COMIC STORIES BACKGROUND

Introduction

The origin of the comic stories started in pre-history with petroglyphs, pictures that show scenes of them daily in the walls of caves and grutes. In the Egypt, were find pictures and hieroglyphics in low relief telling the life of Pharaoh. The origin of the balloons present in the stories can be attributed to the phylacteries, banners with words written by the mouths of characters, illustrations seen in Europe since the fourteenth century. It was from the nineteenth century that the text began to accompany the drawing. The comics are known as "história aos quadrinhos" in Portugal, as "comics" in the United States, as "fumetti" in Italy, as "bandes dessinées" in France, and as "manga" in Japan

How Did Start?

In the years 1895-1900 appeared in the Sunday newspaper strips in the United States, the first characters of the comic. Among which, the first to make a name: Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault.

Some years later, the success of Yellow Kid Rudolph Dirks took to produce Katzenjammer Kids, the first creation to develop fully the characteristics of the modern comic strip: used balloons, and had permanent cast was divided into frames.

The news spread around the world. Japan and Europe have proved fertile material for comics and there were many famous cartoonists in the early twentieth century. The aesthetic revolution was in charge of the Little Nemo in Slumberland , released in 1905 by Winsor McCay, who first wore the perspective in your drawings.

A SURPRISING INCREASE

At that time the comics were beginning to become an indispensable element in the daily newspapers. That's when George Herriman launched Krazy Kat , the story of a poetic world, while surreal and comic, in which, with extreme graphic simplicity, were exposed relationships between members of a small cast of characters. This was the first comic to adult audiences and inaugurated stories with animals, which would culminate with the appearance of the famous Felix the Cat by Pat Sullivan, and Mickey Mouse by Walt Disney. In 1930, Hergé created Tintin, the success of which lasted for decades.

KRAZY KAY – GEORGE HERRIMAN

FELIX THE CAT – Pat Sullivan

BETTY BOOP – MAX FLEISCHER

MICKEY MOUSE – WALT DISNEY

TIN TIN – HERGE

The next year, Betty Boop by Max Fleischer, Tarzan by Harold Foster, Buck Rogers and Popeye (created by Elzie Crisler Segar) debuted in 1931.

BUCK ROGERS - Elzie Crisler Segar

POPEYE - Elzie Crisler Segar

The 30s also brought almost immortal creations for comics, who introduced the adventure as the main theme. Alex Raymond created Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim and Secret Agent X- 9 . Chester Gould created Dick Tracy. Lee Falk designed the Phantom and Mandrake.

The pioneers were the Japanese (the '20s). In 1933 came the first American magazine of comics to Funnies on Parade. Then came the Famous Funnies, Tip Top Comics, King Comics, Action Comics (where Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman) and Detective Comics (where Bob Kane in 1939, created the Batman).

SUPERMAN

BATMAN

With the competition of the Second World War, many characters, especially heroes, began to engage in plots of war and violence. Then came other famous characters such as Captain Marvel, Human Torch, Namor - The Sub-Mariner, and a whole legion of vigilantes devoted to the cause of peace and democracy.

Between so many, Marvel Comics created, under the baton of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby developed Captain America. The character that has the uniform inspired by the American flag and a shield of an indestructible metal, it was like a personification of the struggle of free peoples against Nazism. The character had all the characteristics of an American, as a sense of justice and freedom and strength to fight for the preservation of these ideals, against the enemies.

At that time, the magazine was launched Mad (which satirized the comic classic) and also the character The Spirit by Will Eisner. To get an idea of the importance of the Spirit, today the biggest prize in the world of comics is named after its creator (called Will Eisner Awards) and is known as the Oscar of Comics.

Beyond the control of the newspapers published in their own magazines, comics were getting more violent and psychotic. Characters and magazines appeared specializing in terror and violence. Against this trend, organized parents and educators around the world and even legislators from European countries and especially the United States, raised his voice against the comic. They thought the comics negatively influenced children and wanted to ban their publications.

The situation became increasingly tense and the U.S. government reached the point of censoring various comic heroes. The main reason was that comics helped negatively in the formation of young Americans. Came to insinuate that the friendship between Batman and Robin suggested a homosexual relationship and it affected children.

The pursuit of justice, coupled with the end of the war, made falling sales of comic books, because the heroes were already the flagship of the Ninth Art at the time. The creation of codes of ethics and attitude on the part of publishers to combat censorship was only give results some years later.

