Obadiah Oldbuck vs. Superman

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

In the extremely unlikely event that someone decided in, say, Amazing Spider-Man #897 to publish the entire story in prose without a single image, but with a typical cover, the same staples and paper and so on, and put it out on the shelves alongside all the other comics that month and in the sequential order of the series in general, I would be perfectly comfortable calling it a "comic book" in the loosest euphemistic terms and I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[Earl Davis]

But I also agree with Eisner that without word balloons you don't have a comic strip or a comic book. You have picture-tales and picture stories as Gaines has called them.

 

I wouldn't weigh in further myself on word balloons without more understanding of historical research on my end, but this is one of those statements that always strikes me as very silly and irrationally single-minded in applying criteria. You would actually say that the 1980s GI JOE comic book series from Marvel stops being a comic book with issue #21, becomes a "picture tale," and then transforms back into a comic book again with #22? And what about all the other Marvel "silent issues" in 2002 right in the middle of long-established comic book series? Are we really going to be that specific about it?

Good point, and if a comic without word balloons is not a comic - should a silent movie then not be a movie?

 

Or is it just a different type of movie?

 

Earl.

[showcase4]

In the extremely unlikely event that someone decided in, say, Amazing Spider-Man #897 to publish the entire story in prose without a single image, but with a typical cover, the same staples and paper and so on, and put it out on the shelves alongside all the other comics that month and in the sequential order of the series in general, I would be perfectly comfortable calling it a "comic book" in the loosest euphemistic terms and I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

 

sorry Doc, I'd lose sleep over this one. Without the internal sequential comic art, you wouldn't have much of a comic book...more like a Spider-Man magazine or Spider-Man text. If I went to sell you a car, and under the hood was a big block of cement instead of an engine, I don't think you'd be calling it a car anymore....or if you did, you certainly wouldn't buy it! food for thought

[Point Five]

I also disagree with gf, but he has his definition and he sticks to with over technical reasoning (IMO) whereas I am more wishy washy but that allows a softer interpretation of definition of terms.

 

I don't know...I'm just a bystander in this discussion, but I thought the Peanut Butter Cup analogy was a slamdunk!

[Earl Davis]

You would actually say that the 1980s GI JOE comic book series from Marvel stops being a comic book with issue #21, becomes a "picture tale," and then transforms back into a comic book again with #22? And what about all the other Marvel "silent issues" in 2002 right in the middle of long-established comic book series? Are we really going to be that specific about it?

 

 

Yes. And here is why:

 

If issue #21 was presented in the form of Gaines' Picto-Fiction would you still call it a comic book?

 

I wouldn't

 

What if it was mostly text with some illustrations, akin to the Marvel Universe Handbook issues... would you still call it a comic book?

 

I wouldn't

 

Now what if there was no interior artwork at all and the contents were strictly text. The book is in the same format as the comic books of that series (page count, dimensions, binding, glossy artworked cover). Would you still call that a comic book simply because it is issue #21?

 

I wouldn't

 

But I would still call the G.I.Joe issue a comic book.

 

Did the Laurel and Hardly Movies only become movies when they started speaking?

 

Did TV shows only become TV Shows when they started to be broadcast in color?

 

Did Comic Books only become comic books when Tokoyop made the modern 21st comic book format the top selling mass market format and superseded the 'old fashioned' 20th century format?

 

Earl

[Earl Davis]

GIJoe 21 is a comicbook. cmon. Theres no need to hold it up in this discussion anyway. It was published by the #1 comicbook company, solicited as a comicbook, manufactured as a comicbook etc etc. And this was all done almost a century after the term and product comicbook existed. At worst or best its a "stunt" comicbook whose storytelling is similar to strips created before the comicbook industry developed.

 

Whats being debated is at what specific point a printed story told with words and pictures in sequential form containing text and dialogue "spoken" directly by the characters illustrated first appeared (in America). And who gets the credit for putting it together. Not whether the 29,4773,233rd published comicbook IS a comicbook because the writer thought it was cool to eliminate all dialogue. If a children's book (picture book) had no words it would still be a childrens book.

 

I disagree. I think this is important at least as far as addressing some of the points made by Giffle.

