The art of an unknown future

It is difficult to take the comic strips seriously and yet it is impossible not to do so. In America they have become a social force of great importance and they have made serious inroads into Europe’s intellectual defences. In addition, the claim has been made repeatedly – and sometimes by eminent persons – that the comics represent a new literary form. Some warn us that the comic strips are a social and moral menace of the utmost gravity: others declare that this new form of expression is capable of creating – indeed, has already created – works of lasting merit. Mr Gilbert Seldes asserted in The Seven Lively Arts (1924) that Mr Charles Chaplin and Mr George Herriman, the creator of a strip called Krazy Kat, were the only two great artists in the United States, adding that Krazy Kat was America’s “most satisfactory work of art”. He went on to link Krazy Kat’s name with Dr Johnson’s, “to whom he owes much of his vocabulary”. Mr Chaplin declared that for him Mr Al Capp, the author of another strip, Li’l Abner, opened “new vistas of broad buffoonery with inspirational [sic] satire”. Mr John Steinbeck stated: “I think Capp may very possibly be the best writer in the world today.” The European reader – who probably cannot have helped seeing a comic strip or two here and there –remembers the clumsy and often primitive drawings with the hideous balloons bubbling out of the characters’ mouths and is surprised, annoyed or pained by such claims. Is the European reader right? Or is he, in his snobbery, rejecting a new form of literary expression simply because of its unaesthetic and, admittedly, repulsive appearance, without examining its merits and shortcomings? Perhaps the new medium should now he allowed to present itself and take its modest bow; but it cannot count on a warm reception. Some will receive it with polite interest, others with tight-lipped silence and others again with open hostility and contempt.

In the United States 50 million comic magazines are sold every month, and it is estimated that the comics have 70 million readers. “Surveys point to the likelihood”, writes Miss Frank, “that 98 per cent of all children between the ages of eight and 12 read comics. These readers come from all types of homes and cultural backgrounds, rich and poor, city and country, well-educated and uneducated. Intelligence quotients seem to make no difference …”.

To this number many millions should be added who follow the strips in daily newspapers. Altogether their number cannot be estimated, but, with a few exceptions, it is an accepted fact, among newsagents as well as editors, that “it’s the strips that sell the paper”. In spite of the overwhelming popularity of the strips among children, 60 per cent of the readers are grown-up people. During the war the American P.X. stores sold 10 times as many comic magazines to soldiers as the four other most popular publications – Readers’ Digest, Saturday Evening Post, Life and Time – put together. There must be millions of people who read little else in the United States and it would be wilful blindness to ignore their increasing popularity in Italy, Germany and – to a smaller extent – in this country.

The expressions “comic strips” or “funnies” are – or rather have gradually become – misnomers. These picture stories are not necessarily funny – indeed, suspense and adventure stories are now in the majority – and as soon as they appear in pamphlet form they cease to be “strips”, too. Their spiritual ancestor seems to be Wilhelm Busch’s hilarious but slightly sadistic picture book, Max und Moritz. In America itself the early beginnings go back to 1896, to Outcalt’s The Great Dog Show in M’Googan’s Avenue, published in the New York World. These drawings were coloured in yellow of a most revolting kind, and it was they that provoked the notorious phrase “yellow journalism”. The phrase, even in its original meaning, referred not only to the vulgarity of the colour – not much improved in the strips through the following six decades – but also to the almost impressive vulgarity of the artist. Soon the Yellow Kid and the Katzenjammer Kids were born among a number of similar attempts. The Katzenjammer Kids were Max und Moritz after emigration to the United States. In time, like all emigrants, they lost much of their native character and adjusted themselves to their environment. Today, the third generation of readers are still enjoying the first generation of Katzenjammer Kids, who are as alive and youthful as ever.

By the first decade of this century, the comic strips had developed all their essential, modern characteristics. They were neither illustrated jokes nor ordinary comic pictures with captions, but true picture stories. Narration and orthodox captions were replaced by balloons – a technical term for dialogue bubbling out of the figures’ mouths. The balloon usually has a “string” to it pointing towards the mouth of one character or another, to indicate who is speaking. Narration was reduced to such sentences as “The next day …” or: “In the meantime”, or: “Back at the farm.” Historians of the comic strips disagree whether the original strips were intended for children or for grown-ups. Did the children read them over their parents’ shoulders or vice versa? This riddle may never be solved. It is certain, however, that in the early days the strips were meant to be funny and their only aim was to entertain. The main subjects of hilarity were naughty and uncontrollable children and henpecked husbands. Consequently, these early strips instinctively painted a distorted and satirical but essentially true picture of a society in which children and women are often the rulers. A reaction and revolt against this unpalatable truth was hound to set in sooner or later. It was in the late 1920s that the new heroes began to appear. Tarzan was the first among them, followed by a long and dreary succession, until, in 1938, Superman arrived. His one great accomplishment is flying. He can take to the air with great and natural case and without any mechanical aid and, in pressing emergencies, he can fly through walls, too. It is obvious that America got tired of being satirized: people needed to identify themselves with supernatural protagonists and the comic artists were ready and eager to supply the new heroes. The first supernatural hero, however, was Popeye, the sailorman, who was often riddled with bullets but never killed. Research in comic-strip genealogy yields surprising results and reveals odd family connexions. Popeye is the father of Superman and Superman is the father of Supermouse, Supercat, and the rest, with a fair sprinkling of Superwomen. As science progressed the comic-strip heroes had to rise to greater and greater heights. Today a fair contingent of them works on various planets – not infrequently in neighbouring solar systems – bravely defying giant ants or atomic swindlers. They reach Mercury with greater ease than we reach a London suburb during the rush hour. All this has caused a revolution in humour, too. The little, helpless and lonely man – as incarnated by Mr Chaplin’s tramp – is dead and gone; the new comic hero is the Popeye type, as a rule more vulgar and much less endearing than Popeye himself, the rough and ridiculous brute who always has his own way and who, however stupid he may be, in the end triumphs and prevails.

