Genre Study: Comic Art


Comic art as we know it with marvel and DC comics began wordless at the end of the 19th centuries, made popular by the funnies produced for in the pages of a newspaper. Before this, the closest art style there was to what we know in the genre were illustrations within books depicting people, places and tools. Currently within this genre most of the art it is created digitally but some artists still use pen and ink on paper like ow they were first created. Within any project that is observed you can see how the social and political events going on in the world, this is clearly seen in Dc’s publication ‘Catwoman Election Night’ where we saw their opinions on the American election of 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Major names within this industry for their innovative work are; Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster. Their creations included the Fantastic 4, X-men and Superman.

Although most of the media is a written and illustrated narrative there are projects out there called ‘Silent Comics’. These consist of their stories being told with a greater emphasis on the art as the dialogue is represented symbolically, this is often used for surrealist context. This results in a greater emphasis on the art within and the meaning behind the composition. Within the art that is present within the panels is often based off real life places but spun into a Sci-fi or fantasy context, a good example of which is Gotham City which was based on New York and aimed to be a darker parody of Metropolis, yet another parody of New York.

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