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National Comic Book Day 2024
For a lovely mid-week treat, today is National Comic Book Day. Let’s take a look at this beloved art form.
🦸♂️ Feel Like A Participant 🦸🏽
The experience of reading a printed comic book will never change, but now, thanks to the digital age, there are many different ways to enjoy the same story. Digital comic books, of course, can be interactive in many different ways, allowing the reader to feel like a participant in the story. ~Stan Lee
Comic books are a very accessible form of storytelling. They often bridge the gap between children’s storybooks and chapter books.
For some of us, they remain an enduring and enjoyable form of story.
Comics, about a century ago, began growing from three-panel flash fiction syndicated in newspapers to visual short stories in magazine form.
The very name “comics” reflects their point of origin.
In the form of newspaper funnies such as Popeye, the Katzenjammer Kids and Little Orphan Annie, they delivered a quick hit of humor.
What you also found was episodic storytelling in the adventures of Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Prince Valiant and others. These typically had 8-12 panels in full color in the Sunday paper.
The popularity of and demand for such stories inspired publishers to print anthologies of what had gone out in the papers.
Eventually, this led to magazines of visual short stories and ultimately to what we recognize as comic books today.
This was fairytale on steroids. It was a uniquely American mythology. Characters like Batman, Superman, Captain America and Spider-Man have enduring popularity.
Over the years, the style of stories changed to reflect the needs of the time. In the Depression and the war years, it was an explosion of random stories to feed every interest.
There were crime comics, war comics, westerns, horror, sci-fi and (naturally) superheroes. Some were comparable to comics today and some were pretty twisted and dark.
After VE and VJ Days, the world changed gears. Post-War euphoria led to the Baby Boom and a new focus on kids and a prosperous middle class. Comics needed to change.
What had served as stress relief in the grim days of the war was now considered kids’ stuff. Well, if it’s for kids, we should probably stop with all the murder, mayhem and gore.
Comics got silly, campy, harmless and kid-friendly. Batman had a pink suit. Superman had a 5th Dimensional Imp who plagued him with silly antics.
Supervillains all had schtick and ridiculously complex death traps that killed absolutely nobody.
As this generation of kids grew, so did the comics. They could start addressing social themes. The silly Silver Age gave way to the socially aware Bronze Age.
The serial nature of comics became like soap operas. Long narrative arcs that played out over months and years as any given superhero would have recurring nemeses building up to a battle royale while they attended to their one-shot, small fry villains.
Once that particular bridge had been burned, the Bronze Age made way for the Modern Age. Independent comics houses produced stories every bit as gritty and brutal as the action films of the time.
Artists and writers could delve into any of the genres that had flourished in the Golden Age of the war years and go as dark as they wanted. The difference seemed to be that the growth in the art form from Gold through Bronze gave the Modern comics a more complex, almost literary feel.
The mad rush of creativity in the Golden Age was akin to today’s streaming and social media content craze. There was a mad dash to put out whatever popped into someone’s head.
In the Modern Age, even with independent publishers, there was still some appreciation for and adherence to the overall style of Marvel and DC.
Comics had a certain feel. Comics had a certain format. Comics were a distinct thing. Coloring too far outside the lines might be interesting or experimental, but it might have a hard time being recognized as comics by comics fans.
For those of us who grew up on comics and still enjoy them, today is a day worth celebrating.
📖 National Comic Book Day 💥
National Comic Book Day – September 25
One could say that comic books are a uniquely American art form. Some might say that Manga are Japanese comic books, which would make the art form less uniquely American.
As much as I tend to think of comic books as superhero stories, I have read more than my fair share of funnies-style comics such as Hot Stuff, Casper and Archie comics.
The Bronze Age gave us a new crop of war, western, horror and other non-superhero titles. It also gave us comic-ized adaptations of movies such as Star Wars and Planet of the Apes.
So, today is a celebration of this beloved art form in all its ages, genres and styles. I’m here for it.
National Comic Book Day
📚 Long-Form Stories 🦹🏼
My view is that comic books are meant to be long-form stories. They’re meant to be novels. ~Neal Adams
Oh, he is so incredibly right!
This “American Mythology” is so well-suited to long-form presentation.
Originally, these were primarily three panel funnies with eight to twelve panels in the Sunday paper.
In the Golden Age, they were a firehose of random short stories in graphic form.
In the Silver Age, they were settling down into specific pathways. Solitary superhero titles and team-ups were the name of the game. There were a lot of random scenarios with random villains for the most part, but they started to have some recurring villains and some long term through lines.
In the Bronze Age, they crafted long arcs on themes and social issues. The storytelling matured and they really came into their own, making use of interwoven stories.
This was a bit more like real life.
Very few people have an arch-nemesis. Having a one-to-one relationship with any given villain may be iconic in the long view, but when you put one of these guys in jail or in an insane asylum, there are a bunch more who are just as formidable waiting to screw up your life.
In the Modern Age, they just pulled the shackles off and circled back to the wild variety of the Golden Age.
In both the Bronze and Modern Age, you got tons of animated and live-action series. Some are better than others, but you’ve still got literally years of watch time available. Movies, TV and animated series are a cornucopia of modern storytelling in this “American Mythology” style.
It’s past time that we get superhero novels.
Okay, sure, it’s an intensely visual format. This is why we have comics, cartoons, TV and movies ad infinitum. Perhaps it’s more natural to create graphic novels rather than prose novels.
Even so, if you can have fantasy novels depicting worlds as rich as Middle Earth, Discworld or Pern and you can have sci-fi novels depicting worlds as dazzling as Dune, Foundation and The Expanse, then it’s equally possible to execute a superhero tale in prose form.
That’s what I’m working on with The Sentinels, even though it’s largely on hold until I’m done with The Lights of Pine Hollow.
No rest for the weary.
At least I have better weather and Pumpkin 🎃 Spice to get me through.
That’s all for this Six-Panel 🖼️ Hump 🐫 Day. I hope you find a copy of your favorite comic to peruse.