While the magazine market collapsed and heroes, the newspaper strips back to the glory days came and important characters like Asterix - The Gaul by Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny .The Smurfs by Peyo. The

character Pogo by Walt Kelly, was very successful at the time.

The 60s marked the market recovery heroes. This was due to several reasons. The code of ethics, which provided less violence had been in place for some time, the pursuit of American justice was already low and the publishers have heroes with more human characteristics and philosophical, and psychological dramas with everyday problems.

Emerged at this time characters such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and Thor - God of Thunder. All were created by Marvel, designed by master minds of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

With the market for high again heroes, comics gained a new burst of creation. The other categories came on the heels. Emerged female characters that inspired women's fashion worldwide. Also, appeared as erotic characters like Vampirela by Jean-Claude Forrest, Jodelle by Guy Peelaert and Valentina by Guido Crepax. At the end of the decade, came the underground genre, which addressed the underworld of drugs and free sex, lampooning situations. In 1973, Hagar - the horrible, is created by Dirk Browne and saw instant success.

The Nowadays Situation

In the last decades of the twentieth century, the heroes stood firm and won more magazines. The creators of stories (writers and artists) became world-famous celebrities and their names in the credits of the stories come to rely as much as the name of a famous actor in a movie.Names like Frank Miller, Dan Jurgens, John Byrne, Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Kelley Jones, Jim Lee, Leph Loeb, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore and others entered into and emerged from the other.Alternative magazines, on-line sex-terror, have emerged and have made it with high-level graphical issues, always aimed at an adult people. This phase are magazines like Zulu, Hara-Kiri and most classic of all, Heavy Metal.

The characters continued to appear, like Tank Girl by Jamie Hurlott, Hellblazer by Alan Moore and Sandman by Neil Gaiman. It's that time also fever X-Men, mutant heroes that established itself as the largest seller of magazines today. Garfield by Jim Davis and Calvin by Bill Waterson firmed as major characters from newspaper strips of the late twentieth century.

At the end of the 90s, comes a good publisher, Image Comics, founded by former employees of Marvel and DC Comics (the two biggest producers of heroes), who thought they did not have the space needed to create their characters and had to follow the orders of the editors. Image of the biggest publishing success came of the end of the century: Spawn by Todd McFarlane, who became as popular as Superman and Batman. The character is enormously successful in his magazine and lever-products like dolls, clothes, games and even movies.

The century ends consecrating McFarlane as one of the greats of comics, alongside geniuses like Alan Moore (who created the masterpiece of comic book mini-series Watchmen), Frank Miller (author of the fantastic Batman - Dark Knight and Daredevil - man without fear) and designer Alex Ross (who illustrated the historical works Marvels, Kingdom Come and Superman - Peace on Earth), who gave a reality never before seen in the drawings of comics. Ross was the first designer to gain as much fame as the writers of comics heroes.

How Did Starts in Brazil?

Many scholars want credit for the invention of the genre cartoonist Italian Angelo Agostini, who lives in Brazil, wrote in 1869 (long before Yellow Kid), The Adventures of Nho Quim or impressions of a trip to court, a true story comics.

Fifteen years later he would be responsible for the creation of the first Brazilian comics long term, with the Adventures of Zé Caipora.

In 1905 began to emerge other comics with the national launch of the magazine The Tico-Tico. Came the character Chiquinho by Loureiro. Also thanks to the magazine, appeared Lamparina by J. Carlos. Zé Macaco and Faustina by Alfredo Storni. Para Choque and Vira Lata by Max Yantok and Reco-Reco, Bolão and Azeitona by Luis Sá.

Zé Macaco

Faustina

Parachoque Vira-Lata

In the middle of 1930, Adolfo Aizen launched the Youth Supplement, with which Brazil has introduced in the American stories. The success led to further edit two magazines: Mirim and Lobinho.

In 1937, Roberto Marinho went into the business with The Globe Youth and two years later launched the comic book, that name would also be synonymous with comic books.In the 50's, began to be published in Brazil by Editora Abril, the comics Disney. The magazine Sesinho, SESI, allowed the appearance of stamped figurines of comics in the country, as Ziraldo, Fortuna and Joselito Matos.

