TIME Collection Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels

TIME Collection
Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels






June 18, 1945

Maudlin's "Willie"
Nov. 26, 1945

H.T. Webster
Jan. 13, 1947

Milton Caniff
Nov. 6, 1950

Al Capp
July 21, 1961

Bill Maudlin
Apr. 9, 1965

The World According to Peanuts
Feb. 9, 1976

Trudeau's Doonesbury
Apr. 17, 1978

Saul Steinberg
Mar. 14, 1988

Superman at 50
May 20, 2002

Spider-Man

TIME's coverage of the comics, which began with a 1928 obituary of R.F. Outcault, creator of "The Yellow Kid," reflects the rise, fall and rise of the medium.

Comics, both in strip and comicbook form, became a major part of American popular culture over the course of 1930s, reflected by their increasing exposure in the magazine. This early period peaked in the 1940s when three cartoonists made it to TIME's cover, including Bill Maudlin ("Willie & Joe"), H.T. Webster ("The Timid Soul") and Milton Caniff ("Terry & the Pirates"). Superman, by far the most popular comics subject in the magazine, first arrived in 1938, became a cover subject in 1988, and eventually generated 21 articles over fifty years tracking his many iterations in the comics, movies, radio and even theater.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s TIME covered America's increasing concern over comics' influence on children. Eventually congressional hearings led to the introduction of the Comics Code Authority. This censoring body precipitated a major decline in the medium and its coverage in the magazine from the 1960s through the end of the twentieth century. But lately, with the blossoming of long-form comics known as graphic novels, TIME has included over twice as many comics-related stories since 2000 than it had during the entire 1990s. (Way ahead of the curve, TIME's first review of a "novel" in cartoon form, Milt Gross' "He Done Her Wrong," appeared in 1930.) Below is a collection of most every article ever published in TIME and on TIME.com covering cartoonists, comics, comic strips, comic books, comix and graphic novels.

Quick Links

* Comic Strips: By Artist
* Comic Strips: General
* Comic Books: European
* Comic Books: Japanese Manga
* Comic Books: General
* Comic Books: MAD
* Comic Books: Romance
* Comic Books: Superheroes: Batman
* Comic Books: Superheroes: General
* Comic Books: Superheroes: Superman
* Comic Books and Children / Comics Code Authority
* Comic Books as Educational and Promotional Tools
* Graphic Novels: By Artist
* Other Media: Books
* Other Media: Digital
* Other Media: Museums
* Other Media: Movies
* Other Media: Radio
* Other Media: Television
* Other Media: Theater
* Cartoonists: Other

Comic Strips: By Artist
Adams, Scott | Dilbert
Layoffs for Laughs
A cartoon called Dilbert uplifts the downsized
Mar. 18, 1996

Weasels at Work
Recession. Layoffs. Corporate scandal and stupidity. Yes, it's a great time to be Dilbert
Nov. 04, 2002

Baginski, Frank & Dodson, Reynolds | Splitsville
Comic Splits
The nation's first comic strip about divorce
Feb. 19, 1979

Billingsley, Ray | Curtis
Blondie, Meet Herb And Marcy
Long shut out of the mainstream, black cartoonists are now livening up the nation's funny pages
Nov. 25, 1991

Breathed, Berke | Bloom County
A Hooligan Who Wields a Pen
Cartoonist Berke Breathed thinks reporters are "bloodsucking geckos." But then again, he says even his relatives believe his brain went out with last week's meat loaf
Dec. 25, 1989

Caniff, Milton | Terry and the Pirates
Harvard and the Pirates
[A] panicky Harvard crew decided it could not win without inspiration... a picture of one of [Caniff's] luscious, semi-nude female characters.
June 19, 1939

Army's Terry
Milton Caniff is a youngish (34) comic strip artist whose Terry and the Pirates is popular (23,000,000 subscribing readers in some no civilian papers) partly because it is filled with lusciously sculptured ladies who move sensuously against a background of Oriental intrigue.
Jan. 18, 1943

Captain Midi Is Not Himself
In many a newspaper shop the only things kept constantly under lock & key are the make-up man's mats of future comics, usually received from syndicates two weeks ahead of publication.
Jan. 17, 1944

Not for Kids
In a way, the 162 newspapers that signed up for Milton Caniff's new comic strip were buying a pig in a poke. But publishers, who don't buy comics for the fun of it, were sure that it would be a prize porker.
Dec. 02, 1946

Escape Artist
In the big white house on Tor Ridge, west of the Hudson, a lightburned all through the winter night. Inside, in a cavernous studio, it glared down on a drawing board where a heavyset, black-haired man put careful strokeson a paneled page.
[See Cover]
Jan. 13, 1947

Double Take
Four years ago, Cartoonist Milton Caniff gave up his Terry and the Pirates to draw a brand-new comic strip around a handsome, tough character named Steve Canyon. Last week readers of Steve Canyon and Terry (now drawn by George Wunder) were having a hard time keeping the strips apart.
Apr. 02, 1951

Drums in Old Mizzou
Faintly but distinctly, the mesmeric boom-lay-boom of publicity drums on Manhattan's Madison Ave. is heard 980 miles away in Columbia (pop. 43,000), site of the University of Missouri ... name the new boulevard (boom-lay-boom) after Milton Caniff.
Sep. 01, 1958

Capp, Al | Li'l Abner
Lena v. Gravel Gertie
Cartoonists do not all belong to the same club. Cartoonists Alfred Gerald Caplin (Al Capp), who draws Li'I Abner, and Chester (Dick Tracy) Gould have never met. But Al Capp has been admiring Dick Tracy from afar.
Apr. 08, 1946

