drawing in pencil before going over the drawing in India ink, using either a dip pen or a brush. Artists may also use a lightbox to create the final image in ink. Some artists, Brian Bolland for example,^[57] use computer graphics, with the published work as the first physical appearance of the artwork. By many definitions (including McCloud's, above) the definition of comics extends to digital media such as webcomics and the mobile comic.

The nature of the comics work being created determines the number of people who work on its creation, with successful comic strips and comic books being produced through a studio system, in which an artist assembles a team of assistants to help create the work. However, works from independent companies, self-publishers or those of a more personal nature can be produced by a single creator.

Within the comic book industry of the United States, the studio system has come to be the main method of creation. Through its use by the industry, the roles have become heavily codified, and the managing of the studio has become the company's responsibility, with an editor discharging the management duties. The editor assembles a number of creators and oversees the work to publication.

Any number of people can assist in the creation of a comic book in this way, from a plotter, a breakdown artist, a penciller, an inker, a scripter, a letterer and a colorist, with some roles being performed by the same person.

In contrast, a comic strip tends to be the work of a sole creator, usually termed a cartoonist. However, it is not unusual for a cartoonist to employ the studio method, particularly when a strip become successful. Mort Walker employed a studio, while Bill Watterson eschewed the studio method, preferring to create the strip himself. Gag, political and editorial cartoonists tend to work alone as well, though a cartoonist may use assistants.

Tools[link]

Artists use a variety of pencils, paper, typically Bristol board and a waterproof ink. When inking, many artists preferred to use a Winsor & Newton Series 7, #3 brush as the main tool, which could be used in conjunction with other brushes, dip pens, a fountain pen and/or a variety of technical pens or markers. Mechanical tints can be employed to add grey tone to an image. An artist might paint with acrylics, gouache, poster paints or watercolors. Color can also be achieved through crayons, pastels or colored pencils.

Eraser, rulers, templates, set squares and a T-square assist in creating lines and shapes. A drawing table provides an angled work surface with lamps sometimes attached to the table. A light box allows an artist to trace his pencil work when inking, allowing for a looser finish. Knives and scalpels fill a variety of needs, including cutting board or scraping off mistakes. A cutting mat aids paper trimming. Process white is a thick opaque white material for covering mistakes. Adhesives and tapes help composite an image from different sources.

Computer-generated comics[link]

Computers dramatically changed the industry, and today many cartoonists and illustrators create digital illustrations using computers, graphics tablets and scanners. Digital art has replaced traditional pen-and-ink drawings on an increasing number of comic books and strips. Historically, the first fully computer-generated comics were Shatter by Peter B. Gillis and Mike Saenz in 1985, and Batman: Digital Justice by Pepe Moreno in 1990. Writer Sharon Bowers collaborated with artist Adrian Sinnott on Hunny Bunny’s Short Tale, brief bedtime stories for kids; syndicated by King Features in the mid to late-1990s, the feature was one of the first panel cartoons delivered electronically.

Some illustrators do a pencil sketch, scan it and then use different software programs to execute the finished art, enlarging sections of the drawing for detailed close work. To create comic book covers, Jim McDermott transfers his drawings to his computer and then develops digital paintings simulating the appearance of acrylic or oil paintings. Dave McKean also has combined both traditional and digital methods. Lackadaisy creator Tracy Butler explained her method:

When doing linework, my preference is to go about it the old-fashioned way with a simple mechanical pencil and some sturdy paper. Once a page is fully pencilled, I scan it and begin working digitally on the cleanup, lighting and toning. For this, I generally rely on Adobe Photoshop, a trusty tablet and pen, and a lot of coffee.^[58][59]

In 1998, Pete Nash displayed fully digitized artwork on his Striker comic strip for The Sun.^[60] Computers are now widely used for both coloring and lettering, forcing some comic book letterers to look elsewhere for work. Snuffy Smith cartoonist Fred Lasswell, a prolific inventor and early adopter of new technology, was one of the first cartoonists to email comic strips to King Features Syndicate, and he also pioneered the use of computer-generated lettering.

