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New Fun Comics

New Fun Comics

New Fun Comics was the title of a groundbreaking comic book from pulp magazine writer Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's National Allied Publications (some sources give National Allied Magazines). It was the first comic publication to feature all-original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips, and the first such magazine published by the company that would become DC Comics). Premiering with a Feb. 1935 first issue titled Fun: The Big Comic Magazine (the actual cover title, with "New" here only as a bannered blurb), and retitled New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine with issue #2, the publication was a tabloid-sized, 10-inch by 15-inch, 36-page magazine without glossy covers. An anthology, it offered humor features, such as the funny animal comic "Pelion and Ossa" and the college-set "Jigger and Ginger", mixed with such dramatic fare as the Western strip "Dick Woods" and the "yellow peril" adventure "Barry O'Neill", featuring a Fu Manchu-styled villain, Fang Gow. The earliest issues were edited by future Funnies, Inc. founder Lloyd Jacquet, the next by Wheeler-Nicholson himself. Beginning with #7 (January 1936), the title was changed to More Fun Comics, with the magazine featuring primarily adventure stories and, after the advent of Superman in the same company's Action Comics in 1938, superhero stories. Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster made their comic-book debut, in fact, in More Fun #6 (Oct. 1935). They writer-artist team began their careers with the musketeer swashbuckler "Henri Duval" (doing the first two installments before turning it over to others) and "Dr. Occult", starring a supernatural crimefighter and on which they would continue through More Fun #32 (June 1938). More Fun Comics lasted to issue #127, in 1947.

References

- Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books by Ron Goulart ISBN 0809250454

Comic book

A comic book is a magazine or book containing the sequential art in the form of a narrative. Comic books are often called comics for short. Although the term implies otherwise, the subject matter in comic books is not necessarily humorous, and in fact its dramatic seriousness varies widely. The term "comics" in this context does not refer to comic strips (such as Peanuts or Dilbert). In the last quarter of the 20th century, greater acceptance of the comics form among the general reading populace coincided with a greater usage of the term graphic novel, often meant to differentiate a book of comics with a spine from its stapled, pamphlet form, but the difference between the terms seems fuzzy at best as comics become more widespread in libraries, mainstream bookstores and other places. The earliest comic books were simply collections of comic strips that had originally been printed in newspapers. The commercial success of these collections led to work being created specifically for the comic-book form, which fostered specific conventions such as splash pages. Long-form comic books, generally with hardcover or trade-paper binding came to be known as graphic novels, but as noted above, the term's definition is especially fluid. Like jazz and a handful of other cultural artifacts, comic books are a rare indigenous American art form, [http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=004133] [http://www.disinfotainmenttoday.com/darenet/comicbook.htm] though prototypical examples of the form exist. American comic books have become closely associated with the superhero sub-genre. In the U.K., the term comic book is used to refer to American comic books by their readers and collectors, while the general populace would mainly consider a comic book a hardcover book collecting comics stories. The analogous term in the United Kingdom is a comic, short for comic paper or comic magazine.

The comic book in the United States

Since the invention of the comic book format in the 1930s, the United States has been the leading producer, with only the British comic (during the inter-war period through the 1970s) and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles (although, Japan outweighs America currently in overall sales by a vast margin). The majority of all comic books in the U.S. are marketed at younger teenagers, though the market also produces work for general as well as more mature audiences. The history of the comic book in the United States is split into several ages or historical eras: The Platinum Age, The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, and The Modern Age. The exact boundaries of these eras, the terms for which originated in fandom press, is a debatable point among comic book historians. The Golden Age is generally thought as lasting from 1938's introduction of Superman until the early 1950s, during which comic books enjoyed a surge of popularity, the archetype of the superhero was invented and defined, and many of comic books' most popular superheroes debuted. The Platinum Age refers to any material produced prior to this. While comics as an artform could arguably extend as far back as sequential cave paintings from thousands of years ago, comic books are dependent on printing, and the starting point for them in book form is generally considered to be the tabloid-sized The Funnies begun in 1929, or the more traditional sized Funnies on Parade from 1933. Both of these were simply reprints of newspaper strips. The Silver Age of Comic Books is generally considered to date from the first successful revival of the dormant superhero form — the debut of the Barry Allen Flash in Showcase #4 (Sept.-Oct. 1956) — and last through the early 1970s, during which time Marvel Comics revolutionized the medium with such naturalistic superheroes as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. The beginings of the Bronze and Modern ages are far more disputable. Indeed, some suggest that we are still in the Bronze Age. Starting points that have been suggested for the Bronze Age of comics are Conan #1 (Oct. 1970), Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (Apr. 1970) or Amazing Spider-Man #96 (May 1971) (the non-Comics Code issue). The start of the Modern Age has even more potential starting points, but is most likely the publication of Alan Moore's Watchmen in 1986. Notable events in the history of the American comic book include the psychiatrist Frederic Wertham's criticisms of the medium in his book Seduction of the Innocent, which saw the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency investigate comic books. In response to this attention from government and the media, the U.S. comic book industry created the Comics Code Authority in 1954 and drafted the Comics Code, a move which saw the particularly targeted EC change its satirical comic book Mad from comic book to magazine format in order to circumvent the Code.