Tain't Funny
Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner walks a dangerous rope: it often picks its topics out of the headlines, and sometimes finds its humor in the neighborhood of the outhouse. Last week, on both counts, it disappeared for a week from the columns of the Scripps-Howard Pittsburgh Press.
Sep. 29, 1947

Sacking of the Shmoo
Except for Chic Young's Blondie and Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, no U.S. comicstrip has ever scored a solid hit in Britain. But when the lid was taken off newsprint last winter, the London Sunday Pictorial jumped to sign up Al Capp's Li'l Abner.
May 23, 1949

No Vent
Reader Terrence O'Toole of Moorhead, Minn, was troubled. Why had Al Capp's comic strip, Li'l Abner, been missing from the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune for four weeks in a row? Wrote Reader O'Toole: "Censorship? Slow mail service?Forget to pay the syndicate?"
Aug. 07, 1950

Die Monstersinger
Al Capp, the cartoonist-creator of Li'l Abner, probably has a sharper eye for slobs, monsters, hags and fiends than anyone alive.
[See Cover]
Nov. 06, 1950

The Unthinkable
In the comic-strip world of Li'l Abner the unthinkable is always happening. But few readers ever expected the most unthinkable event of all: the("gulp") marriage of Li'l Abner to Daisy Mae.
Mar. 31, 1952

A Letter From the Publisher
When Cartoonist Al Capp began introducing his readers to LIME "the magazine with a flavor" we asked Capp to tell usa little more about the new publication and how it got its name.
Dec. 22, 1952

Rap for Capp
... last week, while readers watched Capp spoof Cartoonist Allen Saunders' lovable, motherly missus-fixit Mary Worth as a nasty, interfering old harpy named Mary Worm, the worm turned: Capp himself emerged in Mary Worth drawn as a swinish (ugh!), detestable cartoonist named Hal Rapp.
Sep. 09, 1957

Which One Is the Phoanie?
[Joan Baez is] so sure Al Capp's cartoon character is a take-off on her that she has demanded an apology and the immediate execution of the comic strip abomination.
Jan. 20, 1967

Curtis, Dal | Rex Morgan, M.D.
Operation on the Doctor
At the Newark (N.J.) News (circ. 257,000) one day last week, Editor Lloyd M. Felmly studied some advance proofs of the comic strip, Rex Morgan, M.D., and came to a sharp decision. He killed the strip...
Dec. 25, 1950

Rex Morgan Revealed
... After a long and successful effort to keep his own identity a secret, Rex's creator and author has now owned up. His name: Dr. Nicholas P. Dallis, 42, Toledo psychiatrist.
Jan. 25, 1954

De Beck, Billy | Barney Google & Snuffy Smith
De Beck Dies
The begetter of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith died last week in Manhattan
Nov. 23, 1942

Dirks, Rudolph | The Katzenjammer Kids
Dirks's Bad Boys
... At 79, Rudolph Dirks is the most tenacious cartoonist in the U.S., and at 60 his pen children, the Katzenjammer Kids, are the oldest inhabitants of the U.S. comic strips.
Mar. 04, 1957

Falk, Lee | The Phantom
"Fantom, Yu Pren Tru Bilong Mi"
A comic strip becomes a hot issue in the jungle
Sep. 26, 1977

Feiffer, Jules | Feiffer
A Matter of Medium
Writer Jules Feiffer recalls the forces that redirected his career
May 21, 2001

Gilbert, Paul Thomas & Stossel, Anne | Bertram
Comic for Kids
One morning in 1938 Publisher Elzey Roberts of the St. Louis Star-Times glanced over the comics running in that day's editions, noted that of eleven strips, ten dealt with fist fights, murder, domestic quarrels, fear, theft, despair, deception, torture, arson, death. Publisher Roberts sat down and wrote an indignant editorial.
Sep. 30, 1940

Gould, Chester | Dick Tracy
Crime & Punishment
... With a grimace, [Atlanta] Constitution Managing Editor William H. Fields announced that Dick Tracy was being dropped from the paper permanently.
Jan. 04, 1960

Gray, Harold | Little Orphan Annie
Annie's Daddy
Ten years ago Harold Lincoln Gray was an obscure artist on the Chicago Tribune,understudying Cartoonist Sidney Smith and lettering in his comic strip"The Gumps." One day in 1924 Gray showed Editor Joseph Medill Patterson a new comic of his own called "Little Orphan Otto." Editor Patterson, an enthusiastic expert on comics, changed Otto to Annie, and started her on her way in the Tribune in August 1925.
June 04, 1934

"Veiled, Vindictive" Annie
The Huntington, W. Va. Herald-Dispatch solemnly stopped publishing the famed comic strip, "Little Orphan Annie," last week on the ground that"Annie has been made the vehicle for a studied, veiled, and alarmingly vindictive propaganda."
Sep. 09, 1935

Tougher than Hell With a Heart of Gold
... This month in 350 newspapers all over the world, Annie reaches her 40th birthday looking no older than when she was born.
Sep. 04, 1964

Censoring Orphan Annie
Daddy Warbucks is in serious trouble.
Feb. 26, 1965

Guggenheim, Alicia & McMein, Neysa | Deathless Deer
Deathless Deer
One thing that New York Daily News Publisher Joseph Patterson knows for sure is comics. ... But until last week he had not bought a new strip for nine years.
Oct. 19, 1942

The Death of Deathless Deer
Who stabbed Baba Waring, leading lady of Folliana, when the lights went out? Most New York Daily News readers probably don't care. Those who do will never know, because Publisher Joe Patterson murdered Deathless Deer (TIME, Oct. 19).
Aug. 02, 1943