To face strong competition from USA heroes, were translated into the comic adventures of heroes of national youth radio soap operas such as O Vingador by P. Amaral and Fernando Silva. Jeronimo – O Heroi do Sertão by Moisés Weltman and Edmundo Rodrigues. Characters imported had their Brazilian versions, like the Phantom.

From the decade of 60, multiplied publications and Brazilian characters. Highlight for Pererê of Ziraldo (who later would create O Menino Maluquinho), Gabola by Peroti, Sacarrolha by Primaggio and the whole series of characters Maurício de Sousa, like: Monica, Cascão and Cebolinha.

Mauricio de Sousa is the biggest name of national comics. It was the only living exclusively from the profits of their publications. The Monica is the most successful of its kind in the country, at all times. Turned a line of products ranging from sandals, to noodles, passing school supplies, clothes, etc… Has also been produced cartoon feature film with the characters.The newspaper Pasquim was famous for his comic-strip, especially the Jaguar. The cartoonist Henfil also excels at that time. Daniel Azulay also created and maintained a Brazilian hero, Captain Liana, who represented one of the best moments of national comics.Editora Abril begins to publish the heroes of Marvel and DC Comics in Brazil, with the magazines and Captain America Heroes TV. Later, with Batman, Superman, Spiderman and Incredible Hulk, among others.From the 80, the major Brazilian newspapers begin to enter works of national authors in their strips before uniquely American. Among them, we highlight Miguel Paiva (Radical Chic), Glauco (Geraldão), Laerte (Piratas do Tietê), Angeli (Chiclete com Banana), Fernando Gonsalves (Níquel Náusea) and Luis Fernando Verissimo (As Cobras). Also the Brazilian edition of Mad magazine begins to publish works with Brazilian authors.

RADICAL CHIC

In the '90s the Brazilian market grows a little more. New comic book heroes come to be edited in the country, especially the newly created Image Comics. Editora Abril still ahead of rivals and publishes Spawn U.S..Brazil enters the twenty-first century with the comic market expanding. Editora Globo continues to publish highly successful comics of Monica; Editora Abril continues strong with the American comic book heroes Marvel, DC and Image, the American Heavy Metal magazine launches its Brazilian edition, to ‘’Metal Pesado’’, and publishers smaller publish materials from other sources. Some cartoonists national launch magazine caricature ´´Bundas’’

WOOD CUT

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks (where a different block is used for each color). The art of carving the woodcut can be called "xylography", but this is rarely used in English for images alone, although that and "xylographic" are used in connection with blockbooks, which are small books containing text and images in the same block. Single-leaf woodcut is a term for a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration.

Division of labour

In both Europe and the Far East, traditionally the artist only designed the woodcut, and the block-carving was left to specialist craftsmen, called block-cutters, or Formschneider in Germany, some of whom became well known in their own right - among the best known are the 16th century Hieronymus Andreae (who also used "Formschneider" as his surname), Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops and also operated as printers and publishers. The formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks.

This is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as "designed by" rather than "by" an artist; but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, without needing to learn the use of woodworking tools.

There were various methods of transferring the artist's drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made

directly onto the block (often whitened first), or a drawing on paper was glued to the block. Either way, the artist's drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing.

In both Europe and the Far East, such as Japan and China, in the early twentieth century some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called Sōsaku hanga, as opposed to the Shin hanga movement, which retained the traditional methods. In the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead.

Methods of printing

Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print. As a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe fruitwood like pear or cherry was commonly used;[1] in Japan, the wood of the cherry species Prunus serrulata was preferred.

There are three methods of printing to consider:

Stamping: Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts (1400–40). These were printed by putting the paper/fabric on a table or other flat surface with the block on top, & pressing or hammering the back of the block

Rubbing: Apparently the most common method for Far Eastern printing on paper at all times. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, and very widely for cloth. Also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top. The back is rubbed with a "hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton".[2] A traditional Japanese tool used for this is called a baren. Later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially helpful once multiple colors began to be introduced, and needed to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers.

Printing in a press: presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, and before that for woodcut book illustrations. Simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking. A deceased Abbess of Mechelen in 1465 had "unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines ... cum 14 aliis lapideis printis" - "an instrument for printing texts and pictures ... with 14 stones for printing" which is probably too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing press in that location.

History

In Europe, Woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about 1400, by using, on paper, existing techniques for printing on cloth. One of the more ancient woodcuts on paper that can be seen today is The Fire Madonna (Madonna del Fuoco, in Italian), in the Cathedral of Forlì, in Italy.