 

He does not consider Prince Valiant to be a comic strip. Based on that he probably does not consider Little Lulu, the GI Joe issue and other similar combinations of words and pictures to be comics.

 

I respect that opinion, although I don’t share it.

 

I may be wrong but I think most comic collectors would consider Prince Valiant, Lulu, the G.I. Joe issue and Rupert (my avatar) to be comics.

 

They are a slightly different brand of comics than the typical Spider-man issue I have, but they are still comics.

 

Oldbuck closely resembles the presentation of a Prince Valiant strip. It has less in common with this months Spider-man.

 

If a collector accepts Prince Valiant as a comic, I can’t see where the difference is in the Oldbuck strip.

 

If like Giffle, you don’t think Prince Valiant is a comic strip then I can see why you would say Oldbuck wasn’t either.

 

But I still think most collectors think prince Valiant is a comic.

[Aman619]

So the characters got real quiet for an issue. Big deal.

They were talking before it, and they continued to talk after it in chronological order.

 

A valid point.

 

When there is dialogue it is rendered in word balloons, however, not every panel of a comic strip has word balloons... case in point Henry as mentioned earlier or Snoopy in Peanuts... but when there is dialogue it is rendered in true comic fashion using word balloons. So how many panels can you go without having dialogue and still call it a comic? Is a full issue too much? Perhaps.

 

Or when taken as just one silent issue in a series of comic book issues does it still qualify as a comic book (much like a silent panel by itself is just an illustration, but if part of a series of comic strip panels it is still part of the comic strip). Perhaps one can consider it a comic book given the larger scope of the entire series.

 

But what if the issue were all text? Would anyone still call it a comic book because it falls between issues #20 and #22?

 

If GIJoe #21 was all text and no pictures whatsoever, IMO it would still be GIJoe (the comicbook) issue#21. For all the same reasons I stated before: conceived as a comicbook; sold as a comicbook, and bought an dread by comicbook readers who read issue #20 and look forward to #22 when (one hopes) the dialogue comes back!

 

enough on GIJoe already!

[Aman619]

a different way of saying it:

 

ANYthing published in standard comic book form by Marvel about GIJoe in the month between GIJoe #20 and #22 with a big #21 on the cover and in the indicia IS A COMICBOOK.....

[BLBcomics-migration]

Bob points out something I certainly support - word balloons go back a lot farther than the Yellow Kid. We even have a little piece in the upcoming GEM museum book that briefly touches on the evolution of the word balloon as a crucial bit of comics iconography, and while Outcault's work is indisputably important, a turning point, a landmark, it is by no means the beginning of that iconography. There are familiar, consistent uses of word balloons in works that date to the 1780s for example.

 

Say what you want about what constitutes a comic or a comic book, but if you're going to talk about word balloons, they don't arrive with the Yellow Kid.

 

hi Arnold,

Looking forward to the Grand Opening Thursday night Sept 7 - just got my classy black box invite in the mail

 

I wrote this previously here, and i will repeat, on my Plat list we have pushed back the proven concept of the word balloon to 450 AD

 

Word balloons are more common than not on all the cartoon broadsides published in America in the 1700s up thru the beginning of the Civil War - the word ballon was very well known and then discarded as it was thought not to be too classy

 

I have discussed this with Bill Blackbeard many times when my research seemed to indicate as Thomas Nast's popularity rose in the 1860s, and as he was intensly copied becuase of that popularity, and did not use word balloons, this aspect went away - but not completely

 

I view word ballons in comics like i view silent movies

 

- and i have seen very early silent animated cartoons at the Angouleme comics musem using "standard" comic strip word balloons - which was weird at first - i forget the French pioneer animatror's name - i remember it starting with a C and i do not have any of my animation history books handy right now to look his name up

 

but to say "no word balloon" comics are not comics is like saying silent movies are not real movies - and i think guys like Cahrlie Chaplin would object

 

Bill Blackbeard says that most all yellow Kids are not comic strips - just a few at basicly the end of RFO's run on the strip.