Hanan, Harry | Louie
Little Guy
Many a U.S. citizen, stoutly convinced that only a Briton could laugh at a British joke, was unknowingly doing it himself last week. A pantomime comicstrip called Louie, a month after its U.S. invasion, was already in 28 newspapers...
Apr. 21, 1947

Herriman, George | Krazy Kat
Among the Unlimitless Etha
In his home near Hollywood last week, the gentlest, most poetic of U.S. popularartists laid down his pen at last. George Herriman, 63, creator of thesovereign comic strip, Krazy Kat, died after a long illness.
May 08, 1944

Johnson, Crockett | Barnaby
The End of a Fairy Tale
At its best, no comic strip was more whimsically humorous than Crockett Johnson's Barnaby.
Jan. 28, 1952

Kelly, Walt | Pogo
Joe in the Comics
When a catlike creature named Simple J. Malarkey first entered the swampy world of Pogo, readers of Walt Kelly's comic strip noticed that he bore a marked resemblance to Joseph R. McCarthy of Washington. D.C.
Sep. 06, 1954

Out Goes Pogo
... Last week Pogo was again making some of his clients unhappy.
Dec. 01, 1958

Politics Is Funny
The pig in Pogo, Walt Kelly's pseudo-sophisticated comic strip, spoke a kind of Pig-Russian and bore an unmistakable resemblance to Nikita Khrushchev
May 25, 1962

Extinction of the Longhorn
Just as sure as presidential candidates crop up every four years, so is Cartoonist Walt Kelly sure to needle them in his comic strip, Pogo
Mar. 29, 1968

Kincaid, Mary | Contes Français
Gallic Comic
... Mrs. Kincaid draws [Contes Français] between trips to the washing machine and feeding her three children. Editors fault her draftsmanship but marvel at the apparent hunger for a comic strip that totally shuns English.
Apr. 12, 1963

McGruder, Aaron | The Boondocks
Comic N the Hood
The Boondocks has scored with its brash racial humor, but not everyone's laughing
July 05, 1999

McManus, George | Bringing Up Father
Jiggs & Maggie
In newspaper lore is the legend of a young cartoonist, flouted by the parents of the girl he wished to marry, who made himself rich by putting them in a comic strip. Earthy, rude nouveaux riches, Jiggs & Maggie became famed in song, story, burlesque.
Feb. 01, 1932

Mortimer, Winslow & Spence, Hartzell | David Crane
Comic Cleric
Where will David Crane's first parish be? Will well-born Virginia want to marry him when she finds out the rugged truth? How will Boulder Bluff's cow country characters take to the tall, blond, young minister fresh from divinity school? These are the questions posed in 101 U.S. newspapers this week by a slick new comic strip...
Mar. 12, 1956

Outcault, Richard | The Yellow Kid
Death of Outcault
As it must to all men, Death came last week to Richard Felton Outcault, 65, who caused the phrase, "yellow journalism," and had a good time doing it.
Oct. 08, 1928

Pett, Norman | Jane
Daughter of Jane
What Rita Hayworth was to the American G.I., a lissome lass named Jane was to the British Tommy -- and more.
Sep. 08, 1961

Schultze, Carl E. | Foxy Grandpa
Grandpa's Pa
A war-minded public scarcely noticed the passing of Foxy Grandpa, one of the great comic strip characters...
Nov. 14, 1938

Shulz, Charles | Peanuts
Child's Garden of Reverses
In a decade that has seen much of the fun leak out of the funnies, a Popsicle set Punchinello named Good Ol' Charlie Brown has endeared himself to millions of newspaper readers with a quietly wistful brand of humor that is both fresh and worldlywise.
Mar. 03, 1958

Good Grief, Charlie Schulz!
In a new paperback called The Gospel According to Peanuts (Knox; $1.50), [Robert L. Short] contends that [Peanuts], whose creator is a lay preacher in the Church of God of Anderson, Ind., is a modern variety of prophetic literature
Jan. 01, 1965

Good Grief
...Religion, psychiatry, education—indeed all the complexities of the modern world—seem more amusing than menacing when they are seen through the clear, uncompromising eyes of the comic-strip kids from Peanuts
[See Cover]
Apr. 09, 1965

A Letter From the Publisher
... The Peanuts chronicle has become world famous, and its harried nonhero is beloved by all who follow his tribulations.
Apr. 09, 1965

The Conquering Zero
... Charlie was born back in 1949 as a newspaper feature. Only now, after six TV specials and a happily long-running off-Broadway musical, has he backed into a full-length animated cartoon, A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
Jan. 05, 1970

Suffer the Little Children
How did a comic strip about a depressed kid become a cultural icon? Find out in The Complete Peanuts
May 03, 2004

Smith, Sidney & Edson, Gus | The Gumps
Why Bertie!
The Gump family have been galumphing along in their daily comic strip for over 30 years. ... Last month the Chicago Tribune evicted The Gumps from their original home.
July 17, 1950

Smythe, Reginald | Andy Capp
'E's Luv'ly
He is a 5-ft. 4-in., 46-year-old, pot bellied, wife-beating little layabout. His floppy cap not only hides his eyes but never comes off -- either in bed or on his rare visits to the tub.
Nov. 01, 1963

Soglow, Otto | The Little King
Old King, New Kingdom
...[L]ast week Cartoonist Otto Soglow, elaborately garbed in the beard, crown and ermine of his Little King, made a coast-to-coast goodwill tour on TWAirliner to celebrate the debut of his famed New Yorker comic strip in Puck...
Sep. 17, 1934

Stamm, Russell | Scarlet O'Neil
The Stainless Texan
For 15 years Chicago Cartoonist Russell Stamm, 40, drew his comic strip Scarlet O'Neil without attracting much attention. Then, two years ago, into the big-city adventures in the strip ambled Stainless Steel, a Texas sheriff far from home.
Jan. 03, 1955

