Thread by @Hamm_Tips

The history of American comics is a mystery to many cartoonists, and unfortunately there's no one, comprehensive book to point people to.

Various books covers certain areas well, such as RC Harvey's ART OF THE FUNNIES and Sean Howe's MARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD HISTORY.

But those cover specific areas. So...THREAD! Tonight, as I work, I'll summarize the broad strokes, recommend key cartoonists. Crash course.

Apologies in advance for the tweetstorm, but this format will help me keep points brief (and actually write it!). I'll keep it intermittent.

My focus here will be twofold:
1. What past masters should you seek out to study?
2. How did cartoonists in each era go about earning money?

Gotta do more drawing RN, but I'll drop tweets here throughout the evening. Be sure to check the replies, too, for rec's from others.

US comics history begins with the strips. Newspapers were the internet AND TV of the early 20thCent, so cartoonists were SUPER rich/famous.

1890s-1930s: strips were humorous, & mimicked vaudeville comedy. So: no filmic staging, few changes in camera angle. Timing was everything.

Notable exceptions to this approach:
LITTLE NEMO: opened up sumptuous vistas.
KRAZY KAT: unconventional formatting
GASOLINE ALLEY: ditto

Other exceptions:
WHITE BOY: thoughtfully poetic
POLLY AND HER PALS: quirky and inventive
KINDER KIDS: ditto

Within the vaudevillian approach, standouts include BARNEY GOOGLE and POPEYE. In the early 30s, more strips began to feature adventure...

and there was an explosion of cartoony but excellent adventure strips (POPEYE, Gottfredson's MICKEY MOUSE, WASH TUBBS, LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE).

The appeal with these is that they were drawn charmingly, w/ simple verve, and the rapid-fire rows of panels let action flow like animation.

Also, storylines wd set up a conflict & eventually resolve it before the next adventure. This setup/payoff pattern rewarded reader loyalty.

By the mid-30s, and until the '70s, realistic adventure strips emerged. Some of them featured some of the best drawing comics has ever seen.

These strips had a TREMENDOUS influence on artists working in the sister field of comic BOOKS. They were more ubiquitous, appearing in

every paper instead of buried in comic racks. And they were better funded, so artists could hire assistants & models = better art.

Salaries = huge. Frank Frazetta supported his family ghost-pencilling a weekly Sunday strip. Lee Holley bought sports cars ghosting Sundays.

Because: newspapers were still ubiquitous$$$.
I'll pop back later with a list of '30s-'70s realistic newspaper strip artists to check out.

(Re. the ghost(=uncredited) artists above: note that they were ASSISTING other, RICHER cartoonists, & doing well drawing 1 strip per WEEK.)

The triumvirate of adventure cartoonists was Alex Raymond (FLASH GORDON), Hal Foster (PRINCE VALIANT), & Milt Caniff (TERRY & THE PIRATES).

These 3 laid the foundation for mid-century American superhero comics. Caniff's adventure formula is still seen throughout European comics.

Caniff's work owed a debt to SCORCHY SMITH by Noel Sickles, who innovated heavy, simple black-spotting 2 define forms (still in common use!)

Other realistic strip artists worth study:
Frank Robbins / JOHNNY HAZARD
Stan Drake / HEART OF JULIET JONES
Frank Frazetta / JOHNNY COMET

Robbins's bold shadows and clear, dynamic staging gave clarity to complex activity & environments w/o compromising drama. Crucial merits.

Drake's delicate lines, gestural rendering, and hatched shading would influence Neal Adams and many subsequent comics realists.

Other greats in this vein:
Frank Godwin / RUSTY RILEY
Alex Kotzky / APARTMENT 3G
John Prentice / RIP KIRBY
Jorge Longaron / FRIDAY FOSTER

and many more. But by the 60s, newspapers realized they could save $ by shrinking strips. Simple gag strips prevailed over adventure strips.

Notable gag strips from '60s on:
PEANUTS, with its ultra-simple drawing and funny/touching/insightful portrayals of human vulnerability...

B.C. - calligraphic drawings; simple, sketchy, emotive
BLOOM COUNTY - emotive faces/postures, great comedic timing, clever pop culture humor

BEETLE BAILEY - the apex of cartooning clarity and simplicity.
Also see HI & LOIS and NANCY for same. Dull, but instructive!

And of course CALVIN & HOBBES: for my money the best gag strip ever. Creative panel arrangements, cropping, timing; energetic drawing.

Jumping back to the '30s: comic BOOKS emerged when a publisher realized he could repackage newspaper strips into magazines and sell them.