 

So, i call YK comics, but obviously YK i smostly not sequential comics, which Obadiah Oldbuck definitely is

 

Many Krazy Kat Sundays contain no words, yet i would definitely call all of Heriman's masterpiece comic strips

 

Comic strips to me is the movement of time between the panels moving a story forward

 

One can easily read many jack Kirby comics without ever having to stop to read the words

[BLBcomics-migration]

I don't know Aman.....Gifflefunk sounds like a pretty intense dude. Aside from his peanut butter cup analogy, he seems to take this subject very seriously.

 

Please. What about the not calling you a savvy investor? I'm full of wit and mirth -- and various other things according to my opponents

 

As for Bob hating Gaines and Eisner. I just figured Bob hates all those that oppose his view that picture-stories are the same as comic books. I mentioned Gaines and Bob went off on a rant about the man. I was truly expecting Bob to start calling Eisner a know-nothing self-aggrandizing so-and-so based on his Gaines tirade.

 

Intense? Yes, when it comes to dealing with anyone that claims prior researchers were all wrong when it comes to comics but they don't take into account the traditional definition these researchers were operating under which defined the context of that research. By creating ones own definition for something all you can really prove is that the research of others does not match your definition. It does not prove that their research was wrong because it doesn't match a definition you've created.

 

The definitions you cling to were not devised until a meeting in Europe in the 1960s - i can dig up the particulars if you like

 

i "hate" very little in my little world

 

I refered to Gaines as a P U S S Y - let's see if this now comes thru - as a bit of humor, thinking of the reference to Custer being refered to as same in the movie WE WERE SOLDIERS, a reference not made by the Mel Gibson character

 

I did not create my own definition all by myself, but one which was labored on over on my Plat list as we have explored the origins of evolution of the comic strip on a world wide basis for some 7 years

 

You seem to imply, or even think, i pulled what i believe out of a vaccuum

[Aman619]

vacuum? a little lower perhaps.

 

 

 

couldnt resist!

[BLBcomics-migration]

the origins of the Yellow Kid myth are covered in Comic Art #3 published back in 2003 by Todd Hignite, written by Doug Wheeler, Leo De Sa and myself.

 

It covers the origins of where Töpffer's comic strip picture stories came from, which countries they hit first, the impact they had in America and the original Töpffer-inspired original home grown comics which came afterwards, replete with obvious swipes from the two Töpffer's books which were printed in America initially by Wilson & Company, plus imports of the 3rd one Beau Ogleby, in many of them.

 

Comic Art #3 is out of print, but with 6000 in distribution, i am sure the serious inquirer will score a copy some where. I olny have one left and it is for my own research archives. We even got the cover for our in-depth look-see.

 

To understand Töpffer's (1799-1846) impact on many countries comics' origins, one has to read thru all seven of Töpffer's comic strip book stories as he improved immensely, andthere are articles by others contemporary to Töpffer who recognized he had invented somethign new at the time, as the printing technology improved.

 

Töpffer created his sequential comic strip stories from 1828 thru 1845 with a 7th on the drawing boards and left most of the way finished, and not published until many years after his death in 1846.

 

I have seen Eisner and Swinnerton bandied about as if they were some sort of expert. Which they most undoubtedly were as far as creating comics go, but that does not mean they had the history down pat in all its international permutations.

 

Some six countries counted so far issued his comic strip stories before his death in 1846.

 

This comes from the home page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PlatinumAgeComics/

 

Description

(Edit)

 

The serious international study of comic strips & books and their creators published before the mid-1930s going back into the 1600s and beyond. All list members are encouraged to search through the archives of close to 16,000 posts of cutting-edge comics history archeology. The subjects covered range the gamut of early comics from all over the world. You will be glad you did.

 

We now have over 400 members in over 30 countries.

 

It appears most modern comic strip roads actually lead back to Rodolphe Töpffer in the 1820s-1840s and most definitely not The Yellow Kid, which was not the first comic strip, merely the first Comics Super Star in America. We are re-writing the comic strip history books here, folks. All concepts welcomed.

 

Pictured to the right is a first printing of the very first comic book printed in America, Brother Jonathan Extra # IX, "The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck", Sept 14, 1842, Wilson & Co., NYC; originally drawn in 1827 by Rodolphe Töpffer and first published in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1837 (his third published album), utilizing the then new technology of "paper transfer lithography."

