So do you like comics?, right you like comics?, those little pictures with words that tell a story, maybe you're into the Manga types like me, but have you ever wanted to learn the history of comics?...well you clicked on this, so I guess you do, so here I'll be talking about The First Comic Strips from Story of America Cards: Thought and Culture Category!

(What are Comic Strips?)

Comic Strips are a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.

(Battle for "The Yellow Kid")

During the 1890s, Joseph Pulizer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal went all-out to lure sensation-hungry newspaper readers by publishing stories about murders, scandals involving the rich, tragedies and disasters.

When news was scarce, Hearst and Pulizer did not hesitate to manufacture it. By playing up atrocities---real and imagined---by the Spanish in Cuba, and whipping up a patriotic fever in the United States against Spain, the two newspapers did much to push the nation into the Spanish-American War in 1898.

But in 1896 a cocky, lovable, comic strip street kid had quietly begun to entertain the readers of the World.

Two years later, the urchin, who wore a garment resembling a nightgown, began appearing in a bright yellow gown, and suddenly "The Yellow Kid", the creation of artist Richard Outacult, had boosted the World ahead of the Journal in a frantic battle for circulation.

Hearst counterattacked by hiring Outacult away from Pulitzer and publishing his own comic strip supplement in color. Pultitzer answered back by obtaining the copyrights to "The Yellow Kid", and then assisting another artist to depict the Kid's adventures.

From "The Yellow Kid" came the term "Yellow Journalism" Used to describe the Pulitzer-Hearst brand of sensationalism in handling the news.

In 1897 Hearst began publishing the first authentic comic strip called "The Katzenjammer Kids" which used a row of panels and dialogue enclosed in balloons to tell the story of two troublesome children and their harried mother and father.

This Strip (by Rudolph Dirks), set the style and was followed by others: Frederick B. Opper's "Happy Hooligan", Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo" and Bud Fisher's "Mutt and Jeff".

During the early 1900s the development of major newspapers syndicates, including Hearst's International News Service, King Features, United Features, and Chicago Tribune Syndicate, made it possible to distribute artist's work in scores of newspapers each day throughout the country.

Among the most popular of the syndicated strips were George McManus's "Bringing Up Father" and Harold Gray's "Little Orphan Annie".

During the 1930s syndicated comic strips helped millions Americans forget the Great Depression that was underway. It was then that such favorites as "Buck Rogers" by Dick Calkins, "Superman" by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and "Tarzan" by Harold Foster were born.

(Recommendation Yellow Press)

I really don't have a bonus entity for this one, so this is a video recommendation, you see I have talked about Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst before in my history card video "The Yellow Press", like these guys can you tell they are pretty shady or what well i guess that's just the life of a Businessman you gotta beat competition. (And like their competition literally started a war with two countries....so yeah, Yellow Press is something and...Evil, a bit I don't know which way to say).

So if you want to learn about Yellow Press, I have a video resource from The Story of America Card about it for you to check out.

(Ending)

And that was all about The First Comic Strips, I hope you enjoyed; Please check on the Yellow Press one if you want to learn about Yellow Journalism from me and I'll see you next time in my other cards bye!