The History of Comics to 1937

     During the 18th and 19th centuries, comic strips were not very popular. Some caricatures and small cartoons did exist but were politically directed. In the late 19th century, the modern comic strip came into existence and gained almost instant popularity.

On May 5, 1895, the first comic strip appeared in the New York Sunday World (2). Drawn by Richard Felton Outcault, Hogan's Alley became the first American cartoon strip (3). This cartoon strip later became known as The Yellow Kid because of the main characters' long, dirty yellow night-shirt (4). This comic strip was the first comic of its kind to use the balloon type element that contained the words that characters spoke. Outcault soon left the New York Sunday World and printed his comic strip in the New York Journal. The Yellow Kid became proof that comic strips sold in newspapers, and soon became a must in all newspapers.

     Other early popular comic strips were Outcault's Buster Brown, Carl Emil Schultze's Foxy Grandpa, Wimdsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, and Charles William Kahles's Hairbreadth Harry (5). The first successful daily comic strip, Mutt and Jeff appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 15, 1907 (6).

     The first comic book was called The Funnies which was printed in 1929 (7). There were thirteen issues, and its pages were in full color and were the size of a tabloid newspaper. The first comic book to sell in an actual new-stand was called Famous Funnies, and appeared in 1934 (8)

Most comic book of this time were humoristic and had themes that portrayed children and pets (9). The three main types of comics, detective, science fiction, and jungle comics, of the 1930's were represented by Dick Tracy, Flash Gordan, and Tarzan. These three comics were the most popular of the time and were the turning point in comic book history