 

Parisian bootleg printings began by 1839 and soon became very popular.

 

The first English translation was published in 1841 by Tilt & Bogue, London, financed in part by George Cruikshank. Those London printing plates were then shipped over to America, where Wilson & Co, under the direction of B. H Day, founder of the first successful penny newspaper in America in 1833, The New York Sun, began publishing Brother Jonathan "Extra" editions, circa 1841 with this being the 9th one.

 

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is very rare with only a handful of first printings known to exist. Obadiah Oldbuck was continuously in print in America from 1842 through as late as 1904, according to research discovered in The New York Times of that year.

 

and for visual aid we have PlatPics at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PlatPics/

 

Support list for PlatinumAgeComics list for the sole purpose of posting JPGs and other scans to further our research into the international earliest origins of the comic strip. This support e-group is not for posting messages, but rather posting viusal aid.

 

With Yahoogroup's recent switch anti-archive of scans policy, the only effective way this list will work for you is to be on individual emails. Otherwise, you might as well not even be here.

 

There have been many 100s of scans posted. Before yahoogroups.com became anti-archive for visual aid, we downloaded all of them and hope to have that archive back up for research very soon. Once one reads thru all this stuff, one realizes how unimportant Yellow Kid was to the evolution origins of the comic strip as an art form.

 

As a comic strip important to the delivery vehicle known as "newspaper", it was obviously that particular delivery medium's first American super star.

 

The history books which discuss YK as being the "first" of anything other than that which i have previously stated in other posts here are in the main compiled by nationalistic self-centered American writers.

 

World class comics scholar historian Denis Gifford with dozens of comics history books to his name clung to the concept that the very British Alley Sloper was first. Then again, he was an Englishman.

 

Yes, Giffford also would not give up on his misguied myths he grew up with.

 

The origins of the comic strip in printed modern format begins with Rodolphe Töpffer's comic strip books he called "picture stories" when he printed up first first one in 1828, maybe 50-60 copies in total seeing print with that first run. It is obviously very rare and the only way to see it is visit the Töpffer Museum in Geneva - yes, the Swiss have had a museum devoted to this man of art and letters since he passed on. He was then, and remain there very famous.

 

But not in this country.

 

so, a bunch of guys sat down to a beer or three back in teh 60s over in Europe or maybe it was NYC and came up with a definition which strained to include certain criteria and esclude other concepts

 

- kind of like how the 17 books of the New Testament were picked out back in the erly 400s, which also happens to be when the earliest recorded use of word balloons recorded on our PlatPics archive of scans first shwon to wll the lsiters maybe 4-5 years ago was presented which was dated 450 AD if i remember correctly.

 

I say some 400 of us on the PlatinumAgeComics at yahoogroups.com have put our collective heads together and realized that with the ease of the internet letting us come together and share the visuals which we have individually uncovered, many instances some list member having the world's only known copy, we there have been able to read and examine much of what most of you reading this so far have not been able to do.

 

You only speculate

 

and call some one names and suggest that some one is only in this for the money, trying to con others into parting with their hard earned dough over something that you have not seen yet still deride.

 

I was asked by John Snyder a decade ago to bring order out of the chaos of the origins of the comics in America so in Oct-Dec 1996 i complied my first comics hisory article for Overstreet #27 - a path which quickly led me to Europe where it was birthed in the modern sense as we know it today.

 

One can easily view a wordless comic strip from 1617 on page 343 of the current Overstreet - printed on a signel sheet of paper they used to call broadsides, and most of us still do to this day. It was a wood cut

 

The other methodology used to put pictures on paper was acid etched on a metal plate, but words were very difficult to place on the same page, so for the first few hundred years of printing post Gutenberg, it was easier to use type set on separate pages for the most part.

 

- i also included this from Prof David Kunzle's first volume THE HISTORY OF THE COMIC STRIP 1450-1825 (1971) in last year's guide for the first time.

 

Words are not essential for a "comic strip" as we define the term today. They can be present or not depending on how well the artist conveys what he puts on paper with pencil and pen & ink.

