Reading Comics

While it seems as if little boys have read comic books since the beginning of time, the animated art form as we know it, has only existed since 1933. Two employees of the Eastern Color Printing Company came up with the idea of printing the Sunday comics on a tabloid page that would become a 7-1/2" x 10" book when folded. Gathering 32 pages of newspaper reprints that included Mutt and Jeff, Joe Palooka and the Regular Fellas, they created Funnies on Parade, the first modern comic book. The art form's "Golden Era" began in 1938 with the debut of Superman, which gave birth to a new industry dedicated to the telling of original stories with comic-style illustrations. Despite a two-decade long dark period when they were stifled by McCarthy-era paranoia and a self-imposed code of conduct, comic books made a considerable comeback in the mid-1960s and remain a popular form of entertainment for children and adults alike.