The Comics

Plot

Coulton Waugh was a painter, comic strip artist, teacher and author whose book about the seminal history of cartooning, The Comics, was one of the first serious examinations of the medium. Waugh was one of the main artists who worked on Milton Caniff's Dickie Dare strip.

The book, which is 354 pages in length (plus an index) is not about comic books. It is about the history of comic newspaper strips and their characters. It offers a fascinating insight into the subject and I definitely recommend it. I really enjoyed reading it.

But I would be remiss in not sharing this "interesting" page from the last chapter of the book where Waugh reluctantly and with disdain discusses the NEW (although already 15 years old by then) medium of comic books.

Illustrated throughout with wonderful examples of comic strip art and history, including such classics as ‘Mutt and Jeff,’ ‘Buster Brown,’ ‘The Katzenjammer Kids,’ ‘Little Nemo,’ ‘Krazy Kat,’ ‘Orphan Annie,’ ‘Gasoline Alley,’ ‘Blondie,’ ‘Betty Boop,’ ‘Felix the Cat,’ ‘Mickey Mouse,’ ‘Uncle Remus,’ ‘Alley Oop,’ ‘Tarzan,’ ‘Buck Rogers,’ ‘Superman,’ ‘Wonder Woman,’ ‘Batman and Robin,’ ‘Charlie Chan,’ ‘Mary Worth,’ ‘Elmo,’ and many more. Decorative endpapers