On the comic strip Blondie, computer technology makes it possible for the writer Dean Young, the cartoonist John Marshall and the art assistant Frank Cummings to collaborate even though they live in three different states. Marshall's studio is in Binghamton, New York and Cummings lives in Birmingham, Alabama, while Young alternates between Vermont and Florida. To capture the finely polished inking details seen in Blondie, Marshall works on a Wacom tablet linked to his Macintosh. First he draws a rough, sent to Young for review, and then it's back to the computer for the finished art, delivered electronically to King Features.^[61] Artist Sophy Khon from Up Up Down Down uses Manga Studio, which is just one of a number of software packages specifically aimed at creating web comics in a fast and easy manner. The software Movie2Comics alters film clips into comics, as the creators explain:

As a type of artwork, comics is prevalent and popular around the world. However, despite the availability of assistive software and tools, the creation of comics is still a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. This paper proposes a scheme that is able to automatically turn a movie clip to comics. Two principles are followed in the scheme: (1) optimizing the information preservation of the movie; and (2) generating outputs following the rules and the styles of comics. The scheme mainly contains three components: script-face mapping, descriptive picture extraction and cartoonization. The script-face mapping utilizes face tracking and recognition techniques to accomplish the mapping between characters faces and their scripts. The descriptive picture extraction then generates a sequence of frames for presentation. Finally, the cartoonization is accomplished via three steps: panel scaling, stylization, and comics layout design. Experiments are conducted on a set of movie clips and the results have demonstrated the usefulness and the effectiveness of the scheme.^[62]

In higher education[link]

A growing number of universities around the world are recognizing the academic legitimacy of comics studies, leading to a greater amount of comics courses being offered at the college level.^[63]

See also[link]

	Comics portal
	Arts portal
	Visual arts portal

• Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
• Comics vocabulary
• List of newspaper comic strips
• Non-fiction comics

Footnotes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Fiore. R (2005). "Adventures in Nomenclature: Literal, Liberal and Freestyle". The Comics Journal Message Board. http://www.tcj.com/messboard/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003611.html. Retrieved June 14, 2005. ^{[dead link]}
• Kunzle, David (1973). The Early Comic Strip; Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c.1450 to 1825. University of California Press. 
• McCloud, Scott (1993). Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Kitchen Sink Press. ISBN 0-87816-243-7. 
• Perry, George; Aldridge, Alan (1989 reprint with introduction). The Penguin Book Of Comics. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-002802-1. 
• Sabin, Roger (1993). Adult Comics: An Introduction. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04419-7. 
• Santos, Derek (1998) "Comic History". The Comic Page. http://www.dereksantos.com/comicpage/index.html. Retrieved June 26, 2005. 
• Varnum, Robin & Gibbons, Christina T. editors (2001). The Language of Comics: Word and Image. University Press Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-414-7. 
• Williams, Jeff. "Comics: A tool of subversion?" Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 2(6) (1994) 129-146

Further reading[link]

• David Carrier, The Aesthetics of Comics, Penn State Press, 2002 ISBN 0-271-02188-8
• Will Eisner Comics and Sequential Art Poorhouse Press 1985 ISBN 0-9614728-0-4
• Will Eisner Graphic Storytelling Poorhouse Press 1995 ISBN 0-9614728-3-9
• Gary Groth & R. Fiore The New Comics Berkley Books 1988 ISBN 0-425-11366-3
• Maurice Horn ed. The World Encyclopedia of Comics Avon 1977 ISBN 0-87754-323-2
• Scott McCloud Understanding Comics - the Invisible Art HarperCollins 1994 ISBN 0-613-02782-5
• Robert S. Petersen Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels - A History of Graphic Narrative Praeger 2010 ISBN 0-313-36330-7
• Roger Sabin Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: a History of Comic Art Phaidon 1996 ISBN 0-7148-3993-0
• Coulton Waugh The Comics, Macmillan, 1947 ISBN 0-87805-499-5
• Richard O'Brien The Golden Age of Comics, Ballantine Books, 1977. ISBN 0-345-25535-6

External links[link]

Find more about Comics on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• Comics at the Open Directory Project
• Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
• Michigan State University Comic Art Collection
• Comic Art Collection at the University of Missouri
• Comic Book Database
• Grand Comics Database
• Inducks - The Disney comics database
• Comics Archives and Editorial Cartoons
• Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco
• Time Archives' Collection of Comics
• GetSlabbed Collector Guide: Information on collecting comics
• Historieta y Animación
• "Comics in the National Art Library". Prints & Books. Victoria and Albert Museum. http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/prints_books/features/comics/index.html. Retrieved 2011-03-15. 
• Daily Comic Strips Indexer