The birth of the Superman and Tarzan type of hero coincided with the birth of the suspense story. In the old days the gag was concluded in the last drawing; today the story rolls on at dramatic speed and the reader is left in anguish, wondering, what next ? There is only one way to find out: buy next morning’s paper. In the meantime the technique of drawing has also sunk even lower. It was always extremely difficult to draw well in the small squares, in which the balloons occupied a large part even of that limited space. The best the more able artists could do was to give evidence of the fact that they could draw much better in more fortunate circumstances. Soon, however, they had to simplify matters even further. Nowadays villains are invariably ugly and terrifying, heroes angel-like and as beautiful as the ability of the artist permits, so that one single glance informs the reader – or viewer? – what to expect from each character. As the popularity of the strips went on increasing and the demand became almost insatiable, artists and editors racked their brains; new material and new heroes were needed each week. Old clichés would no longer serve; new clichés were needed.

The briefest survey of today’s strips and comic magazines – the latter began to swamp America in 1933 – proves that the horror-and-crime-loving public is better served than the fun-loving public. Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, other “animated animals” and Popeye are still popular and have kept much of their charm. Naughty children and innocently quarrelling couples still try to, and do, amuse. But the majority of the strips are of a different character and may be divided into these groups: Western, crime, sea, adventure, horror, science-fiction, sex and pirate strips. Certain statistics, quoted by Mr Seldes, based on 100 comic books and 1,000 comic strips from newspapers, gave this result: major crimes depicted, 2I8; minor crimes, 3I3; physical assaults, 531; sadistic acts, 87; physical monstrosities, 165. One comic book examined by Mr Albert Deutsch in 1948 “demonstrates to the child reader how to gouge eyes with the thumb, choke off the wind-pipe, kick an opponent in the stomach … flatten his arch with the heel, bite his ears, kick him in the liver area, punch him in the spine … all under the protective title of self-defense”. On one occasion an actual recipe for poisoning was taken from a comic book, and on many occasions juvenile delinquents have declared that they derived the impulse to commit crimes from them. In spite of this condemnatory evidence, one must not jump to a verdict of guilty. Are comic strips not used as scapegoats by some young criminals and a society tormented by a guilt-complex? It is far from certain that the strips actually create fear and brutality: it seems more likely that they only stimulate anxieties that lie beneath the surface in a great number of children and which would he brought out by other means, too. Dr Lauretta Bender, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at New York University and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of “Super-man National Comics”, states that comics constitute an experience of activity. Their heroes overcome time and space. This gives children a sense of release rather than a sense of fear. In the child’s fantasy life, continues Dr Bender, using such symbols as comics present, he may be able to adjust himself to the world’s trials and difficulties. Children’s fantasies are no escape from reality but a constructive approach to it.

It should be added that even the basest comic strip should not be regarded as a general argument against comic strips, just as the lowest type of penny dreadful is no argument against literature. Even old-fashioned and generally approved fairy tales – with their witches, wicked step-mothers and supernatural heroes – contained enough debatable material. Besides, comics are also being used with the best of intentions for good purposes. They – as far as sheer numbers of people are concerned – did more to unite and steel America for war than President Roosevelt’s speeches. Bible-stories were published as comic strips and sold in a million copies. Classics – Wuthering Heights, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Three Musketeers, among others – are also popularized in comic-strip form.

It may be difficult to condemn the comics on their obvious failings; but it is perhaps justifiable to condemn them on their merits. For one reader at least, Wuthering Heights in comic-book form, although it was done as well as it possibly can be done, was a grimmer sight than the sheet called “Horrific!!!” or the heroic tales of the indomitable Space Cadets on one of the neighbouring planets. Again, though it may be questionable whether comic strips do or do not create fear, anxiety and criminal tendencies, it seems to be beyond doubt that they create mental laziness and stupidity. Mental laziness thus engendered creates a further market for new strips; the new strips create more stupidity and this vicious circle does not retrace itself on the same plane but may lead into the abyss. If the comics are a new literary form, they may well be a kind of literature to end literature. It is a kind of literature not to he read, only looked at. The comics may flourish and conquer: but their ultimate victory – supported by their powerful and somewhat related ally, television – may mark the end of the reading habit. It may also help to create a society with two classes: the thinking and intelligent minority and the strip-ridden majority which is incapable of independent thinking and accepts ready-made views, if presented by badly drawn pictures. The growing success of the strips – as has been pointed out by others – may, in time, create an added menace to democracy.

Do a few really good strips on a certain literary and moral level – such as Barnaby, Pogo or Li’l Abner – redeem the whole art? Li’l Abner, the best of them, although wildly overestimated by many, is drawn and written by an able satirist. His sallies are often witty and he frequently scores a bullseye on his main target, Big Business. No one would deny Mr Al Capp’s abilities. But the form in which his ability gains expression remains, even in his hands, ugly, un-aesthetic and repulsive – and it is the form which is now under discussion. Some critics say that the comic strips may give birth even to great poetry and that they should be given a chance. This claim is more than doubtful; and the new form has had its chance. It is a novelty more than half a century old.

… I run into people (writes Mr John Steinbeck) who seem to feel that literature is all words and that those words should preferably be stuffy. The literature of the Cro Magnoa is painted on the walls of the caves of Altamira.

Mr Steinbeck may be right. Literature began with comic strips; if we are not careful, it may also end with them.

The post The art of an unknown future appeared first on TLS.