 

the mass marketing of comic books began with Töpffer when stone lithography was invented in the 1820s and quicky improved over the next couple decades.

 

They called it Gypsography back then. This was the first time words and pictures could be placed on the same page all done on one page - and Töpffer was there first with the concept.

 

He was a Prof of Physiography as one of his talents, the study of facial expressions as they related to intelligence. His comic strip stories conveyed those emotions on paper which he passed around for his students initially to study.

 

But others wanted to buy his stuff, so further printings bagen to be made for public consumption

 

And he spread to other countries in his life time

 

I merely picked up the story as it unfolded in America and shared the research with the comic scollecting community, acknowledging the research by name of some 40 other comics scholar's in the credits of Victorian section. But I do 99% of the work devising how it is presented each year. It is a labor of love i do for free.

 

I wonder how many of you think i have rooms of this stuff salted away, just waiting till i have hoodwinked enough ditto-head collectors who believe and hang on my words, becoming oblivious to reality?

[showcase4]

the origins of the Yellow Kid myth are covered in Comic Art #3 published back in 2003 by Todd Hignite, written by Doug Wheeler, Leo De Sa and myself.

 

It covers the origins of where Töpffer's comic strip picture stories came from, which countries they hit first, the impact they had in America and the original Töpffer-inspired original home grown comics which came afterwards, replete with obvious swipes from the two Töpffer's books which were printed in America initially by Wilson & Company, plus imports of the 3rd one Beau Ogleby, in many of them.

 

Comic Art #3 is out of print, but with 6000 in distribution, i am sure the serious inquirer will score a copy some where. I olny have one left and it is for my own research archives. We even got the cover for our in-depth look-see.

 

To understand Töpffer's (1799-1846) impact on many countries comics' origins, one has to read thru all seven of Töpffer's comic strip book stories as he improved immensely, andthere are articles by others contemporary to Töpffer who recognized he had invented somethign new at the time, as the printing technology improved.

 

Töpffer created his sequential comic strip stories from 1828 thru 1845 with a 7th on the drawing boards and left most of the way finished, and not published until many years after his death in 1846.

 

I have seen Eisner and Swinnerton bandied about as if they were some sort of expert. Which they most undoubtedly were as far as creating comics go, but that does not mean they had the history down pat in all its international permutations.

 

Some six countries counted so far issued his comic strip stories before his death in 1846.

 

This comes from the home page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PlatinumAgeComics/

 

Description

(Edit)

 

The serious international study of comic strips & books and their creators published before the mid-1930s going back into the 1600s and beyond. All list members are encouraged to search through the archives of close to 16,000 posts of cutting-edge comics history archeology. The subjects covered range the gamut of early comics from all over the world. You will be glad you did.

 

We now have over 400 members in over 30 countries.

 

It appears most modern comic strip roads actually lead back to Rodolphe Töpffer in the 1820s-1840s and most definitely not The Yellow Kid, which was not the first comic strip, merely the first Comics Super Star in America. We are re-writing the comic strip history books here, folks. All concepts welcomed.

 

Pictured to the right is a first printing of the very first comic book printed in America, Brother Jonathan Extra # IX, "The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck", Sept 14, 1842, Wilson & Co., NYC; originally drawn in 1827 by Rodolphe Töpffer and first published in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1837 (his third published album), utilizing the then new technology of "paper transfer lithography."

 

Parisian bootleg printings began by 1839 and soon became very popular.

 

The first English translation was published in 1841 by Tilt & Bogue, London, financed in part by George Cruikshank. Those London printing plates were then shipped over to America, where Wilson & Co, under the direction of B. H Day, founder of the first successful penny newspaper in America in 1833, The New York Sun, began publishing Brother Jonathan "Extra" editions, circa 1841 with this being the 9th one.

 

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is very rare with only a handful of first printings known to exist. Obadiah Oldbuck was continuously in print in America from 1842 through as late as 1904, according to research discovered in The New York Times of that year.

 

and for visual aid we have PlatPics at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PlatPics/

 

Support list for PlatinumAgeComics list for the sole purpose of posting JPGs and other scans to further our research into the international earliest origins of the comic strip. This support e-group is not for posting messages, but rather posting viusal aid.

