comics

The reading and the lecture are both about the attribution of the comic’s origin to The United States and how it has or has not influenced other countries. The author of the reading believes that comics are pure American art. The lecturer casts doubt on the claims made in the article. He says that “comics belongs to the whole world”.

First of all, the writer provides the example of Hogan’s Alley, which was the first best-selling comic strip from the 1890s. It is mention that this American strip and its popular cartoon character, the Yellow kid, determinate the start of comics. This point is challenged by the lecturer. He says that there were many popular comics strips before Hogan’s Alley in Europe, especially in Britain and Switzerland, in the 1790s. Furthermore, he argues that one of the publishers of Hogan´s Alley is an immigrant from Hungary.

Secondly, the author contends that the first action comic book was Superman and it was completely American-created. The speaker contradicts this argument by saying that sixteen years before Superman, another comic call “The adventures of Tintin” was published in Belgium, becoming internationally known and very popular. Additionally, he says that the artist of Superman is from Canada.

Finally, the writer states that Japanese comics, mangas, and famous European comics such as Smurfs and Asterix were very influenced by American art, specifically by Disney. Furthermore, it says that Disney comic´s characters are very attractive to Europe today. The lecturer, on the other hand, posits that Asian is the biggest influence on Japanese comics and he agrees that Smurfs and Asterix are written and drawn in a purely European way. Moreover, he mentions that even though Disney characters were made in America, the comics are written and drawn by European creators.