The Yellow Kid is an American comic-strip character that appeared from 1895 to 1898 in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, and later William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault
The Yellow Kid is often given the honor of being the first comic in history. This poor, big-eared kid, with a shaved head to avoid nits, dressed in a long yellow tunic that looks like a threadbare nightgown, who was the protagonist of small adventures in the New York slums of the late 19th century, has become a primary reference when talking about the American comic book industry.
The Analysis of Beauty, Plate 1 (1753) by William Hogarth, is part of his exploration into the principles of artistic beauty. This particular plate is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States
William Hogarth: pioneer of comics and political cartoons
Probably, a contemporary consumer of comics would be disappointed if we proposed to him the reading of what was the seed of comics in the 18th century.
Dennis taught me that it didn't matter if I hated books. He became the helping hand between being a non-reader and the children's author I am today
Steven Butler
Saturday 15 March 2014
I was a miserably illiterate child. Riddled with it. Stuffed full of the inability to read or write.
It wasn't just that I was extremely poor at the basics of the English language, I despised it. Books were a threatening source of stress and classroom embarrassment. Steven Butler wanted NOTHING to do with books.
Cue the little boy in the red-and-black stripy jumper. When Dennis the Menacefirst came into my childhood I was about eight and my hatred of books had reached such a level that I refused to even have them in my bedroom. I had already squeezed every present under the Christmas tree and knew that my parents had snuck a book into my pile. There's no mistaking the feel of a gift-wrapped book.
When I unwrapped the Beano annual and came face to face with the boy in his iconic stripes for the first time, I had no idea what a life-long friend the character would become. Dennis taught me that it didn't matter if I hated books. Books were for losers, and reading was boring. In no time I fell in love with his anarchic stories, became a comic kid and felt cool for the first time in my life.
What my little brain hadn't caught on to was the fact that through Dennis's comics, I was fast becoming a greatly improved reader. Writing inserted among zany pictures lost its threat, and Dennis became the helping hand between being a non-reader and the children's author I am today.
Writing Dennis for a new generation of children has been a privilege and the funniest of games. I love watching a child frantically turning the page to read more about how boring books are. It's the perfect trick.
Huey, Dewey & Louie in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp.
My heroes: Huey, Dewey and Louie by Jeff Kinney
The bestselling author of the Wimpy Kid books on how his entire frame of reference was established reading Donald Duck comics
Friday 24 January 2014
A
s a kid snooping around my parents' room, I came across world-class, life-altering literature in the most unlikely form: comic books. My father had spent most of his life collecting the works of Carl Barks, the genius writer and illustrator of the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories written between the 1940s and 1960s. I can say without a touch of exaggeration that my entire frame of reference for history, geography, archaeology and religion was established reading Barks's comic books. His globe-trotting tales were like National Geographic come to life, with ducks leading the way.
My favourite tales were those in which Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, were along for the ride. Donald was full of bluster and Uncle Scrooge full of greed, but the triplets were cool in the face of danger, curious, keen for adventure, and most of all, resourceful. One of my favourite stories was "Maharajah Donald", which starts off in Duckburg, where Donald hires his nephews to clean his garage. He rewards them with a stub of a pencil. Instead of allowing themselves to be insulted, Huey, Dewey and Louie make the best of their situation, trading the pencil with a local kid for a ball of string. Several savvy moves later, the boys are in possession of a steamliner ticket to India. Donald claims it for himself, the boys stow away on the ship, and the next thing you know, the ducks are in India, where the boys have to save Donald from being fed to the royal tigers. Just when all hope is lost, they find a stub of a pencil, which causes them to announce (in unison, of course), "We're rich!"
Carl Barks said his characters were really people who just looked like ducks. Reading his stories, it was easy to get swept up in the narrative, and forget that the heroes had bills and webbed feet (and wore shirts and hats, but no trousers). Huey, Dewey and Louie taught me a lot about the world, and how to get out of a jam. All you need is the stub of a pencil.
The Customer is Always Right is a short story, part of a publication of stories entitled "The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories". The Customer is Always Right is the shortest as it is three pages. It was later re-published in the collection Booze, Babes, and Bullets.
