History of the Comic

The origins of the comic can be found in ancient traditions.

Paintings in the tomb of Menna, the Egyptian scribe of the 18th dynasty, which are more then 3,400 years old, show illustrations of farming and harvesting.

Japanese ink paintings are similar examples of early comic forms.

In America a chronicle was discovered in 1519 by Hernán Cortés depicting the life of a Colombian ruler in 1049. The images were accompanied by pictures of characters in a kind of narrative.

The Bayeux Tapestry, which describes the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066, is the first example of a comic style of drawing in Europe. The other interesting aspect of the Bayeux Tapestry was that it combined pictures and text.

At the beginning of the 12th century, monks in Japan started to draw pictures on rolls of paper. Up to the 19th century, notebooks with amusing or famous stories became increasingly popular.

In religion there were representations with comic-like characters, found mainly in stained glass windows. It is believed these were created for the benefit of a congregation that was largely unable to read or write.

In many of the previous examples, the use of a speech bubble was anticipated in the form of banners which were held by the characters depicted.

Rodolphe Töpffer is called the McCloud father of the modern 'comic'. In the mid 19th century he was the first person to use panel frames, or cartoon-like drawings combined with text.

In the USA 'comic strips' became increasingly popular and commonly took up half a side of newspaper.

In Europe at the beginning of the 20th century there were many caricature magazines, but not comics. In Japan, caricature magazines became more and more popular at this time. The speech bubbles typically used today for comics were adopted from the USA.

Kitazawa Rakuten and Okamoto Ippei are understood to have been the first Japanese artists to create comic strips.

Europe developed its own form of comic strip, the comic booklet. In comparison to short comic strips, these were comic stories with a narrative which developed in the style of a short story.

During the World War II America and Japan developed a comic ideology. For the first time the work of the author and illustrator were considered separate disciplines. The position of the author rose in prominence and authors became able to select illustrators for their work.

At the time of the Second World War, a new comic style started to develop in Japan. Osamu Tezuka had a big influence on what is today known as 'Mangas'. The popularity of Manga is widespread and reaches all layers of society and is read by male and female alike. In the nineties the Manga style spread beyond the borders of Japan and is today known throughout the world.