"unknown" | The Adventures of Jim Barry, Troubleshooter
Class-Conscious Comic
[L]ast week the Wall Street Journal turned handsprings in ungrudging admiration of the C.I.O. News (circ. 450,000 weekly), one of the biggest U.S. labor papers.
Apr. 09, 1945

Trudeau, Garry | Doonesbury
Countering the Counterculture
B. D., football quarterback, views huddles as T groups and wears his helmet to mixers so the girls will know who he is. Megaphone Mark, the campus radical,has to rehearse the spontaneous outrage that he expects to deliver at his firstpress conference. Such characters appear in Doonesbury, a comic strip of campus life
May 10, 1971

DOONESBURY: Drawing and Quartering for Fun and Profit
... It takes an artist of power and originality to transform the White House into a cartoon museum. His name is Garry Trudeau, and his Doonesbury is more than mindless mirth.
[See Cover]
Feb. 09, 1976

Doonesday
A comic stripped from the Post
June 18, 1979

Doonesburied
Trudeau too tart for Times
July 23, 1979

Savage Pen
Doonesbury targets the G.O.P.
Nov. 12, 1984

American Notes: Comics
Shelving a Doonsebury series
June 03, 1985

Attacking a "National Amnesia"
Garry Trudeau breaks his vow of silence to skewer Reagan
Dec. 08, 1986

Walker, Mort | Beetle Baily
Flap Flap
... The trouble began when Cartoonist Mort Walker decided his 20-year-old strip needed to catch up with the times. A black character was the obvious answer.
Nov. 02, 1970

Webster, Harold Tucker | The Timid Soul
Average Man
Millions of Americans know Caspar Milquetoast as well as they know Tom Sawyer and Andrew Jackson, better than they know George F. Babbitt, and any amount better than they know such world figures as Mr. Micawber and Don Quixote.
[See Cover]
Nov. 26, 1945

Yager, Rick | Buck Rogers
Passing the Buck
Space cannot hamper nor ray gun faze his hero Buck Rogers, but last week Cartoonist Rick Yager admitted that he had surrendered to one of the lowest of earth-bound weapons: his editor's blue pencil.
June 30, 1958

Young, Murat Bernard ("Chic") | Blondie
Blondie's Father
At the annual dinner of the National Cartoonists' Society last week, everybody recognized President Milt (Steve Canyon) Caniff and Chief Speaker Al (Li'lAbner) Capp at the head table. But most of the 200 guests did not know the big, sandy-haired fellow in the place of honor.
May 09, 1949



Comic Strips: General
Cease Fire
Peace on earth was two weeks old, but in the never-never land of comic strips -- prepared weeks in advance -- the war went on.
Sep. 03, 1945

Stuff of Dreams
In "The Comics" (Macmillan; $5), Artist-Author Colton Waugh, son of the late famed seascaper, Frederick Waugh, has brushed in the history of the funnies' first half-century.
Dec. 01, 1947

The Best Comics of 2006
Check out Andrew Arnold's pics for 2006.
Dec. 28, 2006

All You Need Is...
Last year set a benchmark for women cartoonists with nearly a half dozen major works published, including three in my top ten. This year looks to continue this important upswing with the appearance of Aline Kominsky Crumb's Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir (MQ Publications; 383 pages; $30).
Feb. 21, 2007

The End
This column started about five years ago when comix and graphic novels were just barely beginning to get serious attention from the mainstream press.
Mar. 18, 2007



Comic Books: European
Sweetness & Blight
Both cartoonists have hordes of loyal fans; both draw moonfaced characters; both go by a single name. There ends the resemblance between Belgium's Hergé and France's Siné, two of Europe's finest cartoonists.
Nov. 24, 1958



Comic Books: General
Too Many Magazines?
The newstand boom goes bust
June 17, 1946

A Short Comic-Book History
A timeline of the medium
May 20, 2002

Marvel Unmasked
The incredible tale of how the comic-book company escaped disaster. Next: Can our hero survive its own ambitions?
Aug. 7, 2006



Comic Books: Japanese Manga
The Superhero As Bank Auditor
American executives seeking insight into Japanese business culture should pick up a comic book
Apr. 9, 2001

Look, Up in the Sky!
It's Shonen Jump, Japan's most popular comic, making the leap to America in a single bound
Feb. 24, 2003

Drawing In the Gals
Move over, guys. Graphics for girls are the hot new genre in Japanese comics
Feb. 16, 2004

America is Drawn to Manga
Why girls--and publishers--love Japan's comics
Aug. 10, 2006



Comic Books: MAD
That Old Feeling: What, Me Fifty?
Richard Corliss on the golden anniversary of MAD, the ultimate comic book
Jan. 02, 2003

That Old Feeling: Hail, Harvey!
Richard Corliss on Harvey Kurtzman, founder of MAD and inspirer of the sharpest comedy of the last 50 years
May 06, 2004

Does Mad Need a Museum?
Is Cage correct in considering a 1957 Ford pickup a work of art? Am I right in holding a 1953 Mad comic (#5, of course) in the same esteem? Or are we both merely venerating, financially and artistically, the tastes of our youths that we are too stubborn or eternally adolescent to outgrow?
Feb. 3, 2007



Comic Books: Romance
Love on a Dime
On newsstands all over the U.S. last week, new-style comic books with such come-on titles as Sweethearts, Romantic Secrets, Teen-Age Romances and Young Love were outselling all others, even the blood & thunder variety
Aug. 22, 1949



Comic Books: Superheroes: Batman
The Batboom
Holy hatrack! Batman is moving into the retail trade.
Mar. 11, 1966