Underground comics

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a surge of underground comics occurred. These comics were published and distributed independently of the established mainstream, and most reflected the youth counterculture and drug culture of the time. Many were notable for their uninhibited, irreverent style; their frankness in graphic sex, nudity, language and overt politics hadn't been seen in comics outside of their precursors, the pornographic and even more underground "Tijuana bibles". Underground comics were virtually never sold on newsstands but in such youth-oriented outlets as head shops and record stores, and by mail order. The underground-comics movement is often considered to have started with Zap Comix #1 (1968) by Canadian cartoonist Robert Crumb, a former Cleveland greeting-card artist living in San Francisco. Crumb later created the popular characters Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, and published Gilbert Shelton's The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

Independent and alternative comics

The rise of comic-book specialty stores in the late 1970s created a dedicated market for "independent" or "alternative comics"; two of the first were the anthology series Star Reach, published by comic-book writer Mike Friedrich from 1974-1979, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, published from the 1970s through the present day. Some independent comics continued in the tradition of underground comics, though were generally less overtly graphic, and others resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned ventures or by a single artists. A few (notably RAW) were experimental attempts to bring comics closer to the world of fine art. The "small press" scene continued to grow and diversify. By the 1980s, several such independent publishers as Eclipse Comics, First Comics, and Fantagraphics were releasing a wide range of styles and formats from color superhero, detective and science fiction comic books to black-and-white magazine-format stories of Latin American magical realism. A number of small publishers in the 1990s changed the format and distribution of their comics to more closely resemble non-comics publishing. The "minicomics" form, an extremely informal version of self-publishing, arose in the 1980s and became increasingly popular among artists in the 1990s, despite reaching an even more limited audience than the small press.

Decline of serial comic-book format

In the early 2000s, sales of standard monthly comic books declined while graphic novels made increasing headway at retail bookstores. Along with the shift toward graphic novels among comics publishers, traditional book publishers such as Pantheon have released several dozen graphic novels, including works originally released by comics publishers with much less publicity.

The comic of Europe

Franco-Belgian comics

Franco-Belgian comics are comics written in Belgium and France. These two countries have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are called BDs (from Bande Dessinée) in French. Belgian comic books originally written in Dutch are influenced by the francophone "Franco-Belgian" comics, but have a different feel. La bande dessinée is derived from the original description of the artform as "drawn strips". It is not insignificant that the French term contains no indication of subject matter, unlike the American terms "comics" and "funnies," which imply an art form not to be taken seriously. Indeed, the distinction of comics as the "ninth art" is prevalent in Francophone scholarship on the form (le neuvième art), as is the concept of comics criticism and scholarship itself. Relative to the respective size of their countries, the innumerable authors in the region publish huge numbers of comic books. In North America, the more serious, Franco-Belgian comics are often seen as equivalent to graphic novels, for various reasons, but whether they are long or short, bound or in magazine format, in Europe there is no need for a more sophisticated term, as the art's name does not itself imply something frivolous. In France, most comics are published at the behest of the author, who will work within his self-appointed time frame, so a wait from six months to two years between installments is common. Most books are first published as a hard cover oversized book, usually 48 or 64 pages, with later re-releases in soft cover.