It served as the opening sequence for the movie Sin City, which featured Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton. The sequence served as the original proof of concept footage that director Robert Rodriguez filmed to convince Frank Miller to allow him to adapt Sin City to the silver screen.
The story involves an enigmatic tryst between two nameless characters; "The Customer" and "The Salesman". They meet on the terrace of a high rise building, hinting that although they seem to be acting like strangers, they do indeed have some sort of past. It is unclear what their past involves even as they embrace in a passionate kiss.
A silenced gunshot stabs the night air to reveal that The Salesman has shot The Customer. The reader is led to believe that The Customer had fallen into a serious and difficult situation and, with no other feasible alternative, hired The Salesman to kill her. Later information given by Frank Miller on the commentary of the Recut & Extended DVD Edition states that The Customer had an affair with a member of the mafia and, when she found out, tried to break it off with him. The mafia member then swore to her that she would die in the most terrible way possible, and when it is least expected. The Customer, having connections, hires The Salesman (who is referred to as "The Lady-Killer") to kill her. In the comic The Salesman is The Colonel, as Miller has verified in the BLAM! section page 29 of the one-shot issue Sex & Violence.
Marv (Mickey Rourke) fights the cannibal Kevin (Elijah Wood) and feeds him to the wolf.
Elijah as the cannibal Kevin
FILM DESCRIPTION:
The Eisner Award-winning comic series Sin City comes to life in this live-action feature adaptation from director Robert Rodriguez and creator Frank Miller. Interweaving multiple storylines from the series' history, this violent crime noir paints the picture of the ultimate town without pity through the eyes of its roughest characters. There's the street thug Marv (Mickey Rourke), whose desperate quest to find the killer of a prostitute named Goldie (Jaime King) will lead him to the foulest edges of town. Inhabiting many of those areas is Dwight (Clive Owen), a photographer in league with the sordid ladies of Sin City, headed by Gail (Rosario Dawson), who opens up a mess of trouble after tangling with a corrupt cop by the name of Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). Finally, there's Hartigan (Bruce Willis), an ex-cop with a heart problem who's hell-bent on protecting a stripper named Nancy (Jessica Alba). Featuring a who's who supporting cast that includes Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Devon Aoki, and Nick Stahl, Sin City promises to be one of the most direct translations from page to screen of a comic series, with shots and dialogue adapted straight from the original comic's panels. Rodriguez quit the Director's Guild when they refused to let Frank Miller co-direct the film, a deal hashed out after the two collaborators developed and shot the opening scene utilizing a green-screen process to harness the stark, black-and-white look of the books as a litmus test for the rest of the production. Quentin Tarantino was brought in and reportedly paid one dollar to direct an extended scene between Del Toro and Owen that amounts to one issue of The Big Fat Kill miniseries.
Everyone knows Robert Rodriguez‘s and Frank Miller‘s cult movie Sin City: finally, the authors have started to work on the sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Unfortunately, there have already been some problems on the set, since Jessica Alba doesn’t want to play the “hottest” scenes regarding her character, Nancy Callahan, since she doesn’t feel comfortable with her body anymore, after two children. Since she’s lately been the most talked actress of the film, we’re going to speak about her character, Nancy.
Nancy Callahan was born and raised in Basin City, lovely nicknamed Sin City, really not a good place to raise a child in. When she was only eleven, she was kidnapped by Roarke Junior, a child-raper and serial killer, whose actions were promptly covered by Senator Roarke, his father and the city’s most powerful man. Nobody thought Nancy would have come out of it alive, but, just before Roarke could begin with her, she was saved by police detective John Hartigan, who couldn’t care less of Roarke’s influence and shot the maniac’s ear, hand and genitals. Before Hartigan could finish Roarke, anyway, he was betrayed and shot by his partner, Bob, who sent him to a coma. Nancy witnessed the entire scene, and tried to tell the policemen what happened, but they declared the girl was too shocked to tell anything sensible, and discarded her story. She also tried to testify during Roarke’s trial, but Hartigan, blackmailed by the Senator, asked Nancy to step back, and to let them frame him for the raper’s actions. Faithful to her hero, Nancy agreed, but kept writing letters to John every week, for the whole eight years he was put in prison. She had to use a false name, Cordelia, since Senator Roarke was ready to kill anyone who could say something about his son, Nancy in first place. She hid for some time, and she tried to live in the darkest corners of Basin City, so that the Senator’s men couldn’t find her. At a certain point, she was assaulted by some boys, but she was saved by Marv, an ugly brute with a kind spot for ladies who would have become one of her closest friends.
