April Edition Live Magazine - April 2014 Issue. | Page 92

history of comics

“A Geeks History of Comics”
If you asked one to sit down and
write a history of video games, one
would have to cast his mind back
to the 70’s (although it’s history can
date back to at least 1947). So at
least fifty years of history to account
for. However if you were to sit down
and contemplate the history of comic
books, one must take a leap back to
at least 1830. As you, dear reader,
might realise, this is quite the mammoth task. A task I am up to the challenge of completing.
As a young boy of six or seven I
recall my mother taking me to the
newsagency and buying me my first
comic, “The Spectacular SpiderMan”. I now, as an adult, own more
comics than I care to count, which
takes up more space than my home

Rather than bore you with a detailed
essay on the history of the comic
book medium, I would like to take
you on a personal journey through
comic book past. My personally selected highlights from it’s rich almost
200 year history. From the humble
newspaper comic to the superhero.
From DC to Marvel. From Image to
Dark Horse. Lets look back.
As it is known today, the first official
‘comic book’ sprang to life in 1933.
It was a humble collection of older
newspaper stories all bound together (or rather stapled) and sold as one
collected book, thus the comic book
was born! From here, the most notable of these newspaper comic book
heroes was Lee Falk’s The Phantom, shooting his way off the page in

In 1938 two young Jewish immigrants to the United States were
about to change everything we knew
about popular culture. These two
men, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster who, as teenagers would continuously work on projects together.
Jerry, the writer, would come up

“THINGS WERE CERTAINLY DIFFERENT IN THE EARLY DAYS. IN THOSE FIRST FEW
ISSUES SUPERMAN COULDN’T EVEN FLY..”
is seemingly willing to offer. Collecting comics is a fulfilling, enlightening
and rewarding (and often expensive)
hobby. I can only begin to imagine
the collections that some people,
who I’m sure have been collection
far longer than I have been alive,
must have. Such rich history. It almost makes me curl up and weep
out of envy alone.

1936. Although the Phantom never
really became a ‘comic book’ until the 1940’s, it is important to take
him into account. He is one of the
first, great recognisable heroes of
pop culture, and remains an icon of
the genre to this day. He may never
have reached the heights of success
that his successors would enjoy, but
he continues on with a great legion
of fans.

be at the scene of trouble and it wouldn’t
seem suspicious. Then a quick spin in a
phone-booth later and the man of steel
himself would emerge, ready to fight injustice, right wrongs and do lots of things
involving “the American way”. Superman
would go on to become one of the biggest pop culture icons in history. From
the wonderfully camp George Reeves
television series of the 50’s through to
the, ironic in their own right, Christopher
Reeve films of the 70’s-80’s. Even last
year we saw Superman return to big
screens in the epic blockbuster Man Of
Steel, which met to great box office returns, cementing the fact that first superhero isn’t going anywhere. He maintains
immense popularity even though he has
been through a few rough patches (which
we will get to later).

with crazy ideas and Joe who was
quite the artist, would pencil these
ideas down. One night Jerry had an
idea and couldn’t sleep. He ran to
Joe’s house, the two of them began
to create what would become in
1938, Superman, the first real SUPER HERO. Published by the comic book company Detective Comics
(later DC Comics) Superman would
become their biggest hit.

He was super strong, could leap
tall buildings in a single bound and
was as fast as a speeding locomotive! Things were certainly different
in the early days. In those first few
issues Superman couldn’t even fly,
but the essentials were all there. Superman was an alien from the planet
Krypton, sent to Earth by his father,
in a last ditch attempt to save his
race from destruction. On Earth he
was to be raised by the Kent family,
who named their new child, Clark.
As a grown man, Clark worked as a
newspaper man, so he could always

There is no way you could sit down to
write a history of comics without taking
into account the father of all superheroes.
In 1939 a small comic book company
called Timely Comics launched one of
their most successful comic book series,
Marvel Comics #1, featuring The Human
Torch and Namor The Submariner. Yes,
Timely Comics would eventually (in 1961,
to be exact) become MARVEL COMICS!
Next time in “A Geek’s History of Comics”, we will look at the foundation of Marvel Comics and the beginnings of their
“Superman”, CAPTAIN AMERICA. To be
continued, in the next thrilling issue.

“..SUPERMAN WOULD
GO ON TO BECOME ONE
OF THE BIGGEST POP
CULTURE ICONS IN
HISTORY.”
Written by Scott F. Sowter
Images from Wikipidea.