 

With Yahoogroup's recent switch anti-archive of scans policy, the only effective way this list will work for you is to be on individual emails. Otherwise, you might as well not even be here.

 

There have been many 100s of scans posted. Before yahoogroups.com became anti-archive for visual aid, we downloaded all of them and hope to have that archive back up for research very soon. Once one reads thru all this stuff, one realizes how unimportant Yellow Kid was to the evolution origins of the comic strip as an art form.

 

As a comic strip important to the delivery vehicle known as "newspaper", it was obviously that particular delivery medium's first American super star.

 

The history books which discuss YK as being the "first" of anything other than that which i have previously stated in other posts here are in the main compiled by nationalistic self-centered American writers.

 

World class comics scholar historian Denis Gifford with dozens of comics history books to his name clung to the concept that the very British Alley Sloper was first. Then again, he was an Englishman.

 

Yes, Giffford also would not give up on his misguied myths he grew up with.

 

The origins of the comic strip in printed modern format begins with Rodolphe Töpffer's comic strip books he called "picture stories" when he printed up first first one in 1828, maybe 50-60 copies in total seeing print with that first run. It is obviously very rare and the only way to see it is visit the Töpffer Museum in Geneva - yes, the Swiss have had a museum devoted to this man of art and letters since he passed on. He was then, and remain there very famous.

 

But not in this country.

 

so, a bunch of guys sat down to a beer or three back in teh 60s over in Europe or maybe it was NYC and came up with a definition which strained to include certain criteria and esclude other concepts

 

- kind of like how the 17 books of the New Testament were picked out back in the erly 400s, which also happens to be when the earliest recorded use of word balloons recorded on our PlatPics archive of scans first shwon to wll the lsiters maybe 4-5 years ago was presented which was dated 450 AD if i remember correctly.

 

I say some 400 of us on the PlatinumAgeComics at yahoogroups.com have put our collective heads together and realized that with the ease of the internet letting us come together and share the visuals which we have individually uncovered, many instances some list member having the world's only known copy, we there have been able to read and examine much of what most of you reading this so far have not been able to do.

 

You only speculate

 

and call some one names and suggest that some one is only in this for the money, trying to con others into parting with their hard earned dough over something that you have not seen yet still deride.

 

I was asked by John Snyder a decade ago to bring order out of the chaos of the origins of the comics in America so in Oct-Dec 1996 i complied my first comics hisory article for Overstreet #27 - a path which quickly led me to Europe where it was birthed in the modern sense as we know it today.

 

One can easily view a wordless comic strip from 1617 on page 343 of the current Overstreet - printed on a signel sheet of paper they used to call broadsides, and most of us still do to this day. It was a wood cut

 

The other methodology used to put pictures on paper was acid etched on a metal plate, but words were very difficult to place on the same page, so for the first few hundred years of printing post Gutenberg, it was easier to use type set on separate pages for the most part.

 

- i also included this from Prof David Kunzle's first volume THE HISTORY OF THE COMIC STRIP 1450-1825 (1971) in last year's guide for the first time.

 

Words are not essential for a "comic strip" as we define the term today. They can be present or not depending on how well the artist conveys what he puts on paper with pencil and pen & ink.

 

the mass marketing of comic books began with Töpffer when stone lithography was invented in the 1820s and quicky improved over the next couple decades.

 

They called it Gypsography back then. This was the first time words and pictures could be placed on the same page all done on one page - and Töpffer was there first with the concept.

 

He was a Prof of Physiography as one of his talents, the study of facial expressions as they related to intelligence. His comic strip stories conveyed those emotions on paper which he passed around for his students initially to study.

 

But others wanted to buy his stuff, so further printings bagen to be made for public consumption

 

And he spread to other countries in his life time

 

I merely picked up the story as it unfolded in America and shared the research with the comic scollecting community, acknowledging the research by name of some 40 other comics scholar's in the credits of Victorian section. But I do 99% of the work devising how it is presented each year. It is a labor of love i do for free.

 

I wonder how many of you think i have rooms of this stuff salted away, just waiting till i have hoodwinked enough ditto-head collectors who believe and hang on my words, becoming oblivious to reality?

 

Can't wait 'till Gifflefunk reads this tasty little morsel !

[gifflefunk]

Comic strips to me is the movement of time between the panels moving a story forward

 

So how is The Comical Adventures of the Little Woman, Her Dog and the Pedlar not a comic book by your own definition then?? Clearly a series of illustrations that show movement of time between the panels which move the story forward. You don't consider it a comic book because the captions happen to be in verse?

 

The history books which discuss YK as being the "first" of anything other than that which i have previously stated in other posts here are in the main compiled by nationalistic self-centered American writers.

 

Which is apparently why Lucca, Italy, gives out the Yellow Kid Award... due to American nationalistic writers? (and as far as I know only three American's have ever won this award).

 

And as I never got an answer to this I will repeat myself: Given the Eisner definition, I will state that if McFadden's Flats does contain reprints of Outcault's comic strips (such as those I pointed out earlier), I would consider that the first American comic book unless there is an American tome containing comic strip material (per Eisner's definition) published prior to 1897. Or is the Yellow Kid first in that regard??

 

I never stated that Outcault invented word balloons. I said Outcault started the revolution of using word balloons. Can you name another artist that was experimenting with what Eisner would call a true comic strip (word balloons and sequential art) that should be credited for triggering turn of the century artists like Swinnerton into converting their output from cartoons with captions to comics with word balloons? Swinnerton gives Outcault that credit.

 

The origins simply do not begin with Yellow Kid and Richard Outcault.

 

I'm not claiming anything other than that Outcault began using word balloons and triggered the artwork revolution (going from cartoons with captions to comics with word balloons) at the end of the 1800s and start of the 1900s as noted by prior researchers, historians, and artists. Sure, newspapers were all fighting for Sunday funnies content, but the revolution that occured at the artwork is attributed to Outcault.

 

I'm looking for a real answer and not some tagent statement such as "I wrote this previously here, and i will repeat, on my Plat list we have pushed back the proven concept of the word balloon to 450 AD". I never made statements about the creation or origins of word balloons. The claim is that Outcault triggered a revolution where nearly all cartoonists at the turn of the century began converting their output from cartoons with captions to comics strips. Can you refute the claims of Swinnerton and others that attribute Outcaut as the catalyst for this revolution?

 

I view word ballons in comics like i view silent movies

 

And yes, I will invoke Eisner again... I will take his opinion on what a comic is over your claims any day of the week. And unless you can demonstrate otherwise, the Yellow Kid/McFadden's Flats would appear to be the first book that meets that comic criteria. Which would make it the first comic book. You can argue all you want, but by his definition (the same used by prior scholars), it would appear to be the first comic book.

 

You look as picture-tales vs. comics as silent movies vs. talking pictures which works for you. I look at from an artwork point of view where dialogue is embedded inside the illustration (the analogy of which can be found in the Peanut Butter Cup post).

 

Your definition works for you and your research. What I take issue with is the claims that others "got it wrong" because their research doesn't match your definition. Their research matched the defintion they operated under.

[BLBcomics-migration]

Comic strips to me is the movement of time between the panels moving a story forward

 

So how is The Comical Adventures of the Little Woman, Her Dog and the Pedlar not a comic book by your own definition then?? Clearly a series of illustrations that show movement of time between the panels which move the story forward. You don't consider it a comic book because the captions happen to be in verse?

 

what Andy K puts on his site is s reprint of a reprint - not a stand alone like obadiah

 

The history books which discuss YK as being the "first" of anything other than that which i have previously stated in other posts here are in the main compiled by nationalistic self-centered American writers.

 

Which is apparently why Lucca, Italy, gives out the Yellow Kid Award... due to American nationalistic writers? (and as far as I know only three American's have ever won this award).

 

What does Luuca's Yellow Kid award have to do with anything in this discussion?

 

And as I never got an answer to this I will repeat myself: Given the Eisner definition, I will state that if McFadden's Flats does contain reprints of Outcault's comic strips (such as those I pointed out earlier), I would consider that the first American comic book unless there is an American tome containing comic strip material (per Eisner's definition) published prior to 1897. Or is the Yellow Kid first in that regard??