Milestoons
RECOVERING. Bruce ("Batman") Wayne, 54, millionaire and caped crusader; from injuries received opposing evil; in Gotham City
Feb. 07, 1994

Eulogy
Stan Lee remembers BOB KANE
Nov. 16, 1998



Comic Books: Superheroes: General
The Comics On the Couch
... Today almost all comicbook characters have problems.
Dec. 13, 1971

Bang! Pow! Zap! HEROES ARE BACK!
After decades in decline, comic books are on the rebound
Oct. 06, 1986

Super, Human Strength
In an unconventional kind of wartime, will audiences warm to unconventional superheroes?
Oct. 22, 2001

A Literary Comic Book
Pulitzer-prizewinning novels don't usually get comic-book tie-ins, but with Michael Chabon's comic-themed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the move makes sense.
Mar. 08, 2004



Comic Books: Superheroes: Superman
Superman
How to end the war quickly seemed ridiculously simple to readers of the comic strips last week: send Superman to clean up Hitler
Sep. 11, 1939

Superman Stymied
While shrapnel and machine-gun bullets ricocheted harmlessly off his impervious body, Superman called a 30-minute truce on hostilities between Blitzen and Rutland, dashed off under the eyes of bemused soldiers to"expose this war as a mockery."
Mar. 11, 1940

Superman's Dilemma
For the tough Marines, as for all U.S. Armed Forces, the Man of Steel is still super-favorite reading. But Superman is now in a really tough spot that even he can't get out of...
Apr. 13, 1942

Superman Adopted
...After a falling out with their publishers a year ago, Siegel & Shuster filed a super-suit for $5,000,000....
May 31, 1948

Most Intimate Problem
After ten years of Superman's astounding antics, McClure Newspaper Syndicate and National Comics Publications thought that readers might be getting bored with their comic-strip hero's invulnerability.
Oct. 24, 1949

Man and Superman
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's an annuity! Superman has belatedly come to the rescue of his creators...
Jan. 05, 1976

No Joke, Superman!
Clark Kent may be a champion of the underdog, but this is one David vs. Goliath story that will never appear in the Daily Planet
Oct. 19, 1981

Up, Up and Awaaay!!!
America's favorite hero turns 50, ever changing but indestructible
Mar. 14, 1988
[See Cover]

80 Days That Changed the World: April 15, 1938
Comic books were just a few years old when the red-caped figure, lifting a2-ton car as if it were lawn furniture, graced the cover of Action Comics No. 1
Mar. 31, 2003

The Problem with Superman
The Man of Steel is looking a little rusty. He's not tragic. He's not cool. Can America's original superhero find a way to reconnect with us?
May 17, 2004



Comic Books and Children / Comics Code Authority
Comic Culture
Comic books, the [Journal of Educational Sociology] points out, are so readable that they become grand-scale teaching aids
Dec. 18, 1944

Are Comics Fascist?
Moppets and moppet-minded grownups buy some 25,000,000 comic books each month. Are they good for children?
Oct. 22, 1945

Bane of the Bassinet
A lot of Americans like comic strips, but some hate them. One who hates them belligerently is Author-Critic John Mason Brown. Last week during a radio debate in Manhattan's Town Hall on what's wrong with the funnies, he collided with boisterous Cartoonist Al Capp
Mar. 15, 1948

Puddles of Blood
[T]he Association for the Advancement of Psychotherapy last week held a symposium in Manhattan on "The Psychopathology of Comic Books."
Mar. 29, 1948

Code for the Comics
Critic John Mason Brown recently called comic books "the marijuana of the nursery." Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham ranked them among the chief "contributing causes of juvenile delinquency."
July 12, 1948

Not So Funny
The Los Angeles Times ran a cartoon last month showing a hand clutching a pistol and a copy of a comic book called Sordid Crimes. The caption asked: "Do your children handle loaded guns?" The Times was belatedly getting into the fight against the sex-and-violence comic books which are the bastard offspring of newspaper comics...
Oct. 04, 1948

Take It from Buzzy
The comic book, Gang Busters, usually a hectic free-for-all of ricochetingbullets, cold-blooded criminals and implacable law enforcers, played host last week to a mild-mannered youth.
Aug. 29, 1949

Outlawed
Canada puts the kibosh on crime comics
Dec. 19, 1949

Horror Comics
Last week, in Manhattan, the comic-book publishing center of the U.S., a three-man Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency began an investigation to find out "the impact upon adolescents" of horror comic books
May 03, 1954

Horror on the Newsstands
On the newsstands of the U.S. and Canada, more comic books are sold than any other type of magazine. About a quarter of the 80 million comic books that readers buy each month are known as "horror comics,"...
Sep. 27, 1954

Code for Comics
The Comics Magazine Association of America, created to combat public criticism of horror comics, last week announced its Comic Book Code, which will be enforced by Censor Charles F. Murphy, former New York City magistrate.
Nov. 08, 1954

The Dior (Horror) Look
The 20 million copies of horror comics sold on U.S. and Canadian newsstands every month will soon have a new "Dior Look." Under the new voluntary Comic Book Code adopted by the industry to avoid state and community censorship, heroines have been redrawn with less obvious curves and more obvious clothes.
Jan. 10, 1955

The Glory and Horror of EC Comics
Richard Corliss on the rise and fall of a 50s horror icon
Apr. 30, 2004



Comic Books as Educational and Promotional Tools
"What It Takes"
The gimmick: a stickily written little comic book which R.O.T.C. commanders were authorized to distribute to incoming freshmen.
Nov. 27, 1950

New Ideas
To lure more tourists, Wyoming's Commerce and Industry Departmentlast week sent out the first of 250,000 free copies of a 16-page color comicbook sketching the joys and beauties of the state.
Apr. 07, 1952

