The Evolution of Comics

Comic books have been with us for over than a century now and their popularity doesn’t seem to dwindle, and there’s nothing out of ordinary in that fact. Comic books have evolved in art style, and the story telling has as well. But what do we know about the history of this popular pastime? Where did it originate? The answer might surprise you.

 

 

Religion and Politics

The very beginnings of comics can be traced to medieval religious imagery. Given what a huge importance spoken word played in the world of faith, artists were faced with a problem of inserting text into a visual medium. They did this in three ways: by placing text in a box on the image itself, by having text stream from the person’s mouth (as the icon ‘Unexpected Joy’ nicely shows) or having the personages hold scrolls with text written on them.

All these forms were used in the very fist comics that were political satires. While scrolls ceased to be used, boxes were used to indicate the narrator or to provide an explanation, with tailed balloons framing text indicating spoken speech.

 

 

Present Day

Even balloons themselves evolved. Initially, the balloon tail went directly to the person’s mouth; later on, they just pointed to the speaker. Balloons with pointy edges started to indicate shouting, whereas clouds indicated thoughts. Later on, tailless balloons became a sort of medium between thoughts and narration, and indication that the lone character is introspecting.

Comic books are very prone to breaking of the fourth wall, because their unique artistic style allows the characters to interact with features that are unique to comic books. Characters may jump form panel to panel, comment on and interact with speech balloons, remark on how many panels are remaining and so on. This meta-comic humor never ceases to entertain.

Comic books have survived for more than a century, and they will continue to exist, whether in paper or webcomic form. There are many comic books online to help you pass your time, and for those of you who like even more ancient form of entertainment, there are sites like eonlinecasino.org.

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