Demand for these "books" was high, and comics attracted many young artists who dreamt of working in the far more lucrative newspaper biz.

The first superhero was Superman, who appeared in ACTION COMICS #1 ('38). Big success; others followed. By the '50s, they were played out.

Westerns, romance, humor, horror, war comics abounded. But in '54, a book called SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT blamed rising crime on comics.

Parents forbade comics; sales dropped; bad scene. Many publishers collapsed. Superheroes were tried again, with renewed success.

America's space race with Russia had popularized science. At DC Comics, heroes were written with a science bent. Success!

Marvel, meanwhile, focused on their soap operatic potential & teen appeal, combining the angst of romance comics w/ unreal action. Success!

I'll return later with notable titles and creators from the '30s through the '60s.

NGL, the Golden Age of comics ('30s-'50s) didn't actually produce much great work, IMO. Superhero fans reverse the characters who emerged

from that era, and scholars revere the comics of 1950s company EC Comics, but compared to the best modern comics, I find most unimpressive.

Some impressive exceptions from the '30s - '50s, in no particular order:
Carl Barks -- wrote/drew clever, funny comics about Disney's ducks.

John Stanley - Clear, fluid, energetic art; insightful, funny writing. His characters live on the page. Read: LITTLE LULU or 13 GOING ON 18

Jesse Marsh / TARZAN. Marsh's art is simple, loose, moody, poetic, and effective.
Alex Toth / ZORRO, etc. King of simple, dramatic drawing.

I'll note that all 4 of the above worked for Dell, who escaped the '50s anti-comics fervor by producing consistently kid-friendly material.

Emil Gershwin - solid, simple, well-designed drawing.
Bernard Krigstein - the KING of smart, creative pacing & cropping in comic narrative.

C. C. Beck / CAPTAIN MARVEL - simple, beautiful, well-informed drawing
Bruno Premiani / DOOM PATROL - same

And finally, Mort Meskin, who I wrote about here:
sirspamdalot.livejournal.com/88279.html
Excerpted below.

OK, breaking for tonight. Next time:
Lee/Kirby Marvel
Direct Market
BW boom
Image boom
'90s bust
Underground comix
'80s-onward indy comics

AND we're back. I'll be popping in here periodically tonight to describe US comics history from 1960-2000s. Plz pardon my (rare) tweetstorm!

Superheroes revitalized the US comics biz in the early '60s. While DC books tended to focus on heroes figuring stuff out...

...books by their main competitor, Marvel, were more about yelling and punching the crap out of stuff.

Marvel pulled ahead, with many books drawn energetically (and co-written) by Jack Kirby (above left) and scripted with panache by Stan Lee.

Jack&Stan wd hash out a basic plot, Jack wd draw the whole comic based on that, then Stan wd add dialogue. This became "the Marvel method."

Jack's plots, and those of Steve Ditko (Spider-Man), undergirded the heroics with very human problems troubling the superhuman characters.

Both had done romance comics for girls in the '50s; now was their chance to do romance comics for boys! Under cover of superheroes, natch.

(Here, and in the '50s, "romance" would often grow to include everything commonly troubling the teenage mind.)

But by the mid-'70s, the comics biz was in trouble again, for reasons that are a mystery to me. They weren't selling enough on newsstands.

Their salvation: comic shops. Collectors began opening specialty shops to sell their old comics. Publishers began selling directly to them.

This helped because newsstands (and supermarkets, etc) buy comics on a RETURNABLE basis: publishers REFUND them for ANY issues unsold.

So publishers had to print, like, 5 times what they actually sold, taking a loss on the rest. But sales to COMIC SHOPS were UNRETURNABLE.

Which meant better profit margin for publ'rs. And instead of tossing unsold books like a newsstand, the shop'd sell em later as back issues.

This sales model continued/s to be comics' bread & butter until the early millennium, when bookstores began carrying graphic novels.

Before GNs were common, it didn't make sense for bookstores to carry comics. Comics required too much shelf space for too little return ($1)

But as GNs grew common, bookstores noticed the better profit ($10, $20...). Too, they discovered countless GNs ALREADY EXISTED in Japan.

So they sold manga. And female readers now had access to comics without having to brave the "boys bedroom dungeon" atmosphere of comicshops.

Thus followed an influx of female readers and (ipso facto) female creators. Pre-2000, the # of female creators was superlow; now, superhigh.

LTR tonight I'll return to the 70s & cover the art trends from then to now, as well as non-Marvel/DC developments (Zap, TMNT, Image...) BFN!

Until the '70s, comics were drawn by career men, who often had families to support. To earn enough, they often had to draw 2-5 pages daily.