Confessions and Comics
Noting that most of the women who went to Emory's birth-control clinic in Atlanta were avid readers of confessions, the clinic's family planners decided to write some of their own
Jan. 3, 1972

Seriocomics
Donald Duck, meet Karl Marx
Apr. 02, 1979

Truth, Justice and the Catholic Way
HOLY COMIC BOOKS! To appeal to young Catholics, the Vatican has approved acomic book about the life of Pope John Paul II, with emphasis on his soccer-playing, ski-slope-bombing youth in Poland.
Dec. 18, 2000



Graphic Novels: By Artist
Acacella Marchetto, Marisa | Cancer Vixen: A True Story
5 Gripping Graphic Novels for Grownups
Book-length comics with brains and heart. Oh, and all written by women
Oct. 9, 2006

B., David | Epileptic
Darkness Visible
French cartoonist David B. visualizes the invisible. In Epileptic, a moving account of his brother's debilitating illness, he delivers compelling cartoon metaphors for elusive concepts like longing...
Dec. 20, 2004

Barks, Carl | Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times
The Duck with the Bucks
The eleven vintage stories collected in this sumptuous volume, along with a new yarn and a signed, numbered lithograph, are strong evidence that Scrooge and his creator Carl Barks belong in the great mainstream of American folklore
May 17, 1982

Barry, Lynda | One! Hundred! Demons!
Beyond the Funny Pages
Barry's new book, One Hundred Demons (Sasquatch; 224 pages), may be her breakthrough, but she's been perfecting her distinctive take on the funny pages since she was a kid in Seattle.
Sep. 02, 2002

Bechdel, Alison | Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
5 Memoirs That Are Worth Your Time
Extraordinary authors write the stories of their extraordinary lives
May 29, 2006

Briggs, Raymond | Ethel & Ernest
Ethel & Ernest
A best seller in Britain, this winsome little book is one family's 20th century, told as a comic strip that fast-forwards through the decades.
Oct. 25, 1999

Crumb, Robert | The R. Crumb Handbook
Coolest Cat Of Them All
The legendary underground comix maker has a new book and an exhibit
Apr. 07, 2005

Capp, Al | The Life and Times of Dogpatch
The Miracle of Dogpatch
You are about to enter Dogpatch, an average stone-age community, It nestles ina bleak valley, between two cheap and uninteresting hills . . . On this low prefatory note, Comic-Stripper Al Capp introduced his glorified comic book, The Life & Times of the Shmoo (Simon & Schuster; $1), published Dec. 2.
Dec. 27, 1948

Clowes, Daniel | David Boring
Boring's Exciting Ride
You can stop holding your breath. With the release of Eightball #21, underground-comic-book artist Dan Clowes has finally brought to a close his yearlong, three-issue saga, David Boring.
Apr. 24, 2000

Gross, Milt | He Done Her Wrong
Gross Satire
He Done Her Wrong is a"novel" in pictures, a takeoff on anything you like to mention: melodrama, cinema, picture-novels, the U. S., Virtue, Vice, comic strips.
Oct. 20, 1930

Hornschemeier, Paul | The Three Paradoxes
Comic Book Heroes
How four daring young artists are shaking up the world of cartooning
Feb. 07, 2005

Hernandez, Gilbert & Jaime | Love & Rockets
Graphic Sketches of Latino Life
Imagine a Mexican-American TV soap opera written with Federico Garcia Lorca's dramatic intensity and passion for female characters but produced with the randy exuberance of a soft-core-porn video...
Feb. 19, 2001

Katin, Miriam | We Are on Our Own
5 Gripping Graphic Novels for Grownups
Book-length comics with brains and heart. Oh, and all written by women
Oct. 9, 2006

Kelso, Megan | The Squirrel Mother
5 Gripping Graphic Novels for Grownups
Book-length comics with brains and heart. Oh, and all written by women
Oct. 9, 2006

McGruder, Aaron & Hudlin, Reginald | Birth of a Nation
Black Humor
A new comic novel boldly takes on politics and race
Aug. 02, 2004

Medley, Linda | Castle Waiting
5 Gripping Graphic Novels for Grownups
Book-length comics with brains and heart. Oh, and all written by women
Oct. 9, 2006

Moore, Alan & O'Neill, Kevin | The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Super Brits
A graphic novel about Victorian champions
Dec. 22, 2003

Rodriguez, Spain | Nightmare Alley
Nightmare Alley
In the hands of underground-comic pioneer Spain Rodriguez, the 1946 William Lindsay Gresham novel (later a 1947 movie) gets the cartoon treatment its subjects--hustling and degradation in a 1930s carnival--beg for.
Aug. 25, 2003

Sacco, Joe | Safe Area Gorazde
What's Going On?
Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde is a comic-book look at a horrible war
May 01, 2000

Saibara, Rieko | Daring Tax Evasion
Comic Book Heroes
How four daring young artists are shaking up the world of cartooning
Feb. 07, 2005

Satrapi, Marjane | Persepolis
Beneath A Drawn Veil
As a child of Iran's revolution, Marjane Satrapi survived war and repression. Persepolis, her comic-book memoir, shines with rebellious life and laughter
Jun. 02, 2003

Art History
Persepolis draws the veil off the Ayatollahs' Iran
Aug. 18, 2003

Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi is a typical headstrong girl on the cusp of adolescence: she questions her teachers, her parents and her society. It just happens that society is a misogynistic theocracy...
Aug. 25, 2003

