The term comic , which derives from the English word comic , refers to the succession or series of vignettes that allows a story to be told. The concept also refers to the magazine or book made up of comics.
Comic is usually used as a synonym for comic strip . The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ), however, specifically defines the comic as the series of drawings that, with or without text, make up a story . A comic can be anything from a strip to a book with many pages.
It can be said that a comic presents a succession of drawings organized in such a way that it allows it to transmit the necessary data for the receiver to record the development of the story. The reader, as he advances through the panels of the comic, acquires new knowledge of the narrative .
A comic can be developed in a newspaper strip, on a page in a newspaper or magazine or in a publication exclusively dedicated to it (such as a book). It can also be presented on a website .
There are various genres of comics. One of the most popular is the action or adventure comic that has superheroes as protagonists. The X-Men , Batman , Superman , Spider-Man and Captain America are some of the most famous characters in comics. The best-known publishers of this type of comics worldwide are American: Marvel Comics and DC Comics .
Comics lovers usually meet at various meetings and events . Among them, the San Diego International Comics Convention ( United States ) stands out, known as Comic-Con .
Comic origins
Although the comic format is quite popular worldwide, it is far from occupying a position comparable to that of cinema, television or music. In any case, we could say that regular comic book readers have a profile more similar to that of literature lovers, and this explains why the volume of money associated with this market is not colossal.
This duality, so to speak, of the comic brings with it a kind of misinformation about many of its aspects. For example, not many people questioned at random would be able to say when the first comic was published, and they would probably point to the 1960s or 1970s; However, before Spiderman emerged, created by Stan Lee , considered by many the "father of comics", Superman had been on the market for almost three decades, and the Kryptonian had not been the first to spread his stories on the pages of magazines. and newspapers.
To find the first comic publications it is necessary to know the limits of the concept, and in this case it is not easy: although the majority's tendency is that it must have a certain length to be distinguished from graphic humor (typical of newspapers and magazines of general interest), the definition is not rigid. Perhaps the fundamental element of the comic is the story; Unlike comic strips, the settings, events and characters are presented with a work similar to that of a novel .
Already in Egyptian hieroglyphics and Greek vases we can see drawings that seem to be telling a story in a similar way to today's comics, with a sequential structure that probably influenced artists of several centuries. But the comic as we know it today may have emerged in Japan around the 17th century to capture legends and stories with the help of drawings. Two centuries later, the English began publishing an early version of the comic in newspapers and magazines, although these were images with captions, rather than described scenes and dialogue.
It was only Rodolphe Töpffer , a Swiss cartoonist, who during the first half of the 19th century created the balloon or speech bubble and refined the art of comics until it gave it a form very similar to the current one.