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Mitchell Lee "Mitch" Hedberg (February 24, 1968 – March 29, 2005)^[2] was an American stand-up comedian known for his surreal humor and unconventional comedic delivery. His comedy typically featured short, sometimes one-line jokes,^[3] mixed with absurd elements and non sequiturs.^[4]

Hedberg's comedy and on-stage persona gained him a cult following,^[5] with audience members sometimes shouting out the punchlines to his jokes before he could finish them.^[6]

Early life[link]

Mitch Hedberg was born February 24, 1968, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Arne and Mary Hedberg.^[7] He graduated from Harding High School in Saint Paul.

Career[link]

Hedberg began his stand-up career in Florida, and after a period of honing his skills moved to Seattle and began to tour. He soon appeared on MTV's Comikaze, followed by a 1996 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman which brought him his big break. He won the 1997 grand prize at the Seattle Comedy Competition. The following year he appeared in one episode of Fox's series That 70's Show.

In 1999 he completed his own independent feature film Los Enchiladas!, in which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred. He recorded three comedy CDs entitled Strategic Grill Locations, Mitch All Together, and Do You Believe in Gosh?, which was released posthumously. He also appeared at the Montreal Just For Laughs comedy festival in 1998 and 2001. According to Hedberg there had been talk of creating a TV series around him, but plans never came to be.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

Hedberg was married to Canadian comedian Lynn Shawcroft from 1999 until his death in 2005.^[8][2]

Hedberg was known to be a drug user, referring to it in some of his jokes ("I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.") He was arrested in Austin, Texas in May 2003 for possession of heroin.^[1]

Death[link]

On March 30, 2005, Hedberg was found dead in a hotel room in Livingston, New Jersey.^[9] Hedberg was born with a heart defect for which he received extensive treatment as a child.^[1][10] It was initially speculated that this condition may have played a part in his death. The New Jersey medical examiner's office reported "multiple drug toxicity" in the form of cocaine and heroin as the official cause of death.^[1]

His death was formally announced on April 1, 2005, leading many to believe it was an April Fool's joke, only to find out later that it was not. His funeral was held at St. Ambrose of Woodbury Church in Minnesota,^[11] and his remains were cremated. Details of where his remains are scattered are known only by his family.

Hedberg was interviewed by Jonathan Davis in the December 2001 issue of Penthouse. In the interview, published three years before his death, he was asked "If you could choose, how would you end your life?" His response was "First, I'd want to get famous, and then I'd overdose. If I overdosed at this stage in my career, I would be lucky if it made the back pages."

Style[link]

Hedberg's stand-up comedy was distinguished by the unique manner of speech that he adopted later in his career, his abrupt delivery, and his unusual stage presence. His material depended heavily upon word play, non sequiturs, paraprosdokians, and object observations. His act usually consisted equally of compact one- or two-liners resembling those of Steven Wright, in addition to longer routines, often with each line as a punchline. Many of his jokes were inspired from everyday thoughts or situations.

Because he suffered from stage fright, Hedberg often performed wearing sunglasses, with his head down, with his hair in his face or with his eyes closed in order to avoid eye contact with the audience. He would often stand upstage or perform with his back to the audience. He would also constantly move in one spot and, when holding the microphone during some bits, his nervousness would cause him to shake it uncontrollably.^[12]

Hedberg occasionally added disclaimers to the end of a joke to let the audience know that he shared their judgment of it, most notably acknowledging when jokes were poorly delivered or received with a resigned "all right." He also toyed with audiences that failed to respond in the way he had intended them to, occasionally quipping, "That joke's better than you acted." During recordings for CDs, he would often say that he would find a way to edit a failed gag to make it seem well received, for example by "adding laughter" to a failed joke containing arithmetic. Following such a failure on Strategic Grill Locations, Hedberg suggested, "All right ... that joke is going to be good because I'm going to take all the words out and add new words. That joke will be fixed."^[13]