 

RB: YK At Mcfadden's Flats reads like a typical Big Little Book in a digest-size format. The YK illustrations therein were re-drawn except for the very last fe wpages - even by that time most of the original art and printing plates had been lost to us. You spculate on somehting you seem yo have not seen or read yet?

 

I never stated that Outcault invented word balloons. I said Outcault started the revolution of using word balloons. Can you name another artist that was experimenting with what Eisner would call a true comic strip (word balloons and sequential art) that should be credited for triggering turn of the century artists like Swinnerton into converting their output from cartoons with captions to comics with word balloons? Swinnerton gives Outcault that credit.

 

I give the credit to the publishers and art directors who told their artists what to do. You remain hung up on word balloons, and this is getting boring.

 

The origins simply do not begin with Yellow Kid and Richard Outcault.

 

I'm not claiming anything other than that Outcault began using word balloons and triggered the artwork revolution (going from cartoons with captions to comics with word balloons) at the end of the 1800s and start of the 1900s as noted by prior researchers, historians, and artists. Sure, newspapers were all fighting for Sunday funnies content, but the revolution that occured at the artwork is attributed to Outcault.

 

NYC newspaper publishers triggered the "revolution" you cite. All these staff artists drew what they were told to compile.

 

I'm looking for a real answer and not some tagent statement such as "I wrote this previously here, and i will repeat, on my Plat list we have pushed back the proven concept of the word balloon to 450 AD". I never made statements about the creation or origins of word balloons. The claim is that Outcault triggered a revolution where nearly all cartoonists at the turn of the century began converting their output from cartoons with captions to comics strips. Can you refute the claims of Swinnerton and others that attribute Outcaut as the catalyst for this revolution?

 

Topffer's seven comic book stories remain what they are - have you read all 7 yet?

 

I view word ballons in comics like i view silent movies

 

And yes, I will invoke Eisner again... I will take his opinion on what a comic is over your claims any day of the week. And unless you can demonstrate otherwise, the Yellow Kid/McFadden's Flats would appear to be the first book that meets that comic criteria. Which would make it the first comic book. You can argue all you want, but by his definition (the same used by prior scholars), it would appear to be the first comic book.

 

I will repeat myself: have you had the opportunity to read what you argue yet?

 

You look as picture-tales vs. comics as silent movies vs. talking pictures which works for you. I look at from an artwork point of view where dialogue is embedded inside the illustration (the analogy of which can be found in the Peanut Butter Cup post).

 

which was silly to begin with

 

Your definition works for you and your research. What I take issue with is the claims that others "got it wrong" because their research doesn't match your definition. Their research matched the defintion they operated under.

 

they did not cast their net wide enough - i do not operate under narrow confines. The comic strip house is large enough to be more inclusive than what you have been psycho-babbling on here.

[infinite_comics-migration]

what i just read from gifflefink, real name unknown, choosing to hide behind pseudo-name....

 

C'mon, did you really just try to use this lame tactic? Try again, Bob. I know Gifflefunk's real name. I've seen it published. Arnold B can vouch for him too.

 

He's legit and he knows his schit.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

That's true, yes.

[BLBcomics-migration]

that may be all and fine, so what is it?

 

some body hinting i do not know my "schit"

 

i actually object to all the CB-style handles on threads such as this

[Jayman]

that may be all and fine, so what is it?

 

some body hinting i do not know my "schit"

 

i actually object to all the CB-style handles on threads such as this

 

Objection Overruled!

 

BTW: The main players in this discussion are making this one of the best (and informative) threads on the boards!

[infinite_comics-migration]

some body hinting i do not know my "schit"

 

Just the opposite - it appeared you were hinting Gifflefunk's points were invalid (were schit) just beause you don't know his name? If that wasn't the point, why'd you even type "what i just read from gifflefink, real name unknown, choosing to hide behind pseudo-name, is preposterous"?? That has nothing to do with the information presented and just makes you look immature.

 

As just mentioned, this is a very informative thread, and I've chimed in, so now I'll chime out...