The explosion of sales of cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather later than engraving. Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcuts more sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich was the first to use cross-hatching (far harder to do than engraving or etching). Both of these produced mainly book-illustrations, as did various Italian artists who were also raising standards there at the same period. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that, arguably, has never been surpassed, and greatly increased the status of the single-leaf woodcut (i.e. an image sold separately).

As woodcut can be easily printed together with movable type, because both are relief-printed, it was the main medium for book illustrations until the late-sixteenth century. The first woodcut book illustration dates to about 1461, only a few years after the beginning of printing with movable type, printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg. Woodcut was used less often for individual ("single-leaf") fine-art prints from about 1550 until the late nineteenth century, when interest revived. It continued to be important for popular prints until the nineteenth century in most of Europe, and later in some places.

The art reached a high level of technical and artistic development in East Asia and Iran. In Japan woodblock printing is called "moku hanga", and was introduced in the seventeenth century for both books and art. The popular "floating world" genre of ukiyo-e originated in the second half of the seventeenth century, with prints in monocrome or two colours. Sometimes these were hand-coloured after printing. Later prints with many colours were developed. Japanese woodcut became a major artistic form, although at the time it was accorded a much lower status than painting. It continued to develop through to the twentieth century

Colour

Coloured woodcuts first appeared in ancient China. The oldest known are three Buddhist images dating to the 10th century. European woodcut prints with coloured blocks were invented in Germany in 1508 and are known as chiaroscuro woodcuts (see below). However, colour did not become the norm, as it did in Japan, in the ukiyo-e and other forms.

In Europe and Japan, colour woodcuts were normally only used for prints rather than book illustrations. In China, where the individual print did not develop until the nineteenth century, the reverse is true, and early colour woodcuts mostly occur in luxury books about art, especially the more prestigious medium of painting. The first known example is a book on ink-cakes printed in 1606, and colour technique reached its height in books on painting published in the seventeenth century. Notable examples are the Treatise on the Paintings and Writings of the Ten Bamboo Studio of 1633, and the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual published in 1679 and 1701.[4]

In Japan colour technique, called nishiki-e in its fully developed form, spread more widely, and was used for prints, from the 1760s on. Text was nearly always monochrome, as were images in books, but the growth of the popularity of ukiyo-e brought with it demand for ever increasing numbers of colors and complexity of techniques. By the nineteenth century most artists worked in colour. The stages of this development were:

Sumizuri-e (墨摺り絵, "ink printed pictures") - monochrome printing using only black ink

Benizuri-e (紅摺り絵, "crimson printed pictures") - red ink details or highlights added by hand after the printing process；green was sometimes used as well

Tan-e (丹絵) - orange highlights using a red pigment called tan

Aizuri-e (藍摺り絵, "indigo printed pictures"), Murasaki-e (紫絵, "purple pictures"), and other styles in which a single color would be used in addition to, or instead of, black ink

Urushi-e (漆絵) - a method in which glue was used to thicken the ink, emboldening the image; gold, mica and other substances were often used to enhance the image further. Urushi-e can also refer to paintings using lacquer instead of paint; lacquer was very rarely if ever used on prints.

Nishiki-e (錦絵, "brocade pictures") - a method in which multiple blocks were used for separate portions of the image, allowing a number of colors to be utilized to achieve incredibly complex and detailed images; a separate block would be carved to apply only to the portion of the image designated for a single color. Registration marks called kentō (見当) were used to ensure correspondence between the application of each block.

In the 19th century a number of different methods of colour printing using woodcut (technically Chromoxylography) were developed in Europe. George Baxter patented in 1835 a method using an intaglio line plate (or occasionally a lithograph), printed in black or a dark colour, and then overprinted with up to twenty different colours from woodblocks. Edmund Evans used relief and wood throughout, with up to eleven different colours, and latterly specialized in illustrations for children's books, using fewer blocks but overprinting non-solid areas of colour to achieve blended colours. Artists such as Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway were able to draw influence from the Japanese prints now available and fashionable in Europe to create a suitable style, with flat areas of colour.

In the 20th century, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner of the Die Brücke group developed a process of producing colored woodcut prints using a single block applying different colors to the block with a brush à la poupée and then printing (halfway).