Comedy Central Records announced the release of the first album of new Mitch Hedberg material on June 10, 2008. The album titled Do You Believe in Gosh? was released September 9, 2008 and contains material recorded at The Improv in Ontario, California in January 2005. Hedberg's wife Lynn wrote the introduction, in which she stated that the performance was in preparation for an end of the year CD recording.^[14]

Discography[link]

• Strategic Grill Locations (1999) (Originally self-published, later re-released on the Comedy Central label, edited)
• Mitch All Together (November 18, 2003)
• Do You Believe in Gosh? (September 9, 2008)^[15]

Filmography[link]

TV appearances[link]

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (May 2012)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mitch Hedberg

• Official website
• Mitch Hedberg tribute group on DeviantArt
• Mitch Hedberg at the Internet Movie Database
• Mitch Hedberg at Find a Grave
• Mitch Hedberg joke collection

Mr. Bean is a British comedy television programme series of 14 half-hour episodes written by and starring Rowan Atkinson as the title character. Different episodes were also written by Robin Driscoll, Richard Curtis and one by Ben Elton. The pilot episode was broadcast on ITV on 1 January 1990, with the last television episode, "Goodnight Mr. Bean" broadcast on 31 October 1995.^[2] The final episode, "Hair by Mr. Bean of London", was a video exclusive released on 15 November 1995, but not broadcast in the UK until 2006.

Based on a character originally developed by Atkinson while he was studying for his master's degree at Oxford University, the series follows the exploits of Mr. Bean, described by Atkinson as "a child in a grown man's body", in solving various problems presented by everyday tasks and often causing disruption in the process.^[3] Bean rarely speaks, and the largely physical humour of the series is derived from his interactions with other people and his unusual solutions to situations. The series was influenced by physical performers such as Jacques Tati and comic actors from silent films.^[3]

During its five-year run, the series gained large UK audience figures, including 18.74 million for the 1991 episode "The Trouble With Mr. Bean".^[4] The series has been the recipient of a number of international awards, including the Rose d'Or. The show has been sold in 245 territories worldwide, and has inspired an animated cartoon spin-off and two feature films.^[5]

Origins and influences[link]

The character of Mr. Bean was developed while Atkinson was studying for his master's degree at Oxford University. A sketch featuring the character was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe in the early 1980s.^[6] A similar character called Robert Box, played by Atkinson, appeared in the one-off 1979 ITV sitcom Canned Laughter, which also featured routines used in the 1997 film Bean.^[7] In 1987, one of Mr. Bean's earliest appearances occurred at the "Just For Laughs" comedy festival in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. When programme co-ordinators were scheduling Atkinson into the festival program, Atkinson insisted that he perform on the French-speaking bill rather than the English-speaking program. Having no French dialogue in his act at all, program co-ordinators could not understand why Atkinson wanted to perform on the French bill. As it turned out, Atkinson's act at the festival was a test platform for the Mr. Bean character and Atkinson wanted to see how the silent character's physical comedy would fare on an international stage with a non-English speaking audience.^[8]

The name of the character was not decided until after the first programme had been produced, with a number of other vegetable-influenced names, such as "Mr. Cauliflower", being explored.^[9] Atkinson cited the earlier comedy character Monsieur Hulot, created by French comedian and director Jacques Tati, as an influence on the character.^[10] Stylistically, Mr. Bean is also very similar to early silent films, relying purely upon physical comedy, with Mr. Bean speaking very little dialogue (although like other live-action TV series of the time, it features a laugh track). This has allowed the series to be sold worldwide without any significant changes to dialogue.^[8][11]

Characters and recurring props[link]

Mr. Bean[link]

The title character, played by Rowan Atkinson, is a childish and selfish buffoon who brings various unusual schemes and contrivances to everyday tasks. He lives alone in his small flat in Highbury, and is almost always seen in his trademark tweed jacket and a skinny red tie. He also usually wears a digital calculator watch. Mr. Bean rarely speaks, and when he does, it is generally only a few mumbled words which are in a comically low-pitched voice. His first name (he names himself "Bean" to others) and profession, if any, are never mentioned. In the first film adaptation, "Mr." appears on his passport in the "first name" field, and he is shown employed as a guard at London's National Gallery.^[12] In Mr. Bean's Holiday, however, his name is listed on his passport as "Rowan", the actor's first name.^[13]

Mr. Bean often seems unaware of basic aspects of the way the world works, and the programme usually features his attempts at what would normally be considered simple tasks, such as going swimming, using a television set, redecorating or going to church. The humour largely comes from his original (and often absurd) solutions to problems and his total disregard for others when solving them, his pettiness, and occasional malevolence.