Persepolis Finds Love in the Afternoon
And at the end of the film, cheers and applause rang through the Palais; the rhythmic clapping that is Cannes' way of saying "bravo" lasted for more than 15 minutes as Marjane Satrapi, the movie's Iranian-born director, was bathed in love and tears.
May. 23, 2007

Satrapi, Marjane | Perseopolis II
Girl, Expatriated
In the sequel to an acclaimed graphic novel, an Iranian author goes secular
Aug. 23, 2004

Comic Book Heroes
How four daring young artists are shaking up the world of cartooning
Feb. 07, 2005

Satrapi, Marjane | Chicken with Plums
5 Gripping Graphic Novels for Grownups
Book-length comics with brains and heart. Oh, and all written by women
Oct. 9, 2006

Sfarr, Joann | The Rabbi's Cat
Comic Book Heroes
How four daring young artists are shaking up the world of cartooning
Feb. 07, 2005

Spiegelman, Art | In the Shadow of No Towers
The Way We Live Now
How do you write about the world after it has been upended? Two books take on life after Sept. 11
Sep. 06, 2004

TIME 100: Art Spiegelman
The Cartoon Genius
Apr. 18, 2005

Takaya, Natsuki | Fruits Basket
Something About Shojo
Interview: Natsuki Takaya's comics for girls and teens are sweeping Americans off their feet
Aug. 10, 2006

Tatsumi, Yoshihiro | Abandon the Old in Tokyo
What's Unavoidable, Unmissable and Uncovered This Fall
Asia's hits -- and what you might otherwise miss -- this season
Sep. 04, 2006

Tezuka, Osamu | Buddha
Mirth And Morality
Looking for a great comic? Just follow Buddha.
Apr. 12, 2004

Thompson, Craig | Blankets
Blankets
...a first-love story so well remembered and honest that it reminds you what falling in love feels like.
Aug. 25, 2003

Ware, Chris | Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
Right Way, Corrigan
From cartoonist Chris Ware, an elegantly crafted, poignant story of man and not-so-superman

Ware, Chris | Quimby the Mouse
Quimby The Mouse
To say Chris Ware lives in the past is like saying the Queen of England lives in a house. Ware turns the past into a palace.
Aug. 25, 2003



Other Media: Books
Chabon, Michael | The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Biff! Boom!
A super novel about the Golden Age of comics
Sep. 25, 2000



Other Media: Digital
Look Up On The Net! It's...Cyber Comics
Stan Lee takes The 7th Portal and Backstreet Boys online
Feb. 14, 2000

Digital Marvel. 'Nuff Said
Comic-book collectors are known for their obsession with obtaining pristine originals of favorite titles. Now, if they can't get those, they can at least own perfect digital copies on CD-ROM...
Nov. 24, 2003

From Clay to Computer
After two features and dozen of shorts whose wit and grace proved that stop-motion deserved to survive in the digital era, some of the Aardmanites agreed to go to California and make a computer-generated feature with the company's American partner, DreamWorks.
Nov. 3, 2006



Other Media: Museums
Peanuts in the Gallery
Comics, slowly becoming appreciated as literature, are being celebrated in museums too
Dec. 5, 2005



Other Media: Movies
The New Pictures
Superman in the Volcano [Paramount] is the Man of Steel's eighth cinema appearance since the movies muscled in on his vast newspaper-magazine-radio audience (estimate: 50,000,000) last September
July 06, 1942

Cliff-Hangers
...Superman, which cost $350,000, is one of the most expensive serials ever made....
May 31, 1948

The Return of Batman
The 1939 comic-strip creation of Bob Kane, which Columbia Pictures filmed in 1943 as a 15-episode serial, has now been spliced, end to end, to produce a 248-minute marathon of fist fights, zombies and ravenous alligators.
Nov. 26, 1965

The Conquering Zero
... Charlie was born back in 1949 as a newspaper feature. Only now, after six TV specials and a happily long-running off-Broadway musical, has he backed into a full-length animated cartoon, A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
Jan. 05, 1970

Onward and Upward with the New Superman
[On the set] of Superman, possibly the most supersecret, superpublicized movie ever to be shot...
Aug. 01, 1977

Here Comes Superman!!!
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a film that's fun for everyone
Nov. 27, 1978

Comics into Film: Bam! Pow! Eek!
FLASH GORDON Directed by Mike Hodges & POPEYE Directed by Robert Altman
Dec. 22, 1980

Flying High
What the ...! Clark Kent admitting his real identity to Lois Lane after all these years? And then, in full Man of Steel regalia, flying her back to his place, pouring her champagne, cooking dinner and egad! -- taking her to bed?
June 08, 1981

Goodness at the Crossroads
SUPERMAN III Directed by Richard Lester
June 13, 1983

Girl of Steel vs. Man of Iron
Two new movies ["Supergirl" & "The Terminator"] offer the fantasy figures of tomorrow
Nov. 26, 1984

The Caped Crusader Flies Again
Big, dark and flamboyant, the movie Batman aims to bring Gotham City's favorite cave dweller to majestic life
June 19, 1989

Murk in The Myth
A review of Tim Burton's 'Batman'
June 19, 1989

Lean, Green and on the Screen
Step aside, Superman. Get back, Batman. Make way for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latest superheroes to make the big leap from comic books to the silver screen.
Apr. 02, 1990

Extra! Tracy's Tops
Warren Beatty creates the best comic-strip movie yet
June 18, 1990

Battier and Better
Batman Returns is a funny, gorgeous improvement on the original and a lesson on how pop entertainment can soar into the realm of poetry
June 22, 1992

Trouble in Gotham City
There's a new caped star and two flashy new villains, but the third time's a curse for the empty, bloated 'Batman Forever'
June 26, 1995

A Ghost of a Chance
Can ["Ghostworld"] a smartly strange comedy about a couple of weird kids make it in today's crass teen market?
July 30, 2001

