COMIC STRIP

series of drawings that read as a narrative, usually arranged horizontally on the page of a newspaper, magazine, or book. A bound collection of comic strips, usually in chronological sequence, is known as a comic book. Words are usually used within the drawings but often are omitted altogether. series of adjacent drawn images, usually arranged horizontally, that are designed to be read as a narrative or a chronological sequence. The story is usually original in this form. Words may be introduced within or near each image; they may also be dispensed with altogether. If words functionally dominate the image, it then becomes merely illustration to a text. The comic strip is essentially a mass medium, printed in a magazine, newspaper, or book. A comic book is a bound collection of strips, typically telling a single story or a series of different stories. Most of the better newspaper strips eventually appear also in book form. The word comic in connection with these strips is used only in the English language. Although now firmly established, it is misleading, for the early (pre-19th-century) strip was seldom comic either in form or content, and many contemporary strips are in no sense primarily humorous. The terms comics and comic strip became established around 1900 in the United States, when all strips were indeed comic. The French term is bande dessine (i.e., drawn strip, or BD for short). The older German term is Bildergeschichte or Bilderstreifen (picture story, picture strip), but the Germans now tend to employ the English word. In Italy the term is fumetto (meaning literally little puff of smoke, after the balloon within which most modern strips enclose verbal dialogue). In Spanish the comic book is called historieta. David M. Kunzle Additional reading David Kunzle, The History of the Comic Strip, vol. 1, The Early Comic Strip: Picture Stories and Narrative Strips in the European Broadsheet, ca. 14501826 (1973), a comprehensive history; Coulton Waugh, The Comics (1947, reprinted 1974); and Stephen Becker, Comic Art in America: A Social History of the Funnies, the Political Cartoons, Magazine Humor, Sporting Cartoons, and Animated Cartoons (1959), two works that form the basic manualboth strong on the origins of major strips, on techniques, and personalities; Pierre Couperie et al., A History of the Comic Strip (1968; originally published in French, 1967), the best international history; George Perry and Alan Aldridge, Penguin Book of Comics, rev. ed. (1971), on American and British comic strips, with a chapter on the cultural overflow; Martin Sheridan, Comics and Their Creators: Life Stories of American Cartoonists, rev. ed. (1944, reprinted 1977). (European): Jacques Marny, Le Monde tonnant des bandes dessines (1968); Franois Frdric Empaytaz, Les Copains de votre enfance, text by Jrme Peignot (1963); Marten Toonder, Beknopte Striptologie zijnde een poging tot verheldering bij de bestudering van de oudste verhaalvorm die de mensheid kent (1962), includes a bibliography of Dutch strips; Oscar Masotta, La historieta en el mundo moderno (1970), with bibliography. (Anthologies): Jacques Sternberg, Michel Caen, and Jacques Lob, Les Chefs d'Oeuvre de la bande dessine (1967), international, includes some little known examples; Jules Feiffer (ed.), The Great Comic Book Heroes (1965, reprinted 1977), American only; Luis Gasca, Los comics en Espaa (1969). (Technique): Robert Benayoun, Le Ballon dans la bande dessine, vroom, tchac, zowie (1968); Manfred Welke, Die Sprache der Comics, 4th ed. (1974), highly analytical; Francis Lacassin, Pour un neuvime art, la bande dessine (1971, reprinted 1982). (Sociology): David Manning White and Robert H. Abel (eds.), The Funnies: An American Idiom (1963), articles by critics, creators, and scholars, a comprehensive bibliography of articles in professional, specialized, and general periodicals, and of theses and special studies; Frederic Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent (1954, reprinted 1972), on the theory that the horror comic has contributed to juvenile delinquency. David M. Kunzle