But the '70s saw in an influx of single young artists who were enamored of detail and could afford to spend a day or more on a page.

Inspired by classic book illustrators, & the example of Neal Adams (an exciting new ex-newspaper strip artist w/ a super realistic style)...

they began to change the look of comics. Unlike the more simple styles like John Romita's (left), they favored detail, like Adams (right).

Among these detailed artists was
Bernie Wrightson
Gene Day
P Craig Russell
Barry Windsor Smith...

Mike Kaluta
John Byrne
Michael Golden.
Those last 2 influenced ARTHUR Adams, who arrived in the '80s & heavily inspired the next generation.

(FYI -- throughout this thread, the artists' names always correspond to the attached images, in the order they appear.)

More on the next gen a bit later. For now: a reminder that you can Image Search any name I've mentioned to get an overview of their art.

Also: unless I state otherwise, I'm neither recommending nor criticizing the artists I'm posting. Just offering some historical context...

...and, in many but not all cases, recommending. ^_^

Mid-80s: Art Adams (& Kevin Nowlan & others) inspired several younger artists, who ended up on some key titles. Things started to happen.

Previously, the "little line guys" (a term Mike Mignola coined) had worked on small, out of the way books: Shadow, Micronauts, Killraven etc

But '80s editors began putting them on more visible books: Alpha Flight, XMen, New Mutants, Batman, Spider-Man. They hit readers like crack.

Imagine you're used to seeing RossAndru or DaveCockrum draw your faves, and suddenly they're drawn w/ the detail of ToddMcFarlane or JimLee.

(Above penciller credit:
Ross Andru / Spider-Man
Todd McFarlane / Spider-Man
Dave Cockrum / X-Men
Jim Lee / X-Men.)

The sudden disparity was exciting. The "little lines guys" became superstars. Sales of individual issues broke the million mark.

$$ poured in, & artists wanted their share. Thanx to the efforts of Neal Adams & others, there were some royalties, but why settle for SOME?

Seven top artists left Marvel to form Image and publish creator-owned comics. Other non "Big2"(Marvel/DC) companies already existed, but

none had the star power of Image. With a new giant in town, the Big2 panicked. Marvel bought a distribution company & made it "Marvel only."

So DC signed an exclusive with Diamond, another top distro co. That left the smaller publishers with the smaller distros; not good for them!

IIRC, Image & others signed w/ Diamond, leaving CapitolCity (the 2nd biggest distro) out in the cold. They and all the other distros folded.

Then it was Marvel's distro vs Diamond and the REST of the industry, so Marvel gave up & joined Diamond too, and now there's only 1 distro.

(A distro collects orders from retailers and ships them the comics from the publishers, simplifying things for both parties. However...

...they can also control what retailers see & receive, so they have power & influence in the industry.)

As I mentioned, the little lines guys often shared an ethos wherein speed was 2nd to quality. This was OK for back-up shorts in 70s comics..

but it took its toll later, when Image artists were their own bosses. Books shipped late, sometimes not at all. Also, while art was KING...

...story suffered. Fan excitement was replaced by malaise, and the collector market borne of fan excitement fell apart. By '95...

half the comic shops in North America (2,500 of 5,000?) had gone bust. Marvel later went bankrupt. Sad scene. But later, 2 things happened:

1. Publishers began pulling good writers from the ranks of independent comics & British comics. Ed Brubaker, Brian Bendis, Garth Ennis, etc.

Story started to matter again. Readers began returning.

Secondly, the new Marvel saw the success indy publisher Joe Quesada was having with his books, and put him in charge of some Marvel books.

He went from strength to strength and was soon Editor In Chief. An artist himself, he knew good art, and brought many good artists aboard.

DC followed suit, and mainstream comics experiencing a renaissance of good art. However, the quality-before-speed ethos prevails...

meaning artists can't draw 2-4 series monthly, like they did in the '60s. They're lucky to draw 5 issues in 5 months without a heart attack!

Artists draw fewer books & are often cycled in & out of series, leaving writers the most visible ongoing contributors. Now WRITERS are king.

That covers the mainstream. Next up: indy comics, '60s to present. And THEN I'm done.

HELLO new followers! I seldom tweet long threads, but this one needed length. Tonight I'll finish it, then PDF it for my patreons (HINT!).

Usually I tweet comics tips; feel free to peruse 'em! I've also archived 3yrs worth (4th coming soon) for Patrons. Also at my Patreon...