Hero Worship
Armed with collosal budgets and fancy special effects, Hollywood is bringing old comic book characters to the big screen. Get ready for the summer of the superheroes
Apr. 15, 2002

Spidey Swings
It's the first episode of what could be the next great movie series. But it's too high on angst, too low on energy
May 06, 2002

Superhero Nation
The new, sensitive incarnation of the Webbed Wonder reminds us how America likes its superheroes: human
May 20, 2002
[See Cover]

Holy Multi-Media!
A history of comics in the movies and TV
May 20, 2002

Little More Than Hulking
Review: "The Hulk" sags under the weight of its psychological subtexts
June 19, 2003

Caught Between Heaven and Hell
Halfway through Constantine, a fully clad Keanu Reeves steps into a shallow pail of water, sits on a chair next to it and holds a cat in his lap. Any actor who can retain his charisma in this weird-silly moment--can keep us watching, and admiring his dutiful nonchalance--deserves to be called a movie star...
Feb. 21, 2005

Batman Gets a New Vehicle
And it's one tricked-out Batmobile. The movie, on the other hand, isn't exactly a smooth ride
June 13, 2005

The Mad Man In The Mask
The man who had it was Alan Moore, probably the greatest writer in the history of comic books. In 1982 Moore--who also wrote Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen--began publishing an almost unbearably dark series of comic books set in a dismal, dystopic future Britain ruled by an oppressive Orwellian government.
Mar. 13, 2006

X-Men, Keanu and Other Mutants
So this year Cannes had a quartet of horror-SF pictures. Two, X-Men The Last Stand and the Taiwanese thriller Silk, showed out of competition in the main selection. Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly played in the official sidebar Un Certain Regard. The fourth film, Bong Joon-ho's The Host was in the independent Directors' Fortnight program.
May. 26, 2006

The Gospel of Superman
The film is a kind of stepchild to the Superman movies of 1978 and '80. Superman (Brandon Routh) has been away from Metropolis for five years, searching for remains of his home planet, Krypton.
June 26, 2006

7 Reasons Why 300 Is a Huge Hit
But, hey, the kids love 300, and we're bound to figure out why. Here are seven guesses as to why the movie was such a Spartanian smash.
Mar. 14, 2007

Movie Villains: So Bad They're Good
And is summer the season of movie superheroes? No: supervillains. They get the plot spinning toward catastrophe; its their lurid schemes the hero must rise to defeat.
April 26, 2007

Is Spider-Man Worth $300 Million?
If that $30 you spend on tickets and popcorn at Spider-Man 3 this weekend seems expensive, consider the checks the producers were writing.
May 3, 2007

Spider-Man Gets Sensitive
No question, this is one wet action movie. It sets a world's record for so-called tough guys shedding tears.
May 3, 2007

Persepolis Finds Love in the Afternoon
And at the end of the film, cheers and applause rang through the Palais; the rhythmic clapping that is Cannes' way of saying "bravo" lasted for more than 15 minutes as Marjane Satrapi, the movie's Iranian-born director, was bathed in love and tears.
May. 23, 2007



Other Media: Radio
H-O Superman
Last week Superman took to the air in earnest, as a three-a-week serial. His sponsor: H-O oats (Hecker Products Corp.)
Feb. 26, 1940

Superman in the Flesh
For Supermaniacs, whose wild devotion to their Man of Steel is a wacky U.S.phenomenon, radio had good news last week. ... Now they can hear Superman in person
Sep. 14, 1942

Not So Super
Every afternoon, millions of U.S. youngsters tune in a radio program that begins: "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive. .. . It's Superman!" Last week, radio row was still chuckling over Clayton("Bud") Collyer's dilemma.
June 10, 1946



Other Media: Television
"Holy Flypaper!"
Television has brought the comics to adults. It comes in the form of Batman, a new twice-a-week hyperthyroid series on ABC.
Jan. 28, 1966

Marvels of The Mind
Looking at a newspaper's entertainment page these days a reader might think the whole country had gone (POW! WOW! WHIZ!) comic crazy. Annie is S.R.O. on Broadway, Superman is the highest grossing movie, and prime-time TV looks like one vast kiddieland.
Feb. 05, 1979

Television
TV has often looked for inspiration to the world of comic books, usually superhero juvenilia like The Flash or The Incredible Hulk. But TALES FROM THE CRYPT is a different kettle of rotting fish.
July 29, 1991



Other Media: Theater
Paper Cutups
It's a Bird . . . It's a Plane . . . It's SUPERMAN is an amiable mediocrity of a musical, capable only of inspiring benign indifference.
Apr. 08, 1966

Good Grief
... Lifted off the newspaper page and on to an off-Broadway stage the boys and girls of Peanuts are only tepidly amusing.
Mar. 17, 1967

Leader of the Pack
A scary musical for kids is just the latest fantasy frontier for British master storyteller Neil Gaiman
May. 01, 2006



Cartoonists: Other
Maudlin, Bill
Bill, Willie & Joe
In any army's vast organization, combat infantrymen are the hundreds of thousands (among the many millions) who are always in the front lines and who carry the dirtiest, heaviest burden of any war. ... Through Willie and Joe, Soldier-Artist Bill Mauldin has honored them in his own way.
June 18, 1945
[See Cover]

Hit It If It's Big
In an art that often uses a shovel instead of a rapier, a backslap instead of a boot, Mauldin, 39, wields the hottest editorial brush in the U.S.
July 21, 1961
[See Cover]

Steinberg, Saul
The World of Steinberg
With a thinking pen, he has transmuted illustrations into museum pieces
Apr. 17, 1978
[See Cover]


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