Editing Comics (section)

===English-language comics===
[[File:An angry snarl between friendly relations (BM 1902,1011.9702).jpg|thumb|300px|"An angry snarl between friendly relations" - Satirical print on the politics around the [[Caroline Affair]] (1840–1841)]]
{{multiple image
 | width = 180
 | footer = ''The Upside Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo'', comics by Gustave Verbeek containing [[reversible figure]]s and [[ambigram]] sentences (March 1904).
 | image1 = Ambigrams by Gustave Verbeek (1904) - comics The Upside Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo - At the house of the writing pig.jpg
 | caption1 = ''At the house of the writing pig''.

}}
{{main|British comics|History of American comics|American comic book}}

Illustrated humour periodicals were popular in 19th-century Britain, the earliest of which was the short-lived ''[[The Glasgow Looking Glass]]'' in 1825.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Dempster |first1=Michael |title=Glasgow Looking Glass |url=https://wee-windaes.nls.uk/glasgow-looking-glass/ |website=Wee Windaes |publisher=National Library of Scotland |access-date=20 June 2022}}</ref> The most popular was ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'',{{sfn|Clark|Clark|1991|p=17}} which popularized the term ''cartoon'' for its humorous caricatures.{{sfn|Harvey|2001|p=77}} On occasion the cartoons in these magazines appeared in sequences;{{sfn|Clark|Clark|1991|p=17}} the character [[Ally Sloper]] featured in the earliest serialized comic strip when the character began to feature in its own weekly magazine in 1884.{{sfn|Meskin|Cook|2012|p=xxii}}

American comics developed out of such magazines as ''[[Puck (magazine)|Puck]]'', ''[[Judge (magazine)|Judge]]'', and ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]''. The success of illustrated humour supplements in the ''[[New York World]]'' and later the ''[[New York American]]'', particularly Outcault's ''The Yellow Kid'', led to the development of newspaper comic strips. Early [[Sunday comics|Sunday strips]] were full-page{{sfn|Nordling|1995|p=123}} and often in colour. Between 1896 and 1901 cartoonists experimented with sequentiality, movement, and speech balloons.{{sfn|Gordon|2002|p=35}} An example is [[Gustave Verbeek]], who wrote his comic series "The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins" between 1903 and 1905. These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6-panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. In 2012, a remake of a selection of the comics was made by Marcus Ivarsson in the book 'In Uppåner med Lilla Lisen & Gamle Muppen'. ({{ISBN|978-91-7089-524-1}})

{{wide image
|1   = Mr. A. Mutt Starts in to Play the Races 1907.jpg
|2   = 600px
|3   = [[Bud Fisher]]'s ''[[Mutt and Jeff]]'' (1907–1982) was the first successful daily comic strip (1907).<!-- what's the date?!? -->
|alt = Five-panel comic strip.}}

Shorter, black-and-white daily strips began to appear early in the 20th century, and became established in newspapers after the success in 1907 of [[Bud Fisher]]'s ''[[Mutt and Jeff]]''.{{sfn|Harvey|1994|p=11}} In Britain, the [[Amalgamated Press]] established a popular style of a sequence of images with text beneath them, including ''[[Illustrated Chips]]'' and ''[[Comic Cuts]]''.{{sfn|Bramlett|Cook|Meskin|2016|p=45}} Humour strips predominated at first, and in the 1920s and 1930s strips with continuing stories in genres such as adventure and drama also became popular.{{sfn|Harvey|1994|p=11}}

Thin periodicals called [[American comic book|comic books]] appeared in the 1930s, at first reprinting newspaper comic strips; by the end of the decade, original content began to dominate.{{sfn|Rhoades|2008|p=2}} The success in 1938 of ''[[Action Comics]]'' and its lead hero [[Superman]] marked the beginning of the [[Golden Age of Comic Books]], in which the [[Superhero comics|superhero genre]] was prominent.{{sfn|Rhoades|2008|p=x}} In the UK and the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]], the [[DC Thomson]]-created ''[[The Dandy|Dandy]]'' (1937) and ''[[The Beano|Beano]]'' (1938) became successful humor-based titles, with a combined circulation of over 2 million copies by the 1950s. Their characters, including "[[Dennis the Menace (UK)|Dennis the Menace]]", "[[Desperate Dan]]" and "[[The Bash Street Kids]]" have been read by generations of British children.{{sfn|Childs|Storry|2013|p=532}} The comics originally experimented with superheroes and action stories before settling on humorous strips featuring a mix of the Amalgamated Press and US comic book styles.{{sfn|Bramlett|Cook|Meskin|2016|p=46}}

[[File:WonderworldComics3.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=|[[Superhero comics|Superheroes]] have been a staple of [[American comic book]]s (''Wonderworld Comics'' {{No.}}3, 1939; cover: [[Flame (comics)|The Flame]] by [[Will Eisner]]).]]

The popularity of superhero comic books declined in the years following World War&nbsp;II,{{sfn|Gabilliet|2010|p=51}} while comic book sales continued to increase as other genres proliferated, such as [[Romance comics|romance]], [[Western comics|westerns]], [[Crime comics|crime]], [[Horror comics|horror]], and humour.{{sfn|Gabilliet|2010|p=49}} Following a sales peak in the early 1950s, the content of comic books (particularly crime and horror) was subjected to scrutiny from parent groups and government agencies, which culminated in [[United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency|Senate hearings]] that led to the establishment of the [[Comics Code Authority]] self-censoring body.{{sfn|Gabilliet|2010|pp=49–50}} The Code has been blamed for stunting the growth of American comics and maintaining its low status in American society for much of the remainder of the century.{{sfn|Gabilliet|2010|p=50}} Superheroes re-established themselves as the most prominent comic book genre by the early 1960s.{{sfn|Gabilliet|2010|pp=52–55}} [[Underground comix]] challenged the Code and readers with adult, countercultural content in the late 1960s and early 1970s.{{sfn|Gabilliet|2010|p=66}} The underground gave birth to the [[alternative comics]] movement in the 1980s and its mature, often experimental content in non-superhero genres.{{sfnm|1a1=Hatfield|1y=2005|1pp=20, 26|2a1=Lopes|2y=2009|2p=123|3a1=Rhoades|3y=2008|3p=140}}

Comics in the US has had a [[Low culture|lowbrow]] reputation stemming from its roots in [[mass culture]]; cultural elites sometimes saw popular culture as threatening culture and society. In the latter half of the 20th century, popular culture won greater acceptance, and the lines between high and low culture began to blur. Comics nevertheless continued to be stigmatized, as the medium was seen as entertainment for children and illiterates.{{sfn|Lopes|2009|pp=xx–xxi}}

The [[graphic novel]]—book-length comics—began to gain attention after [[Will Eisner]] popularized the term with his book ''[[A Contract with God]]'' (1978).{{sfn|Petersen|2010|p=222}} The term became widely known with the public after the commercial success of ''[[Maus]]'', ''[[Watchmen]]'', and ''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]'' in the mid-1980s.{{sfnm|1a1=Kaplan|1y=2008|1p=172|2a1=Sabin|2y=1993|2p=246|3a1=Stringer|3y=1996|3p=262|4a1=Ahrens|4a2=Meteling|4y=2010|4p=1|5a1=Williams|5a2=Lyons|5y=2010|5p=7}} In the 21st century graphic novels became established in mainstream bookstores{{sfn|Gabilliet|2010|pp=210–211}} and libraries{{sfn|Lopes|2009|p=151–152}} and webcomics became common.{{sfn|Thorne|2010|p=209}}