Main
Pre-Golden Age |
![]()
![]() The first strip to make regular use of speech balloons was Rudolph Dirks's "The Katzenjammer Kids," which first appeared in 1897. In 1906, the graphic artists Lyonel Feininger and Winsor McCay began to achieve a wonderful quality that went beyond the popular notion of cartooning. Feininger created two strips, "Wee Willie Winkie's World" and "The Kinder Kids," in a style that lay somewhere between Art Nouveau and expressionism. Winsor McCay, a master of Art Nouveau illustration, produced "The Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend" and "Little Nemo in Slumberland." More comic strips followed. Soon, newspapers had sections dedicated to the things, featuring the adventures and escapades of Dick Tracy, Popeye the Sailor Man, Flash Gorden, Charlie Brown, and many more characters. Later on, a select collection of these strips were reprinted in magazine format, becoming the first comic book in recorded history. |