The British comic

Originally the same size as the comic book in the United States, although lacking the glossy cover, the British comic has adopted a magazine size, with The Beano and The Dandy the last to adopt this size in the 1980s. Although generally referred to as a comic, it can also be referred to as a comic magazine, and has also been known historically as a comic paper. Although Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884), the first comic published in Britain, was marketed at adults, publishers quickly targeted a younger market, which has led to most publications being for children and created an association in the public's mind of comics being somewhat juvenile. Popular titles within the United Kingdom have included The Beano, The Dandy, The Eagle, 2000 AD and Viz. Underground comics and "small press" titles have also been published within the United Kingdom, notably Oz and Escape Magazine. The content of Action, another title aimed at children and launched in the mid 1970s became the subject of discussion in the House of Commons, and although this was on a smaller scale to such similar investigations in the United States, it also led to a moderation of content published within comics, although such moderatiuon was never formalised to the extent of a creation of any code, and nor was it particularly lasting. The United Kingdom has also established a healthy market in the reprinting and repackaging of material, notably material originated within the United States. The lack of reliable supplies of American comic books led to a variety of black and white reprints, including Marvel's 1950s monster comics, Fawcett's Captain Marvel, and some other characters such as Sheena, Mandrake the Magician and the Phantom. Several reprint companies were involved in repackaging American material for the British market, notably the importer and distributor Thorpe & Porter. Marvel eventually established a UK office, with DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics also opening offices for periods in the the 1990s. The repackaging of European material has been less frequent, although the Tintin and Asterix serials have been succesfully translated and repackaged in soft cover books.

The comic annual

At Christmas time publishers will repackage and commision material for comic annuals, hardback A4 books. DC Thomson also repackage The Broons and Oor Wullie strips in softcover A4 books for the festive season.

Italian comics

In Italy, comics (known as fumetti) made their debut as humouristic strips at the end of the 19th century, and later evolved in adventure stories inspired to those coming from the U.S. After World War II, however, artists like Hugo Pratt and Guido Crepax imposed Italian comics to an international audience. "Author" comics contain often strong erotic contents. Best sellers remain popular comic books Diabolik or the Bonelli line, namely Tex Willer or Dylan Dog. Mainstream comics are usually published on the monthly basis, in a black and white digest size format, with about 100-132 pages of story. Collections of classic material for the most famous character, usually with over 200 pages, are also common. Author comics are published in the french BD format, with an example being Pratt's Corto Maltese. Italian cartoonists have and receive great influences from other countries including Belgium, France, Spain and Argentina. Italy is also famous for being one of the foremost producers of Walt Disney comic stories, particularly. Donald Duck's superhero alter ego, Paperinik, known in English as Superduck, was created in Italy.

Other European comics

Although Switzerland contributes less to the body of work, it is significant that many scholars point to a Francophone Swiss, Rodolphe Töpffer, as the true father of comics. This choice is still controversial, with critics feeling that Töppfer's work is perhaps somewhat unconnected to the genesis of the artform as it is now known in the region.

The graphic novel

The term graphic novel was first coined by Richard Kyle in 1964, mainly as an attempt to distinguish the newly translated works from Europe which were then being published from what Kyle saw as the more juvenile publications common in the United States. The term was popularised when Will Eisner used it on the cover of the paeprback edition of his work A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories (1978). This was a more mature work than many had come to expect from the comics medium, and the critical and commercial success of A Contract with God helped to establish the term "graphic novel" in common usage.

Other Forms

- Tijuana bible (aka 8-pagers)
- Underground comics
- Alternative comics
- Adult comics
- Political and religious comics

Genres

Note: As with film and literature, genres are rarely pure and often blend. Frankenstein, for example, is a science fiction/horror novel; The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. is a Western/comedy TV series. Not all superhero comics are necessarily science fiction; Marvel Comics' Daredevil, for example, despite an initial science-fiction premise, may be more usefully classified as a crime drama.
- Action/adventure comics (of which superhero is a sub-genre)
- Adaptations of narratives in other media, often movies
- Anthromorphic/funny animal comics (see also furry)
- Autobiographical comics
- Crime comics
- Dramatic adventure comics
- Historical comics
- Horror comics
- Humor comics
- Journalistic comics
- Religious comics
- Romance comics
- Satiric comics
- Science-fiction comics
- War comics
- Western comics