At the beginning of episode two onwards, Mr. Bean falls from the sky in a beam of light, accompanied by a choir singing Ecce homo qui est faba ("Behold the man who is a bean"). These opening sequences were initially in black and white in episodes 2 and 3, and were intended by the producers to show his status as an "ordinary man cast into the spotlight". However, later episodes showed Mr. Bean dropping from the night sky in a deserted London street, against the backdrop of St. Paul's Cathedral, perhaps suggesting Bean is an alien. At the end of episodes 3 and 6 he is also shown being sucked right back up into the sky in the respective background scenes (black scene in episode 3 and street scene in episode 6). Atkinson himself has acknowledged that Bean "has a slightly alien aspect to him".^[14] In the animated series (episode 38, "Double Trouble") he is taken inside a spacecraft with "aliens" who look exactly like him and even have their own plushy toys. In an obvious homage, the aliens send him back home in a beam of light similar to the opening of the original Mr. Bean series. Whether Mr. Bean himself is an extraterrestrial is not clear. Mr. Bean lives in Flat 2, 12 Arbour Road, London, England.^[15]

Teddy[link]

Teddy is Mr. Bean's teddy bear and perhaps Mr. Bean's best friend. The bear is a dark brown, knitted oddity with button eyes and sausage-shaped limbs, invariably ending up broken in half or in various other states of destruction and disfiguration. Although Teddy is inanimate, Mr. Bean often pretends it is alive. For example, when Mr. Bean hypnotises Teddy, he snaps his fingers and the bear's head falls backwards as if it has fallen asleep instantly (Bean used his finger to prop Teddy's head up). Mr. Bean behaves as if the bear is real, buying it a Christmas present or trying not to wake it in the mornings. The bear is often privy to Mr. Bean's various schemes and doubles as a dish cloth or paint brush in an emergency; it has been decapitated ("Mr. Bean in Room 426"), used Teddy as his paint brush ("Do-It-Yourself Mr. Bean") and shrunk in the wash ("Tee Off, Mr. Bean"). Teddy is also Mr. Bean's "pet" in "Hair by Mr. Bean of London" and is used to win a pet show. The Teddy that was used in filming sits in the windshield of the replica of Mr. Bean's mini that is on display at the National Motor Museum. Over the years, Teddy has undergone several changes. When it debuted on "The Trouble with Mr. Bean", it had a smaller head. Two episodes later, its head reached its current size, but its "eye" wasn't present until Bean placed gold thumb tacks on its face. The "eyes" have since been replaced with two small white buttons sewn over Teddy's face, giving it a distinct image.

Mr. Bean's car[link]

Rowan Atkinson demonstrating a famous scene from the Mr. Bean episode "Do-It-Yourself Mr. Bean" on a Mini at Goodwood Circuit in 2009

Mr. Bean's car, a British Leyland Mini 1000, developed a character of sorts over the series and was central to several antics, such as Mr. Bean getting dressed in it, driving while sitting in an armchair strapped to the roof or attempting to avoid a parking garage toll by driving out through the entrance.

At first, an orange 1969 BMC Mini MK II (registration RNT 996H) was Mr. Bean's vehicle, but this was destroyed in an off-screen crash at the end of the first episode. From then on, the car was a 1976 model (registration SLW 287R), applejack green in colour^[16] with a matte black bonnet. It made its first appearance in "The Curse of Mr. Bean".

The Mini also had a number of innovative security measures, for example Bean uses a bolt-latch and padlock, rather than the lock fitted to the car, and removes the steering wheel instead of the key. These formed a running joke in several episodes, at one point deterring a car thief. The car, confused with another demonstration car of exactly the same model and colours (but no padlock) (registration ACW 497V), was crushed by a tank in "Back to School, Mr. Bean", but returned in later episodes, perhaps having actually been the identical demonstration car from that point on.

