Comic book

 

Since the introduction of the comic book format in 1934 with the publication of Famous Funnies, the United States has produced the most titles, with only the British comic and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles.

Cultural historians divide the career of the comic book in the U.S. into several ages or historical eras:

Proto-comic books and the Platinum Age

Golden Age

Silver Age

Bronze Age

Modern Age

Comic book historians continue to debate the exact boundaries of these eras, but they have come to an agreement, the terms for which originated in the fandom press. Comic books as a print medium have existed in America since the printing of The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck in 1842 in hardcover  making it the first known American prototype comic book. The introduction of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman in 1938 turned comic books into a major industry, and is often presented as the start of the Golden Age of comics. Historians have proposed several names for the Age before Superman, most commonly dubbing it the Platinum Age.

 

While the Platinum Age saw the first use of the term "comic book" (The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flats (1897), the first known full-color comic (The Blackberries (1901)), and the first monthly comic book (Comics Monthly (1922), it was not until the Golden Age that the archetype of the superhero would originate.

Underground comics

 

In the late 1960s and early 1970s a surge of creativity emerged in what became known as underground comics. Published and distributed independently of the established comics industry, most of such comics reflected the youth counterculture and drug culture of the time. Many had an uninhibited, often irreverent style  their frank depictions of nudity, sex, profanity, and politics had no parallel outside their precursors, the pornographic and even more obscure "Tijuana bibles". Underground comics were almost never sold at news stands, but rather in such youth-oriented outlets as head shops and record stores, as well as by mail order.

 

Frank Stack's The Adventures of Jesus, published under the name Foolbert Sturgeon, has been credited as the first underground comic.