...are various essays and tutorials, some of which are free for anyone to read. You're welcome to come poke around! patreon.com/jessehamm

ALRIGHT. In the late '60s, counterculture folks began publishing "undergrounds": comics that bypassed traditional markets (and taboos).

Underground comics were transgressive: usually full of sex, violence, heavy political satire, and/or unconventional cartooning techniques.

Their print runs were low, and they were sold in headshops, alternative bookshops, even on the street. And things might have stayed that way

if not for the rise of comic shops in the '70s. Comic shops cut out the conservative middleman represented by supermarkets, newsstands, etc.

Importantly, they also bought comics on a nonreturnable basis (described earlier), meaning tiny publishers could now afford to play ball.

The served the health of undergrounds, along w/ a vast array of less transgressive yet still interesting material that appeared in the '80s.

In a couple hours, I'll be back with examples and brief descriptions of several of the most notable cartoonists from this '60s-'80s period.

"A couple of hours" turned into "I watched TV and fell asleep," but ANYway...I'm back with several interesting independent '70s cartoonists.

Robert Crumb is the most significant of the underground cartoonists. Though He's been justly criticized for demeaning/objectifying women in

his comics, his work is more transparently personal than the "offense-for-the-sake-of-offense" ethos of most other underground cartoonists.

Also, his goofy, "bigfoot" style feels humble and approachable, and his expert, sensitive lighting makes his work more attractive than most.

Trina Robbins is the most visible female cartoonist of that scene/era. She has written several books on the subject of women in comics...

& her memoir LAST GIRL STANDING just debuted. I found my 1st Trina comic by some railroad tracks, which is the very best way to find comics.

Victor Moscoso boldy proved that conventional narrative isnt comics' sole use. Mainstream publishers wouldn't have allowed such experiments!

Rick Griffin also pushed the bounds of comix design, with ornate shapes & textures. He later became a Christian & illustrated John's gospel.

Richard Corben was less experimental, using undergrounds instead to create sci-fi & horror with an explicitness forbidden to most comics.

Corben represents an interesting bifurcation of non-mainstream comics into 2 (often overlapping) camps:
ALTERNATIVE comics
&
INDY comics.

(These 2 terms are "unofficial," but useful.)
Alternative comics are typically about not fitting in: socially or aesthetically.

They often feature low-income, disaffected young people in urban settings who struggle to relate to others. And/or odd formal experiments.

Indy comics, by contrast, celebrate the fun escapism of mainstream entertainment, but are louder/weirder/edgier than is usually accepted.

To analogize using movies most of us have seen:
AVENGERS - mainstream
HELLBOY - indy
GHOST WORLD - alternative

The 2 most significant indy voices in the '70s may have been Dave Sim and WendyPini, who (respectively) self-published CEREBUS and ELFQUEST.

Sim's CEREBUS began as an affectionate parody but became something more unique, personal & strange. A good description of many comics today.

Over 27 years, Sim self-published 300 issues of CEREBUS, and campaigned tirelessly for self-publishers and self-publishing as a movement.

When I was self-publishing as a teen, I got leukemia. Sim, who I didn't know, heard of it from another cartoonist, & called me from Canada..

to say,"The self-publishing community hasn't forgotten you."

For Sim, doing comics, free from external constraints, made us a community.

Sim's quite justly been criticized for tons of misogyny, but his expert, nuanced command of visual narrative is unsurpassed, & merits study.

Wendy Pini's lovingly rendered, passionately written elves struck a chord with readers looking for cool, good stuff outside of Marvel/DC.

Pini cosplayed at cons, met her husband thru a comics letter column, wrote/drew,bypassed the Big2. A 70s prototype of today's female toonist

(Not that everyone cosplays, etc, but she hit a lot of the modern practices 40 years early!)

Other indy publishers include Jim Warren, who published some of the finest comic art of the '60s-'70s in full-sized B&W magazines.

Artists enjoyed his relatively high rates, and the freedom to work at a large size, and in greytone.

He drew on a pool of international talent, such as Filipino Alex Nino & Spaniard Auraleon, and American pros like Alex Toth and Wally Wood.

Another indy creator to (re)emerge during this time was Will Eisner. Eisner had achieved fame writing/drawing The Spirit in the '40s...

did commercial work in the '50s-'60s, including instructional comics for the military (FYI: instructional & ad comics= GREAT income source!)

...and returned to do heartfelt, innovative graphic novels until he died in '05, age 87. His book COMIC & SEQUENTIAL ART taught me lots!

Clever & engaging, The Spirit "strip" was published as full comic pages in the newspaper. Readers cut them out & folded them into a comic.

This way, Eisner could reach the vast (and adult) newspaper readership while still enjoying the space of a comic book (8 full pgs per week).

