The Origin and Development of Children's Cartoons

Western comic historians usually take The Journey of a Wandering Woman and The Return of the Prodigal Son, which were created by the great British artist Huo Jiasi from 65438 to 2008, as the starting point of comic books. Huo Jiasi combined articles and pictures into a whole, established the continuity of graphic stories, and achieved dramatic results, thus producing a new term "cartoon". But this is not a comic book in the modern sense. Until the end of 18, James Gillray, a British painter, used a lot of dialogue bubbles (that is, balloon-shaped wireframes drawn from the characters' mouths, and the middle words were expressed as what the characters said) and continuous picture creation methods, which was the embryonic form of comic books.

With the rapid development of science and technology in19th century, zinc plate making and photographic plate making came out one after another, which greatly promoted the prosperity and development of picture stories in19th century, and these illustrated stories reached their peak in art ... Goethe once spoke highly of Rudolf Topfer, a Swiss illustrator, saying that his works "do not mark the beginning of a new art form as some people argued.

/kloc-In the middle of the 0/9th century, the German cartoonist William Bush created a large number of comic books with poems, which occupied a very important position in the world comic books. Bush has opened up a new field for comic books in theme, form and artistic technique, and his comic book Max and Moritz has made great contributions to the birth of American comic books. H. Arthur Klein, a scholar, brilliantly summed up: "Even if he is not his father, Bush Sr. can be regarded as the stepfather of American comics."

/kloc-In the mid-0/9th century, American weekly pictorial became popular rapidly, such as those run by Gleason, Leslie and Harper, which were very popular at that time. It was not until 1873 that photographic letterpress was invented, which greatly promoted the development of these graphic weekly newspapers and made them cheaper and more popular. At that time, many cities in the United States had a large number of newly arrived foreign immigrants. These photo newspapers are very popular among readers who don't use English. Very sensitive publishers soon realize that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this way, various newspapers in the United States quickly became very visual.

The birth and rise of comic books is beyond people's expectation. However, from the perspective of historical development, the birth and rise of this new form is inevitable.

From 65438 to 0880, some American daily newspapers began to appear Sunday supplements. Joseph Pulitzer, a newspaper giant, first gradually used color illustrations and cartoons in Sunday supplements. With the urbanization of the United States and the rapid expansion of the American newspaper industry in the second half of the19th century, fierce hegemonic competition has emerged among newspaper giants. The hot spot of this newspaper competition is on September 25th, 1895. In order to compete with Joseph Pulitzer, another American newspaper giant, William Rudolph Hearst, bought the new york Morning Post from John R. McClane (McClane had previously bought the newspaper from Pulitzer's brother Albert). Hearst soon discovered the great promotion of comic books to newspaper circulation. Like Pulitzer, he firmly believes that the Sunday Supplement will flourish, and they all regard comic books as a deadly weapon in the competition.

The comic strip in Pulitzer's new york World mainly has three elements: continuous pictures, fixed characters and dialogue bubbles in the pictures. This directly contributed to 1895 Richard Ottkat's historic yellow children. However, The Yellow Man at that time was not the cartoon we define today. However, its appearance is very crucial, just as it marks the birth of comics, it marks the emergence of a unique means.

1897, Hearst founded the color comic book supplement "American humorist", and he proudly declared that "under the strong light of these eight-page supplements, the rainbow looks as dull as a lead pipe". Hearst has incredible judgment in choosing artists. 1896, he took a sudden action on Pulitzer's new york World, and poached the cartoonist Richard felton Ottkat with a large sum of money, making him a cartoonist in the supplement of The American Humorist. The cartoonist of the American humorist works under the supervision of Hurst and subconsciously creates a new comic language.

After Otto Carter was hired by Hearst, The Yellow Man became the crown jewel of Hearst comic supplement, which shocked Pulitzer. In order to fight back, Pulitzer appointed cartoonist John Ross to create negative yellow children for the world. 1897, at the climax of the competition between Hearst and Pulitzer, Hearst took a fancy to Rudolf Dex, a young German immigrant cartoonist, in order to open a comic column for yellow children against the smash hit new york World. He asked Dex to imitate German cartoonist William Bush's comic strip Max and Moritz and set up a Sunday comic column. After a period of intense preparation,1897 65438+February 12' s cartoon "Noisy Children" finally came out. Noisy children are of great significance in comic books. It has fixed roles, continuous pictures, dialogue bubbles and a large number of onomatopoeia words and dynamic lines. It is the first newspaper serial cartoon in the true sense, and it can be said to be the most important cartoon work. Although the cartoons in Pulitzer newspapers have the main elements of comic books, it is his young competitor Hearst who integrates all the elements of comic books. Hearst played a very important role in the emergence and development of this new form of newspaper comics, and can be called the godfather of this new form.

Due to the disagreement between Dex and Hearst, in 19 12, Pulitzer took the opportunity to dig up the disgruntled Dex and angered Hearst. He confiscated the copyright of Noisy Children from Dex and filed a lawsuit against Dex. After a heated debate in court, Dex finally got the right to use the cartoon image of noisy children, but he was not allowed to use the title of noisy children. The lawsuit against American comics has been going on for two years. After the lawsuit ended with 19 14, Dex opened a comic column called Hans and Fritz in Pulitzer (later renamed Captain and Child), and Hearst had to hire another cartoonist, Harold Helinnier, to continue painting Noisy Children. In this way, two columns of serial cartoons with different names and the same role appeared in Pulitzer and Hearst's newspapers at the same time.

In the fierce competition between the two newspaper giants, American newspaper serial comics were born and triggered a world comic craze that lasted for a century.

As early as the 1920s, European and American cartoons began to be introduced into China. From 65438 to 0928, chinese comic Jiaye was influenced by Melter and Jeff, the first daily newspaper of American comics, and created the serial comic of Mr. Wang and Jeff. In the 1930s, a large number of European and American cartoons flooded into our country, and not only a selection of foreign cartoons and publications specialized in publishing foreign cartoons appeared, but also many publications competed to publish foreign cartoons. For example, in 1934, Zhang Guangyu, a chinese comic, compiled the classic cartoon "The Birth of Adam" by Swedish cartoonist Oscar Jacobson into 100 cartoons and distributed them in China. In the mid-1930s, magazines such as Funny Weekly and Comic World appeared in Shanghai. Zephyr Monthly was founded in September 1936, with the aim of "translating the essence of western magazines and introducing the living society in Europe and America". It was quite famous at that time, and each issue featured one or two sets of wonderful European and American cartoons, which left a deep impression on readers. The introduction of early comic books in Europe and America had an immeasurable impact on comic books in China.