- published: 06 May 2016
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An American comic book is a thin periodical containing primarily comics content.
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 funny animals, westerns, romance and humor became popular. The 1950s saw a gradual decline, due especially to new censorship laws and the spread of television. The 1960s saw a superhero revival, and superheroes continue to be the dominant genre today, although other genres have continued to find audiences.
Since the later 20th century, comic books have gained note as collectable items. Comic shops cater to fans, and particularly valuable issues have fetched in excess of a million dollars. Systems of grading comic books have emerged, and plastic bags and backing boards are available to maintain the comic books' condition.
A comic book or comicbook, also called comic paper or comic magazine (often shortened to simply comic or comics) is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog (usually in word balloons, emblematic of the comic book art form) as well as including brief descriptive prose. The first comic book appeared in the United States in 1933, reprinting the earlier newspaper comic strips, which established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term "comic book" arose because the first comic books reprinted humor comic strips. Despite their name, comic books are not necessarily humorous in tone; modern comic books tell stories in a variety of genres.
Since the introduction of the comic book format in 1933 with the publication of Famous Funnies, the United States has produced the most titles, with only the British comic and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles, though manga has many more followers and dwarfs American comics in readership.[citation needed]