Mr. Bean has a long-running feud with the unseen driver of a light blue Reliant Regal Supervan III (registration GRA 26K), which will usually get turned over, crashed out of its parking space and so forth. This conflict originated in the first episode, when the Reliant's driver held the Mini up on the way to a mathematics exam, and subsequently became a running joke throughout the series.

Both the Mini and the Reliant re-appeared as characters in the animated Mr. Bean cartoons, and in the film Mr. Bean's Holiday, yet another Mini, registration YGL 572T, appears. Also seen is a left hand drive version of his Mini, owned by the character Sabine which has a French registration.(registration 207 UHO 75). For the 1997 feature film a sequence involving the Mini driving through Harrod's Department Store was shot, but this was not included in the final cut.^[17][18] In the animated series, his Mini's registration plate number is STE 952R.

After filming ended, the original Mini used in filming was sold to Kariker Kars to be hired for various events. It was then temporarily displayed as a major attraction at the Rover Group's museum. In 1997, it was purchased by the Cars of the Stars Motor Museum and is now on display at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu.^[19]

Irma Gobb[link]

Mr. Bean's "girlfriend", Irma Gobb, played by Matilda Ziegler, appeared in a number of episodes. She is treated relatively inconsiderately by Bean, who appears to regard her more as a friend and companion than a love interest. However, he does become jealous when she dances with another man at a disco in "Mr. Bean Goes to Town", and she certainly expects him to propose to her on Christmas Day in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean", with his failure to do so resulting in her leaving him for good (she does not appear in any subsequent episodes). The character later appeared in the animated series. The spin-off book Mr. Bean's Diary (1993) states that Mr. Bean met Irma Gobb at a local library.^[20]

Prior to the episode Merry Christmas Mr. Bean, Irma's name is not revealed. In "The Curse of Mr. Bean" and "Mr. Bean Goes to Town," the character is credited as "the girlfriend."

Other characters[link]

Although Mr. Bean is the only significant human character in the programme, others appear, usually as foils for his various antics. Other than his girlfriend, Mr. Bean's only friends appear to be Hubert and Rupert, who appear as Bean's New Year's party guests in the episode "Do-It-Yourself, Mr. Bean" (although they altered his living room clock and fled to the party in the flat opposite, gaining real friends in the process) and Robin Driscoll appears in many episodes as various characters. However, several notable British actors and comedians appear alongside Atkinson in sketches as various one-off supporting characters, including Richard Briers, Angus Deayton, Nick Hancock, Paul Bown, Caroline Quentin, Danny La Rue, Roger Lloyd Pack, David Schneider and Richard Wilson.^[21]

Production and broadcast[link]

The programme was produced by Tiger Television (later Tiger Aspect Productions) for Thames Television from 1990 to 1992 and for Central Independent Television from 1993 to 1995. Rather than being shown as a series, each episode of Mr. Bean was produced individually, and broadcast at intermittent intervals on the ITV network in the United Kingdom across six years, often around New Year. The episode "Hair by Mr. Bean of London" has not been broadcast on ITV, but was instead reserved for video release. After its original run it has been shown repeatedly on PBS and satellite channels such as Telemundo in the United States, CBC in Canada, TV1 in Australia, TVB in Hong Kong, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and ITV3 in the UK, Disney Channel Asia in Southeast Asia, TV3 in Malaysia, MediaCorp TV Channel 5 in Singapore and RCTI in Indonesia.^[22] Digital channel ITV3 began rebroadcasting the series on 5 January 2010, and again on 24 May 2010. In Pakistan it has been aired on a number of channels such as Cartoon Network, Starlite TV, Raavi and on Syndicated Networks as well.

The record-selling UK videos were withdrawn shortly before the release of Bean, and DVDs were released on an annual basis as of 2004.

Episode guide[link]

Music[link]

Mr. Bean features a choral theme tune written by Howard Goodall and performed by the Choir of Southwark Cathedral (later Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford). The words sung during the title sequences are in Latin:

• Ecce homo qui est faba – "Behold the man who is a bean" (sung at beginning)
• Finis partis primae – "End of part one" (sung before the advertisement break)
• Pars secunda – "Part two" (sung after the advertisement break)
• Vale homo qui est faba – "Farewell, man who is a bean" (sung at end)