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This chapter examines the struggles and minor successes of British comics during the period 1936–1949. In 1936, Disney set up a studio in Britain and launched Mickey Mouse Weekly, the first British comic to use the expensive, full-color photogravure printing process. A year later, DC Thomson launched The Dandy, followed by The Beano in 1938. The success of The Dandy and The Beano marked the end of the era of the boy's weeklies and the beginning of the dominance of comics. The chapter considers the very first appearance of Superman in Britain in Amalgamated Press's The Triumph in 1939 and how British and American comics fared during the war years. It also discusses comics publishing by Gerald G. Swan, A. Soloway, Denis Gifford and Bob Monkhouse, Cartoon Art Productions, Scion, Paget, and Modern Fiction Ltd. The publication of The Amazing Mr X, Britain's first homegrown superhero, is also explored.

This chapter examines major developments in British comics during the period 1950–1961. It first considers comics as one of the cornerstones of children's entertainment in the 1950s before discussing the means by which American comics came to Britain as well as the objections to American comics in the country. It then describes the rise of girl's comics in the early 1950s, the appearance of parodies of the superhero, and the (continued) rise of the small superhero publishers. It also explores British publications that were viewed as doppelgangers of Captain Marvel, including Electroman, the production of Marvelman stories by the Gower Studio, and the resurrection of DC Thomson superheroes and the creation of new ones. Finally, it looks at the publications of Fleetway and the Independent Publishing Corporation (IPC) and suggests that the late 1950s and early 1960s were very interesting times for British adventure comics.

This chapter includes a 2009 essay by multi-faceted University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor Damian Duffy highlighting the curatorial philosophies that avoid confronting the conceptual challenge of bringing the comics medium into the museum by attempting to fit comics, to one extent or another, into traditional fine art frameworks, including as examples the 2003 Contemporary Art Museum Houston exhibition Splat, Boom, Pow!, Masters of American Comics 2005, UCLA Hammer Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art, Comic Release! from Carnegie Mellon University, and his own curatorial work in partnership with John Jennings on the exhibitions Other Heroes: African American Comics Creators, Characters, and Archetypes. This chapter discusses new media, if we still need canons, comics versus fine art, comics as non-art, lone genius versus collaboration, display tactics, narrative, and racial inclusion.

This chapter examines Chris Ware’s rejection of realistic figure drawing in his own comics and his promotion of memoir, autobiography, and realistic fiction in his anthologies. It traces Ware’s preference for the realistic to his roots in the alternative comics movement of the 1980s and 1990s, along with the movement’s aspirations to realism as part of its pursuit of the highest artistic ambitions. The chapter also looks at how Ware recapitulates aesthetics in his anthologies, most especially in the introduction to Best American Comics 2007.

This chapter examines the development of the revisionist trend in British comics as well as the so-called British Invasion of American comics and its afermath during the period 1981–1993. It argues that revisionism was a continuation and refocusing of the satirical reaction to the superhero genre that has been in evidence in British comics for decades. The chapter first considers Captain Britain, written by Alan Moore for Marvel UK, before discussing Marvelman and V for Vendetta, also created by Moore, this time for Warrior. It then turns to Watchmen (1986) by Moore and Dave Gibbons, one of the most influential superhero comics of all time; Paradax, a character introduced in 1985 by Eclipse Comics in Strange Days #3; Zenith (1987); and the satire Marshal Law (1987). It also analyzes publications that parody the superhero genre, including How to Be a Superhero (1990) and 1963 (1993).

This book has explored the British superhero's long and complex history, even though many have now faded into obscurity. It has also highlighted the ever-shifting balance between parody and satire in British comics and comics produced for international markets by British creators such as Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. Furthermore, it has analyzed the changing industrial and social context of British publishing and the market forces that have shaped British comics. Finally, it has discussed the complex relationship between British and American comics not only in terms of the British Invasion of American comics in the 1980s and its aftermath that is still being felt, but also in the context of the transnational nature of comics and, in particular, the close connections between the American and British markets. In conclusion, the book describes changes in the mainstream British comics industry over the years.

This first part of the monograph introduces Umberto Eco's concept of the opera apertaand links it to the workings of comics as explained through the comics theories of Scott McCloud, Thierry Groensteen, and Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle. The potential for openness in comics is seen as being literalized by the disjointedness and gaps, which are essential to the very form of comics. Specific aspects harbouring the potential for openness are located in various formal and content-related features. The former include the manipulation of word-image relationships, page layouts, and visual styles whereas the latter focus on themes, characters, and references to other media and figuration. This part concludes with an overview of the comics analysed in Part Two.

This chapter discusses how, even if comics were traditionally regarded as entertainment for children and young adults, it was a medium consumed indiscriminately by all age groups. Comics became a literature exclusively for the young with their independence from the newspapers and the appearance of the first comic books around the mid-1930s. This step in the evolution of the medium is extremely relevant, not only because it defined an exclusive age group as readership, but by placing comics below the radar of official popular culture, it laid the groundwork for the development of adult comics some three decades later. Comics appeared in Italy toward the end of the first decade of the twentieth century exclusively as children’s entertainment. In the 1930s, American comics, along with Italian productions, opened its readership to young adults.

