Comic book in the UK

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Comics have a long history in the UK . Some comic historians even consider Great Britain to be the country of origin of the comics.

Development until 1940

Some of the most important forerunners of the comic medium originated in England, for example the Bayeux Tapestry from the 11th century and the prints by William Hogarth from the 18th century. In the 19th century, illustrated humorous weekly newspapers ( comic papers ) became popular, such as Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (Dalziel, 1884), which, according to some experts, contained the first ever comic strip. Until the 20th century, British comics initially developed exclusively in weekly magazines of this type. Comics series such as Weary Willie and Tired Tim by Tom Browne (in Illustrated Chips , Harmsworth, 1896) and Tiger Tim by Julius Stafford Baker (in The Rainbow , Amalgamated Press, 1914) emerged from this tradition .

It was not until the interwar period that British comic strips appeared in regular daily newspapers. B. Pip, Squeak and Wilfred by A. B. Payne (in the Daily Mirror , 1919), Rupert the Bear by Mary Tourtel (in the Daily Express , 1920) and Jane by Norman Pett (in the Daily Mirror , 1932). The classic US newspaper trips such as Happy Hooligan or The Katzenjammer Kids were also reprinted in the comic papers , daily newspapers and edited volumes. Scottish publisher DC Thompson also released two weekly children's comic books , The Dandy (1937) and The Beano (1938), which are still published today and are among the most popular comics ever in Great Britain.

Development after 1940

During and immediately after the Second World War, when US comics were at the height of their success, their importation into Great Britain was initially prohibited and later made virtually impossible by import regulations. Local comics filled this gap. B. weekly adventure comic anthology Eagle (Hulton Press, 1950), the circulation figures of nearly one million copies per issue reached, or the newspaper strip Andy Capp by Reg Smythe (1957), one of the few successful overseas British comics. From 1959, US comics were officially exported to the United Kingdom again. Over the decades, they became more and more successful there, so that today, together with the local comics, they are among the most popular. Franco-Belgian comics, on the other hand, were never particularly successful in Great Britain.

American underground comics were also reprinted along with British comics in British magazines such as Nasty Tales (1971) or Cozmic Comics (1972) in the 1970s . Influenced by these, the weekly anthology 2000 AD (IPC Magazines, today Rebellion) has been published since 1977 , which is primarily focused on science fiction comics. 2000 AD developed into the most important talent factory for British comic authors, and became for many a stepping stone to the US comic industry. In the 1980s, many British comic book authors began working for US comic book publishers that people spoke of a British invasion . As a result, many major comics by British authors were first published in the United States, e.g. B. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons ( DC Comics , 1986), or Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean (DC Comics, 1989).

In the area of ​​comic books, the satirical, almost monthly Viz (self-published (today Dennis Publishing), 1979) is worth mentioning, of which millions of copies were sold in the 1990s. When it comes to comics in British newspapers today, domestic strips (e.g. If ... by Steve Bell (in The Guardian , 1982) or Alex by Russell Taylor and Charles Peattie (in the Daily Telegraph , 1987)) outnumber American ones like Garfield (in the Daily Mail ) or Hägar (in The Sun ). The Japanese manga only became popular in Great Britain a few years later than, for example, in Germany, and are not yet that successful, but are becoming increasingly popular.

Comic culture

  • A monthly professional comics magazine, Comics International , appeared in the UK from 1990 to 2010, focusing primarily on US comics.
  • Britain's biggest comic convention was annually since 2004 in Bristol held Comic Expo on which the Eagle Awards , the most important British honors in the field of comics, were awarded. American comics were also the focus of this event. MCM London Comic Con is now the most important British convention.
  • Comic shops can be found in all major British cities and, compared to German ones, are characterized by the fact that the range of American comics is significantly larger than that of European ones.
  • With Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK , the British Library is currently showing the largest comics exhibition in the UK to date.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sabin, Roger: Adult Comics. An Introduction . London 1993, ISBN 0-415-04418-9 , p. 13.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Roach, David A .: The history of British comic art . In: Khoury, George (Ed.): True Brit. A celebration of the great comic book artists of the UK . Raleigh 2004, ISBN 1-893905-33-0 .
  3. ↑ a b c Knigge, Andreas C .: Comic-Lexikon . Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-548-36554-X , sv "Great Britain".
  4. ↑ Perry, George and Alan Aldridge: The Penguin Book of Comics . Harmondsworth et al. 1975, chapter 2.
  5. ^ Gifford, Denis: The International Book of Comics . London 1990, ISBN 0-600-57161-0 , pp. 14-36.
  6. ^ Gifford, Denis: The International Book of Comics . London 1990, ISBN 0-600-57161-0 , p. 142.
  7. ↑ Holland, Steve: Mystery Thrillers: The Untold Story of British Post-War Pulps . In: Pulpdom . 34 (June), 2003.
  8. ^ Gifford, Denis: The International Book of Comics . London 1990, ISBN 0-600-57161-0 , p. 252.
  9. ^ Sabin, Roger: Comics. Eurocomics: '9th art' or msifit lit? In: Briggs, Adam and Paul Cobley (Eds.): The Media: An Introduction . Longman, Harlow 2002, ISBN 0-582-42346-5 , p. 21.
  10. ↑ Huxley, David: Nasty Tales. Sex, Drugs, Rock'n'Roll and Violence in the British Underground . Critical Vision, Manchester 2001, ISBN 1-900486-13-X , pp. 38ff
  11. ↑ Molcher, Michael: The second British invasion . In: Judge Dredd Megazine . 260 (July), 2007, ISSN  0960-1813 , pp. 30-31.
  12. ↑ Antara News ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Britain finally catches up with "manga revolution" . January 19, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.antara.co.id
  13. ↑ BBC News: A tour of the UK's biggest comic collection . May 3, 2014.

Web links

Comics UK "A website dedicated to those great institutions, the British Comic and Story Paper" (in English).