Nancy grew up a beautiful woman, and started law school, so that she could become a lawyer and save her hero from jail. In order to pay her studies, however, she ended up being hired at Kadie’s Bar, a strip club (more a dive than something else). At Kadie’s, she worked as an exotic dancer, one of the tavern’s most popular ones, and she had the occasion of meeting many of the most peculiar citizens of Basin. She had many boyfriends, but her stories ended very soon: despite she tried to fall in love with some man, she couldn’t cancel her feelings towards Hartigan, who would stay her first and truest love forever. She had the occasion of meeting the (former) detective once again when he was let out of prison, after confessing all Roarke’s crimes as his own, fearing for Nancy’s safety (Roarke had sent him a girl’s finger, making him believe it was Nancy’s). The two soon found out that their reunification was part of Roarke Junior’s plan to find out Nancy’s hideout, since he had been obsessed with her since the day Hartigan denied him his pleasure with her.
Nancy Callahan is a kind woman, a rare sight in Sin City. Despite her golden heart and good character, she often finds herself involved in underground criminality’s operation, mostly because of her friendships, which go from Marv to the Old Town‘s prostitutes. With the years, she learnt how to take care of herself, and she has grown a strong instinct for survival; underneath the hard skin, anyway, there lasts a romantic spirit, the same she had when she was a scared, wounded eleven-years-old girl.
How did you get into graphic novels? I read Marvel comics as a kid and began collecting them as a teenager. That started me going on pilgrimages to the central London comic shops, which were my gateway to the alternative comics universe.
What do you love about them? Their scope. A comic can be anything from the biggest-budget blockbuster to the most intimate, personal story.
Do you have a favourite? The four artists I’ve followed with the most devotion are Chester Brown, Jaime Hernandez, Daniel Clowes and Joe Matt. Peter Bagge’s Hate was a favourite of mine and Jesse [Armstrong]’s when we started writing sitcoms in the late 90s. The first 12 issues in particular are a perfect sitcom and so much fresher and more contemporary than what was on TV at the time.
Joe Matt’s Peepshow was also an influence, unsurprisingly! I had the opportunity to take Joe out for lunch in Los Angeles recently to thank him for his incredible body of work and to encourage him to produce more comics.
I’m also a big fan of Karrie Fransman – her Death of the Artist is one of the most astonishing graphic novels I’ve read in recent years.
Where do you buy them? I have a standing order at Gosh! Comics in Soho. I remember reading the first issue of the brilliant Fluffy by Simone Lia cover to cover in Gosh! when it came out a few years ago. I felt bad that I hadn’t paid a penny for the privilege, so I emailed Simone to buy it from her direct. She’s become a friend and I love everything she produces.
FacebookTwitterPinterest Gosh! Comic shop, Berwick Street in London’s Soho. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer New Review
I fanboyed out at my first visit to San Diego Comic-Con this summer. I was plus-oned by Mat Johnson, an American writer friend who wrote the wonderful Incognegro. Mat managed to get me an invite to a dinner hosted by comics legend Karen Berger – the guests included Bill Sienkiewicz, Dave Gibbons and Ann Nocenti, authors of some of the best superhero comics ever created. My teenage self was in paradise.
Any rituals around reading them? I like to say a prayer and drink to world peace.
Sam Bain’s debut play ‘The Retreat’, directed by Kathy Burke, is at the Park Theatre, London N4 until 2 December
Tales from Dundee … The Beano. Photograph: DC Thomson & Co. Ltd
My hero:
The Beano by Danny Wallace
The comedian and author on how the comic celebrates storytelling and the joys of a joke
Friday 3 April 2015
R
ecently, I was at a big party where I found myself standing between two rock stars. The kind of people to whom you want to ask questions – not because you want answers, but because you want stories. We all want stories.