Comics

Animated films, such as Finding Nemo (2003), are a very popular form of entertainment. Animated films were once drawn entirely by hand, but today many are made on computers.

 Comics, or comic strips, are cartoons with several panels that tell a story. You can find comic strips in the funny papers, a section of the daily newspaper. In some comics, each daily strip tells its own story. In others, each strip is part of a continuing story. Popular comic-strip characters include Charlie Brown, his dog Snoopy, and their friends in Peanuts, and the fussy cat in Garfield.

The first comic strips appeared in American newspapers in the 1890s. One of the earliest was Hogan’s Alley, by Richard Outcault. It featured a bald boy in a yellow nightshirt called the Yellow Kid. By the early 1900s, comic strips were a part of most American newspapers.

COMIC BOOKS

The first comic books were just collections of newspaper comic strips. Comic books with original material began to appear in the 1930s. They could tell longer and more detailed stories than newspaper strips. Comic books became widely popular beginning in 1938 with the first appearance of the superhero character Superman.

New superheroes soon appeared in other comic books, including the Flash, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel. Comic books in the 1960s introduced a whole new set of superheroes, such as X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four. These newer superheroes all had special powers, but they had problems in life like everyone else.