My grandfather clipped/folded/read those pages; now I have em! And along with The Spirit, my dad read Eisner's military comics in 'Nam.

When I began self-publishing, I got to meet Eisner and tell him I was a third-generation fan. 50 years from now, you might be meeting yours!

(Reminder for new followers: I don't often do these threads; it's usually a few tweets a week around here. Sorry for the length!)

Now for the craziest decade of all: the ✨EIGHTIES⚡️With the direct market in full swing, countless small publishers arose to try their luck.

Here's The Comics Journal's snarky, mid-'80s prediction of these publishers sprinting toward their demise. (Art: Kevin Nowlan)

Lots of good comics/cartoonists came out of this period. But the defining moment was probably when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles debuted.

TMNT #1 was a fun parody of comics like X-Men and Daredevil, printed in a small run on borrowed money by 2 young guys with day jobs.

But it struck a chord; demand was sudden and huge. Many more copies were printed, and the price of "first print" issues skyrocketed.

Soon everyone was publishing quirky B&W comics in a mad frenzy to be next overnight success, and readers wanted in on every 1st issue.

I knew a guy who did a comic no one ever heard of that sold 20K copies, a number indies wd kill for today. I think he's in real estate now.

Some comics were parodies of TMNT, but even beyond that there were mountains and mountains of weird titles. Like everyone buying Wonka bars.

GeriatricGangreneJujitsuGerbils
PreTeenDirtyGeneKungFuKangaroos
MildlyMicrowavedPrePubescentKungFuGophers
AdolescentRadioactiveBlackBeltHams

You get the picture. It became known as The Black & White Glut. Finally, stores realized they weren't going to sell these titles...

and every store stopped ordering B&W comics. Then they started ordering tons of superhero "event" comics, briefly flourished, and folded.

Yup! The numbers were insane.

https://twitter.com/MysteryCr8tve/status/908914634303799296

A few independent publishers survived. E.g., Dark Horse, who smartly pursued licensing deals (Aliens, Robocop), alongside original material.

And Fantagraphics, who I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong) shored up their art comics with their more lucrative Eros/porn imprint.

But dozens didn't survive. Offhand: Continuity, Comico, Eclipse, First, Blackthorne, Now, Innovation, Greater Mercury, Malibu, Entity...

Thus are the slings & arrows in comics. But from the drecktide of that period, much talent did emerge. I'll return soon to share some faves.

Jaime (left) & Gilbert (right) Hernandez's comics are marked by frank naturalism & smooth visual narrative. Jaime's art is especially fine.

Chris Ware's comics are a study in timing, cropping, and arranging panels to control narrative. Tragi-comic alienation is a favored theme.

Dan Clowes & art spiegelman are also must-reads.
I'm not as big on spiegelman as everyone else - but hey, it's history! Take your vitamins!

Rick Geary's comics are remarkably clear and full of charm, without losing their often sinister edge. Revered by those in the know!

Stan Sakai's USAGI YOJIMBO is also a favorite among cartoonists. Clear, thoughtful poetry. Find it in the Kids Section but keep it for life.

Marc Hansen's RALPH SNART never set the world on fire, but I enjoy its goofy enthusiasm. A fun, well-drawn return to when comics were silly.

Another li'l known gem: Frank Thorne's RIBIT. Thorne's up in Toth's league, but is usually hidden in the porn stacks. His RIBIT's a PG treat

Drama, sensitively written AND drawn, woven into intriguing sci-fi? Carla Speed McNeil's FINDER.
DREAM SEQUENCE may be my fave.

Another excellent sci-fi comic with similar merits: @PaulHChadwick's CONCRETE. A thoughtful drama about a concrete man.

@PaulHChadwick Since we're on sci-fi: two space operas! Tara Tallan's GALAXION & Teri S Wood's WANDERING STAR. Space journeys told with warmth & clarity.

@PaulHChadwick ZOT: smart, heartfelt comics
BONE: among the best things to come from self-publishing
ROCKETEER: SO pretty
GROO: funny, beautifully drawn

@PaulHChadwick There's so much out there! Especially from 1980 to today (comics) or 1930-1970 (strips). Ask your retailer; step outside your comfort zone.

@PaulHChadwick After the smaller publishers went away in the '90s, the internet took their place as the venue of choice for independent voices.

@PaulHChadwick Then Kickstarter arrived! Increasingly, too, bigger publishers entered the graphic novel market. Which brings us to the present...

...and concludes my "oral" history of comics. Thanks for reading this monster thread! Cheers to you all!