This introduction to the book Comic Art in Museums by art historian Kim A. Munson explores the history, controversies, and trends that have shaped comic art exhibitions, important publications, and key museums, galleries, and collecting institutions. Munson explains how the six sections of the book map out the history of influential shows of original comic art from newly rediscovered shows of the 1930’s to contemporary blockbusters like High and Low: Modern Art, Popular Culture and Masters of American Comics, as well as the critical dialogue surrounding these exhibitions. This introduction also contains a brief discussion on shows of fine art influenced by comics, such as Splat, Boom, Pow! The Influence of Comics on Contemporary Art. Includes exhibition photos: Marvel (Seattle), Krazy Kat (Madrid), Rube Goldberg (San Francisco), Mangasia (Nantes).

This chapter traces the history of the EC comics that inspired George A. Romero's Creepshow (1982). The origins of EC can be traced to the beginnings of the American comic book at the start of the 1930s. For all the EC horror titles that ran for only four years from 1950 to 1954 before finally being quashed by the establishment, their legacy, and their importance to both comic book and horror history, is undeniable. Through their political and social messages and their uncompromising images, they were an important site for subversion for American youth in a period which stressed conformity. Some of those American youth, like Stephen King and Romero, would grow up to become significant figures in American horror films and literature, and bring the influence of EC into the genre.

This is a brief interstitial introduction by art historian Kim A. Munson explaining the importance of and interaction between two blockbuster exhibitions featuring comics, High and Low: Modern Art, Popular Culture (MoMA, 1990) and Masters of American Comics (Hammer & Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2005). This chapter discusses The Comic Art Show (Whitney, 1983), Jonah Kinigstein’s satirical cartoons about the NY art world, and the critical and public dialogue surrounding both High and Low and Masters, which has shaped many of the comics exhibitions that followed. This chapter tracks the team of comics advocates that organized The Comic Art Show (John Carlin, Art Spiegelman, Brian Walker, and Ann Philbin), their reactions to High and Low and the production of Masters of American Comics in response.

This chapter contains an in-depth exploration of the issues surrounding comics and museums written by cultural journalist Scott Timberg for the Los Angeles Times in 2005 during the opening of the Masters of American Comics exhibition at the Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. This chapter includes interviews with Ann Philbin, Art Spiegelman, John Carlin, and Brian Walker about the organization of the show. This chapter discusses the valuation of comic art versus fine art, the disillusionment some cartoonists feel about art school and contemporary fine art, and opinions on the future of comic art shows from curators at other museums.

Steamboat, Billy Batson’s friend and valet, was a stereotypical African American character who appeared in Fawcett’s comic books until 1945, when a group of New York City middle school students visited Captain Marvel editor Will Lieberson. Those students, all part of a program called Youthbuilders, Inc., successfully argued for the character’s removal. Drawing on the work of Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and George Yancy, this chapter studies the character and his similarities to other racial caricatures in U. S. popular culture of the era. It also provides a short history of the Youthbuilders, an organization created by social worker Sabra Holbrook. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Alan Moore’s Evelyn Cream, a black character who appears in the 1980s series Miracleman. Although not directly based on Steamboat, Moore’s character was an attempt to address racial stereotypes in superhero comic books, figures that have their origins in the narratives of the 1930s and 1940s.

This is a brief interstitial introduction by art historian Kim A. Munson explaining how the period of rediscovery and large survey shows of comic art were followed by specialized shows exploring comics by a multitude of topics that were previously ignored or taboo, including shows of work by feminist comic artists, by alternative comic artists, by African American comic artists, erotic comics, and experimental shows of ‘gallery comics.’  The Western style of exhibiting comic art replicated internationally to Manga Museums in Japan and to the Cartoon Museum in the United Arab Emirates.

This chapter includes a 2005 article by Leslie Jones of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with John Carlin, curator of Masters of American Comics from the perspective of a curator of works on paper. This chapter discusses comic art’s place in the fine art world, if canons still matter after post-modernism, Carlin’s selection criteria for the geniuses in the show, how the exhibit is organized, the challenges of finding high quality pieces for the show, and Jones pondering who is missing from the roster of the 14 male artists. Images: three exhibit photos from the Hammer Museum.

This chapter includes a 2008 article briefly describing popular women cartoonists by feminist herstorian, author, and curator Trina Robbins. This article was the text of her presentations on women cartoonists in Los Angeles and New York during the all-male Masters of American Comics exhibition and her concurrent show She Draws Comics at MoCCA in NY. This chapter discusses incidents of women left out of articles, exhibits and panels. This chapter lists reasons why comics by women are not taken seriously. Image: She Draws Comics promo.