25th of September – National Comic Book Day

Every year, September 25th, Americans and all comic book lovers celebrate National Comic Book Day. The motto of this day could be the words in the epigraph: "Buy a comic, or two, or ... Read a comic, or two, or ...".

In French - bande dessinŭe (or, briefly, “BD”), in Italian - fumetti, in German - bilderbogen, in Serbian - strip, in Japanese - manga, in Chinese - lianhuanhua, in English - comic book (or comics), in Russian - a comic book. Today is the day when it's time to talk about comics - the genre of hand-drawn literature, which has long become a part of book culture and a profitable industry in developed countries.

On this day, comic book stores urge not to throw away purchased comics, because even the most simple comic book, they believe, can become a rarity in a few years and decorate any solid collection.

Interestingly, America is not the birthplace of comics. Comics are an invention of Europeans. Although, in fairness, it is worth saying that drawings with brief signatures - graphic stories - have been known since time immemorial in rock paintings. It is also worth noting that the concept of "comic book" (Comic Book) is common only in the English-American vocabulary. And in Russia. In Russia because in the Soviet Union a national definition of this art form was never formed.

So, experts name several outstanding artists as the founders of comics. In the 18th century, the English painter and graphic artist William Hogarth (1697-1764) puts a dramatic narrative on the drawing. The German poet and graphic artist Wilhelm Bush (1832-1908) supplies his poems with a series of drawings, thereby reflecting the storyline of the poetic narrative. The stories about the adventures of Max and Moritz, created by him in the middle of the 19th century, are popular today. The first example of this graphic prose is considered to be a series about the adventures of Dr. Syntaxis - "The journey of Dr. Syntaxis in search of the picturesque" - an English cartoonist and painter Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827).

The USA actively picked up the genre, and in 1892 the first American comic strip “Teddy Bears and Tiger”, published in the Sunday New York World newspaper, saw the light of day. Some sources call the first comic book "The Yellow Child", which appeared in May 1895 in the same newspaper. The author of both stories is artist Richard Outcalt, who is called one of the first authors of this genre in the United States. The boom came in the 1920-1930s, from which the "golden age of comics" in the New World dates back. Comics are becoming an integral part of popular culture, their genres are expanding - science fiction, detective stories, horrors, super-heroes.

In the heyday of comic books, immortal heroes of the stories “Duckling Donald” and “Mickey Mouse” were created. In the mid-50s of the 20th century, the “Golden Age of Comics” was replaced by the “silver”, and then, in the early 70s, and the “bronze” century. The themes of modern comics literally cover the entire spectrum of human life: from love to hate, from war to peace.

It is worth noting that in the USA there is another day dedicated to comics - Free Comic Book Day is held on the first Saturday of May. In other words, this is a commercial action designed to attract new comic book fans.

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