{"id":2688,"date":"2018-11-06T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T23:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=2688"},"modified":"2024-01-09T15:25:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T23:25:48","slug":"maggies-world-066-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/maggies-world-066-classics\/","title":{"rendered":"Maggie\u2019s World 066: Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MAGGIE’S WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie\u2019s World 066: Classics<\/h1>\n\n\n
Maggie Thompson<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Brownies of Palmer Cox starred in early pop-culture picture adventures.\u00a0St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine<\/em>\u00a0(January 1887, Vol. XIV, #3) Few young readers of\u00a0Four Color<\/em>\u00a0#192 (\u201cThe Brownies,\u201d August 1948) would have connected the issue to the Cox characters of six decades earlier. \u00a9 2018 Oskar Lebeck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Did you ever read Stephen Becker\u2019s Comic Art in America<\/em>? It was a sample-packed volume that introduced readers in 1959 to the comics that had entertained the preceding couple of generations. (Rumor has it that much of the content was actually provided by pros of his day; in any case, I\u2019ll just refer to the writer as Becker.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were samples of the work of (to name a few) James Swinnerton, T.S. Sullivant, Richard Fenton Outcault, Rudolph Dirks, F. Burr Opper, and Winsor McKay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mind you, Becker never so much as tipped his hat to such creators as Ed Wheelan, Harvey Kurtzman, and Jack Kirby at a time when all were alive and two were (very) active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more to be noted was his lack of information on the guy now acknowledged to be one of the most influential in the art form: Rodolphe T\u00f6pffer (who never got so much as a passing sentence). As a result, the first time I became aware of that pioneer was in a 1965 book by E. Wiese, Enter: The Comics<\/em> (Rodolphe T\u00f6pffer\u2019s Essay on Physiognomy and the True Story of Monsieur Cr\u00e9pin)<\/em>. (To digress: T\u00f6pffer even inspired the first Big Name Comics Fan: Faust<\/em> author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who encouraged his work.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to Becker, there were two other major reference books on comic art. Both did include a tip of the hat to Wheelan, but all three paid only passing attention to comic books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Sheridan provided Comics and Their Creators: Life Stories of American Cartoonists<\/em> (1942 and 1944), which had an entry on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coulton Waugh acknowledged the existence of comic books in The Comics<\/em> (1947): \u201cEven in its short span of a few years \u2026 the history of useful comic books presents a most brilliant spot in the whole story of the comics.\u201d He, too, provided a look at Superman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his chapter \u201cThe Lyric Clowns,\u201d Becker singled out Krazy Kat<\/em> by George Herriman, Pogo<\/em> by Walt Kelly, Barnaby<\/em> by Crockett Johnson, Peanuts<\/em> by Charles Schulz, and work by Milt Gross and Rube Goldberg. We\u2019ve been lucky enough in recent years to see reprints of their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Becker did note the influence of Palmer Cox (1840-1924), whose \u201cBrownies\u201d flourished in the 1890s, especially in St. Nicholas Magazine<\/em>. By the way, decades later, Walt Kelly (1913-1973) provided his own version in comic books for Dell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the focus of the reference works before 1960 was comic strips\u2014and, in many cases, the creators of the 1950s had been most influenced by the comic strip classics of those earlier decades. (Recently, someone in a Facebook group devoted to one of the creators whose stories led to my working in comics asked members of that group to identify their ages. I think the youngest was in his or her 50s.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many well-known Golden Age super-characters involved themselves with the non-super world. Both Sub-Mariner and Superman began in comic-book anthologies.\u00a0Truth or Consequences<\/em>\u00a0was on radio from 1940 to 1957 (and, by the way,\u00a0The Adventures of Superman\u00a0<\/em>aired from 1940 to 1951).\u00a0The Human Torch<\/em>\u00a0#22 (Spring 1946) \u00a9 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc.\u00a0Action Comics<\/em>\u00a0#127 (December 1948) \u00a9 2018 DC Comics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Then It Was the 1960s\u2014and Later<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

So it is that each generation builds on the foundation of classics by earlier creators. In the 1960s, the writers and artists had grown up admiring the work of writers and artists of the 1940s and 1950s. Superman, Batman, Sub-Mariner, Donald Duck, Little Lulu, Archie: Those characters formed some of the basis of our pop culture development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was, of course, hard for us to track down those stories in those days, if we\u2019d lost most of our copies because of lack of storage or lack of time or in fire, flood, or parental discarding. Nevertheless, we knew that Archie and Betty should go together, while Veronica and Reggie were clearly meant for each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, kids realized that it was possible to work in comics as artists, writers, or editors as an actual profession. When they did, they built on what they\u2019d already enjoyed so much. And some of them even managed to arrange reprints so that others could see what had attracted them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Recently<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Now? Who\u2019s building new foundations now? And who will do so in the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some Silver Age characters are now such classics that modern audiences know their backgrounds even before new stories begin. Iron Man was still coping with early armor in\u00a0Tales of Suspense<\/em>\u00a0#43 (July 1963). \u00a9 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. The teen team was still working out its relationships, as its members continued their adventures in\u00a0Teen Titans<\/em>\u00a0#1 (January 1966). \u201cRobin\u2019s usually right\u201d\u2014well, he was then, anyway. \u00a9 2018 DC Comics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Already, we\u2019ve seen that many of today\u2019s creators have adopted what they admire and have provided their own takes on manga, anime, comics they read in school, and characters they knew primarily from movies and TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is Raina Telgemeier showing kids today how to do their own autobiographical tales? Are boys and girls already trying to draw Mo Willems\u2019 Elephant or Pigeon? Do young readers understand fantasy because they\u2019ve seen collections of Calvin and Hobbes<\/em> or Bone<\/em> or (if they\u2019re a little older) Sandman<\/em>? Locke & Key<\/em>? Ms. Marvel<\/em>? Saga<\/em>? Manga you\u2019ve never read?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe tomorrow\u2019s creators are now rereading their parents\u2019 collections of Charles Schulz\u2019s Peanuts<\/em> with an eye to telling their own stories. Maybe they\u2019ve decided to explore the origins of characters they\u2019re seeing in theaters and on TV. (Was Robin always such an annoying doofus? Exactly how did Iron Man create that costume\u2014and did it always look like that, because it keeps changing in the movies?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of years ago, I saw Rob Liefeld sitting at a table at a convention\u2014and he had a long line waiting to see him. He\u2019d entered the field in the late 1980s, and now there was a line that seemed to consist largely of dads with kids in tow. Was it before Deadpool<\/em> had made it to the big screen? I can\u2019t be sure now, but my feeling was that many of those dads were eager to get a chance to show their kids someone who\u2019d made comic books so much fun for them years before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Bring It up Now?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Gift-giving season is almost upon us, and a few samples of classics might introduce recipients of those treats to entertainments of the past. You can, of course, check out the list of Eisner Award nominees from earlier this year for suggestions for more current gifts. And don\u2019t forget to drop by the comics shops in your area to ask for more suggestions. We live in times rich with terrific comic art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe, someday, all the classics of the wide variety of comics will be kept in print, and students will be as capable of enjoying collections of the work of Ed Wheelan, Gaylord Du Bois, and Warren Tufts as easily as they find plays by Shakespeare and Williams, poems by Byron and Whitman, films by Wilder and Spielberg, and novels by Austen and Dickens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re getting there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maggie\u2019s World appears the first Tuesday of every month here on <\/em>Toucan, and will return in January 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

Maggie Thompson<\/div>\n\n\n

Published<\/p>\n\n\n