IDEOGRAM

An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idéa "idea" + γράφω gráphō "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.

The term "ideogram" is commonly used to describe logograms in writing systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese characters. Dongba script used without Geba decorating is an example of a real ideogram (it is also a pictogram).

In the history of writing symbols proceeded from ideographic (such as an icon of a bull's head in a list inventory, denoting that the following numeral refers to head of cattle) to logographic (an icon of a bull denoting the Semitic word ʾālep "ox"), to phonetic (the bull's head used as a symbol in rebus writing, indicating the glottal stop at the beginning of the word for "ox", namely, the letter aleph).

Bronze Age writing systems used a combination of these applications, and many signs in hieroglyphic as well as in cuneiform writing could be used either logographically or phonetically.

For example, the Akkadian sign AN (𒀭) could be an ideograph for "deity", an ideogram for the god Anum in particular, a logograph for the Akkadian stem il- "deity", a logograph for the Akkadian word šamu "sky", or a syllabogram for either the syllable an or il.

Although Chinese characters are logograms, two of the smaller classes in the traditional classification are ideographic in origin:

Simple ideographs (指事字 zhǐshìzì) are abstract symbols such as 上 shàng "up" and 下 xià "down" or numerals such as 三 sān "three".

Semantic compounds (会意字 huìyìzì) are semantic combinations of characters, such as 明 míng "bright", composed of 日 rì "sun" and 月 yuè "moon", or 休 xiū "rest", composed of 人 rén "person" and 木 mù "tree". In the light of the modern understanding of Old Chinese

phonology, researchers now believe that most of the characters originally classified as semantic compounds have an at least partially phonetic nature.[1]

Comentário final

As primeiras manifestações artísticas (pinturas rupestres) deram origem e se tornaram modelo para as artes visuais e escritas, em uma época que os nossos antepassados queriam simplesmente, demonstrar o que viam, sentiam e faziam.

Anos depois, já na civilização egípcia, foram descobertos os primeiros hieróglifos que contavam sobre a vida de um Faraó.

Em 1895, as primeiras histórias em quadrinhos foram aparecendo e os primeiros personagens fazendo parte da vida dos americanos aos domingos. O primeiro de todos foi Yellow Kid de Richard Outcalt.

A partir desse, vários foram surgindo e diferentes personagens foram entrando no gosto da população.

Vários heróis dos que vemos e que somos fãs hoje em dia, surgiram por conta de ocasiões como a Segunda Guerra Mundial, por exemplo, fez com que a empresa Marvel, criasse e desenvolvesse os “super heróis”.

Com o passar dos anos, os criadores de histórias em quadrinhos, foram melhorando seus heróis para chamar mais atenção das pessoas e com isso, elas admirassem suas “crias” e assim o público que adorava as obras comprava mais produtos relacionados às histórias em quadrinhos e isso gerava lucro aos autores.

O foco não ficou só por conta dos quadrinhos de aventura, terror e ação. Alguns cartunistas inovaram e começaram a desenvolver histórias de humor como, por exemplo, as personagens: Garfield, Calvin, Hagar, entre outros.

No Brasil, as histórias em quadrinhos começaram, segundos estudiosos, com Agostini em 1869 (bem antes da criação de Yellow Kid). Se nos Estados Unidos, eles tinham seus heróis, no Brasil não foi diferente. Alguns até foram “importados” do país norte americano.

As histórias em quadrinho no Brasil, também usavam muito do humor e histórias infantis. O principal cartunista brasileiro foi Mauricio de Sousa o criador da personagem Mônica e de sua turma, na década dos anos 60.

Já na década de 80, vieram as personagens de um humor mais “adulto”, que se caracterizam de uma forma mais informal como: Geraldão (Glauco), e a personagem feminina Radical Chic (Miguel Paiva) . Esse tipo de humor foi criticado por muitos, porém de outro lado, adorado ao mesmo tempo.

Hoje em dia história como “A Turma da Monica”, ainda fazem sucesso com o público alvo infanto-juvenil.

A sociedade espera que apareçam mais “Mauricios” de Sousa, “Ziraldos”, entre outros e ajudem a contemplar cada vez mais esse país rico em criativos cartunistas e personagens que marcaram épocas.

Fontes : http://www.legal.adv.br/20020301/a-historia-dos-quadrinhos-no-brasil-e-no-mundo/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodcut

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideogram