A Brief History of Comics
In the beginning the modern comic, as we know it, began I in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World on February 17, 1895. The comic, drawn by Richard F. Outcault, was based on the life of Mickey Dugan, an Irish immigrant child in the city. Although the strip had no name, people have dubbed it the “Yellow Kid” because the nightshirt worn by Mickey Dugan was the projection for an experiment in yellow ink by the newspaper. Eventually, the comic came to be known as “Hogan’s Alley.” Soon comics were recognized for the selling potential and were published in newspapers all over the world. After the success of the world, a competitor, William Randolph Herst of the New York Journal, hired Outcault to draw Hogan’s Alley for Hearst’s Journal. The world continued publication of the strip using a new artist, and both papers were featuring the “Yellow Kid.” This led to people referring to the two papers as the yellow papers. And as the battle between the press, Lords became more intense, people began calling it yellow journalism which now has come to mean overly sensational journalism. Although Outcault won the battle over the rights of “Yellow Kid,” the mass marketing began. The cartoon was everywhere.