Some particularly notable comic books

- 2000 AD (British)
- Acme Novelty Library (United States - Fantagraphics Books)
- Akira (Japanese)
- Asterix (French)
- Batman (United States - DC Comics)
- The Beano (British)
- The Dandy (British)
- Donald Duck (United States - Disney)
- Eightball (United States - Fantagraphics Books)
- The Fantastic Four (United States - Marvel Comics)
- The Incredible Hulk (United States - Marvel Comics)
- Lone Wolf and Cub (Japanese)
- Lucky Luke (Belgium - Dupuis and Dargaud)
- Monica's Gang (Turma da Mônica) (Brazilian)
- Mortadelo y Filemón (Spain)
- Mickey Mouse (United States-Disney)
- Raw (United States - Raw Books)
- The Smurfs (Belgium - Dupuis)
- The Amazing Spider-Man (United States - Marvel Comics)
- Sandman (United States - DC Vertigo Comics, 1988 World Fantasy Award (unique win for a comic-book series)
- Spike and Suzy (Belgian Flemish, originally called Suske en Wiske)
- Superman (United States - DC Comics)
- Tintin (Belgian - Casterman)
- Viz (British)
- Wonder Woman (United States - DC Comics)
- X-Men (United States - Marvel Comics)
- Zap Comix (United States-underground comix)

References

Inge, Thomas M., "Comics as culture" Journal of Popular Culture 12:631, 1979 (not online)

External links

- [http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=695 Database of Comic Book Sales Figures]
- [http://www.heritagecomics.com/common/worth.php How To Figure Out How Much Your Comics Are Worth]
- [http://www.comicbookdb.com/ ComicBookDB.com]
- [http://www.comiccovers.com/ ComicCovers.com]
- [http://www.cbgxtra.com Comics Buyer's Guide]
- [http://www.comics-db.com/ The Big Comic Book Database]
- [http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/ Comic Book Galaxy]
- [http://www.cbr.cc/ Comic Book Resources]
- [http://www.comics.org/ The Grand Comics Database]
- [http://www.crimeboss.com/history03-1.html The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency]
- [http://www.gweeb.com/ Bronze Age 1970s Comic Book Cover Showcase]
- [http://www.toonopedia.com/index.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia]
- [http://www.knightmare6.com/faq/ Fan Site: Comic Book FAQ]
- [http://www.boldcomicsstudio.com/main/ Bold Comic Studios - A site for the independant comic creator]
- [http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/ Comics Fan Zine: articles on comics in pop culture] Nostalgia Zine
- [http://ichibancomics.blogspot.com First Edition Comic Reviews at Ichiban Comics] ja:漫画
- Category:Comics Category:Magazines Category:Entertainment

Pulp magazine

:"Pulp fiction" redirects here. For the film, see Pulp Fiction. Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as "the pulps" ) were inexpensive fiction magazines. They were widely published from the 1920s through the 1950s.
Terminology and history
The name "pulp" comes from the cheap wood pulp paper on which such magazines were printed. Magazines printed on better paper and usually offering family-oriented content were often called "glossies" or "slicks". Pulps were the successor to the "penny dreadfuls" and "dime novels" of the nineteenth century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines are perhaps best remembered for their fast-paced, lurid, sensational and exploitative stories. Parallels between comic books and pulp magazines can be drawn; for example, magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters such as The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Phantom Detective. Because of the copyright laws at the time, there were distinct lines of this sort of magazine in Britain as well. These magazines, called "story papers", were distributed throughout the British Empire. Characters such as Sexton Blake and Nelson Lee were similar characters there. At the time, there was no global media market, so even though these were written in the same language, there was no recognition of the characters by each nation, just as in much of television today. Pulp covers were famous for their half-dressed damsels in distress, usually awaiting a rescuing hero. The first "pulp" is considered to be Frank Munsey's revamped Argosy Magazine of 1896. The format eventually declined (especially in the 1950s) with rising paper costs, competition from comic books, television, and the paperback novel. Most remaining pulp magazines are science fiction or mystery magazines now in digest form. The format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan (over 2300 issues as of 2005).
Genres
Pulp magazines often contained a wide variety of genre fiction, including, but not limited to, detective/mystery, science fiction, adventure, romance, war, horror/occult, and Série Noire. The American Old West was a mainstay of early turn of the century novels. Many classic science fiction and crime novels were originally serialised in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Black Mask. A common misconception (largely propagated by well-meaning, but misinformed RPG hobbyists) is that 'pulp' is limited in scope to 1940s adventure fiction in the vein of Indiana Jones. While such fiction is, in fact, encompassed under the heading of 'pulp', the heading itself is by no means limited to describing only that type of fiction.
Famous and infamous characters of pulp fiction
Popular regular pulp fiction characters included:
- The Avenger
- Biggles
- Conan the Barbarian
- Philo Gubb
- Doc Savage
- G-8
- Operator No. 5
- Sexton Blake
- The Black Bat
- The Eel
- The Phantom Detective
- The Shadow
- The Spider
- Tarzan
- Thubway Tham
- Zorro Kilgore Trout, the perennial character in the work of Kurt Vonnegut, is a fictional pulp fiction writer.
Authors and pulp magazines today
Many well-known authors began their careers writing for pulps under assumed names. A distinction can be made between an author who wrote for the pulps but later went on to transcend the limitations of the genre, and a "pulp author" who did not. Well-known authors who wrote for the pulps include:
- Poul Anderson
- Isaac Asimov
- Alfred Bester
- Robert Bloch
- Leigh Brackett
- Ray Bradbury
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Ellis Parker Butler
- Hugh B. Cave
- Raymond Chandler
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Philip K. Dick
- Erle Stanley Gardner
- Graham Greene
- Dashiell Hammett
- Robert A. Heinlein
- Frank Herbert
- Robert E. Howard
- L. Ron Hubbard
- Elmore John Leonard
- H. P. Lovecraft
- John D. MacDonald
- Johnston McCulley
- Walt Morey
- Talbot Mundy
- Seabury Quinn
- Richard S. Shaver
- Robert Silverberg
- Clark Ashton Smith
- Jack Vance After the year 2000, several small independent publishers released magazines which published short fiction, either short stories or novel-length presentations, in the tradition of the pulp magazines of the early twentieth century. These included Blood 'N Thunder and High Adventure. There was also a short lived magazine which revived the title Argosy. These were specialist publications printed in limited press runs. These were pointedly not printed on the brittle, high-acid wood pulp paper of the old publications, and were not mass market publications targeted at a wide audience.
External links
[http://www.geocities.com/jjnevins/pulpsintro.html Pulp and Adventure Heroes of the Pre-War Years] Jess Nevins' compendium of pulp characters. [http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/11/01/hard.case.books/index.html CNN "Girls, Guns, and money" article November 2005]
See also
Pulp Fiction Category:Magazines

Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson

Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a pulp magazine writer and entrepreneur, pioneered the American comic book, publishing the first such periodical consisting of all-original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips. Additionally, Wheeler-Nicholson's company, National Allied Publications, would evolve into DC Comics, one of the world's two largest comic book publishers, though long after its founder had left it to fade into relative obscurity.

Early life and career

A former U.S. Cavalry officer, Wheeler-Nicholson, by his account, "chased bandits on the Mexican border, fought fevers and played polo in the Philippines, led a battlation of infantry against the Bolsheviki in Siberia, helped straighten out the affairs of the army in France [and] commanded the headquarters cavalry of the American force in the Rhine", In 1924, after accusations by the major against senior officers, countercharges, hearings, and lawsuit threats, Wheeler-Nicholson left the service. Having already written non-fiction about military topics, he began writing short stories for the pulps. The major soon became a cover name, penning military and historical adventure fiction for such magazines as Adventure and Argosy.

New Fun Comics

Argosy In 1929, he founded Wheeler-Nicholson, Inc. to syndicate a daily comic-strip adatation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, with art by N. Brewster Morse. In the fall of 1934, having seen the emergence of Famous Funnies and other oversize magazines reprinting comic strips, he founded National Allied and published Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1 (Feb. 1935). A tabloid-sized, 10-inch by 15-inch, 36-page magazine without a card-stock, non-glossy cover, it was an anthology of humor features, such as the funny animal comic "Pelion and Ossa" and the college-set "Jigger and Ginger", mixed with such dramatic fare as the Western strip "Dick Woods" and the "yellow peril" adventure "Barry O'Neill", featuring a Fu Manchu-styled villain, Fang Gow. Most significantly, however, whereas some of the existing publications had eventually included a small amount of original material, generally as filler, New Fun Comics #1 (as it is colloquially called) was the first such publication containing all-original material. Wheeler-Nicholson retitled the magazine New Fun with the second issue. (The first has "New" on the cover only as a bannered blurb.) The first four issues were edited by future Funnies, Inc. founder Lloyd Jacquet, the next by Wheeler-Nicholson himself. Issue #6 (Oct. 1935) brought the comic-book debut of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the future creators of Superman, who began their careers with the musketeer swashbuckler "Henri Duval" (doing the first two installments before turning it over to others) and, under the pseudonyms "Leger and Reuths", the supernatural-crimefighter adventure "Dr. Occult", on which they would remain through More Fun Comics #32 (June 1938), after the magazine's second retitling. This occured with issue #7 (January 1936), with the magazine now featuring primarily adventure stories. Wheeler-Nicholson then added a second magazine, New Comics, which premiered with a Dec. 1935 cover date and at close to what would become the standard size of Golden Age comic books, with slightly larger dimensions than today's. The title became New Adventure Comics with issue #12, and finally Adventure Comics with #32. Continuing for many decades, until issue #503 in 1983, it would become one of the longest-running comic books ever published. Despite Wheeler-Nicholson's optimism, however, finding a place in the market was difficult. Newsstands were reluctant to stock a magazine of untested new material, rather than familiar comic strips, and from an unknown publisher at that. Returns were high, and cash-flow difficulties made the interval between issues unpredictable. Artist Craig Flessel recalled that at the company's office on Fourth Avenue, "The major flashed in and out of the place, doing battles with the printers, the banks, and other enemies of the struggling comics."

