Amazing Fantasy #15/Copyright Marvel Comics

Technically speaking, a comic book is any sort of periodical that features graphic sequential story-telling along with narrative dialogue as its primary story-telling methods. The magazine may have one or more complete stories in each issue, one or more episodes of continuing stories, or some combination of the two. Characters and settings may continue from story to story, issue to issue, or not at all. There may be text pieces as well, but the primary story-telling vehicle needs to be sequential. This sequential artwork is generally illustration, but can also be photographs.

The term comic book is something of a misnomer, as most modern comic books are dramatic in tone. ‘Comic book’ is taken from the term ‘comic strip,’ since many of the earliest comic books were merely collected editions of popular comic strips of the time. It is generally accepted that the first comic book is Richard F. Outcault’s The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flats, a collection from Outcault’s comic strip, Hogan’s Alley starring the Yellow Kid in 1896. The first comic book containing all original material was The Funnies in 1929.

As with any other medium, comic books stories can be of any genre. Some notable and popular genres in comic books include: westerns, war stories, romance, and horror. However, when the vast majority of people today refer to comic books, they are actually referring to one of two sub-genres:

• Humor comic books: Exemplified primarily by Archie Comics and cartoon tie-ins (both to be explored further in this series), the humor book is generally either a set of characters getting themselves into and working themselves out of a humorous situation, or a series of slapstick encounters, like the MGM animated shorts of the 30s and 40s.
• Super-hero adventure stories: when most people think of comics, they think of super-heroes (to be discussed in more detail later this week). Super-hero stories are typified by protagonists who have super-human abilities; physical, mental or some combination of the two. Super-hero adventures comics are predominated by two publishers: DC Comics and Marvel Comics (both to be discussed later).

While super-hero comics have dominated the market for over 40 years, other genres, most notably what can only be accurately described as literary comics, are beginning to make more of a splash in the past decade or so, as more young storytellers are exploring the medium of graphic story-telling, and as the impact of manga (generally Asian or Asian-influenced comic books—to be discussed more later) becomes more well known.

For more on Archie Comics, click here.

For the possible connection between the new Doom Patrol and the Joker, click here.