Later career

Wheeler-dealer Wheeler-Nicholson suffered from continual financial crises, both in his personal and professional lives. "Dick Woods" artist Lyman Anderson, whose Manhattan apartment Wheeler-Nicholson used as a rent-free pied á terre, said, "His wife would call [from home on Long Island] and be in tears...and say she didn't have money and the milkman was going to cut off the milk for the kids. I'd send out 10 bucks, just because she needed it.". At National Allied, staff and freelance turnover was high, page rates were low — with some contributors, such as Anderson, never being paid — and the company lurched forward on the major's energy and charm. The third and final title published under his aegis would be Detective Comics, advertised with a cover illustration dated Dec. 1936, but eventually premiering three months late, with a March 1937 cover date. Detective Comics would become a sensation with the introduction of Batman in issue #27 (May 1939). By then, however, Wheeler-Nicholson was gone. In 1937, in debt to printing-plant owner and magazine distributor Harry Donenfeld who was as well a pulp-magazine publisher and a principal in the magazine distributorship Independent News. Wheeler-Nicholson was compelled to take Donenfeld on as a partner in order to publish Detective #1. Detective Comics, Inc. was formed, with Wheeler-Nicholson and Jack S. Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant, listed as owners. The major remained for a year, but cash-flow problems continued. Then, as Gerard Jones recounted in Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book (Basic Books, 2004; trade paperback ISBN 9780465036578):

In early 1938, Harry Donenfeld send him and his wife on a cruise to Cuba to "work up new ideas". When they came home, the major found the lock to his office door changed. In his absence, Harry had sued him for nonpayment and pushed Detective Comics, Inc. into bankruptcy court. There a judge named Abe Mennen, one of Harry's old Tammany buddies, had been appointed interim president of the firm and arranged a quick sale of its assets to Independent News. Harry gave the major a percentage of More Fun Comics as a shut-up token and wished him well. The major gave up on the world of commerce thereafter and went back to writing war stories and critiques of the American military.

Shortly afterward came the launch of what would have been his fourth title, Action Comics, the premiere of which introduced Superman (a character with which he was not directly involved; editor Vin Sullivan chose to run the feature after Sheldon Mayer rescued it from the slush pile). Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson had become, in some ways, the Pete Best of comics. Actress Dana Wheeler-Nicholson (sometimes credited as Dana Wheeler Nicholson), who has appeared in movies including Fletch and Tombstone and in the casts of such TV series as Beverly Hills Buntz and All My Children, is his granddaughter.

Other works

- Book: Wheeler-Nicholson, Maj. Malcolm, Are We Winning the Hard Way? (Crowell Publishing, 1934)

Quotes

Business Week, Dec. 6, 2004, unsigned review of Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book, by Gerard Jones (Basic Books, 2004) [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_49/b3911021_mz005.htm]: "Siegel and Shuster submitted some material to comic book publisher Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, a bizarre figure given to wearing a French officer's cloak and a beaver cap. They also sent the first 13 pages of what would become Superman. Their material ended up in the slush pile. After Wheeler-Nicholson went bankrupt, Donenfeld and Liebowitz snapped up his properties. Deciding they needed another comic, an editor slapped together Action Comics. That included Superman, which was fished out of the heap."

Footnotes

- Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books (Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1986), by Ron Goulart, p. 5 ISBN 0809250454
- Ibid., p. 60
- Ibid., p. 61

Other References

- [http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/superart/JOE_SHUSTER.htm Who Drew Superman?]
- [http://www.dereksantos.com/comicpage/pregold2.html CBW Comic History: The Early Years...1896 to 1937, Part II]
- [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0923984/ IMdB: Dana Wheeler-Nicholson]

External links

- [http://www.collectortimes.com/~comichistory/Platinum.html The ComicBooks.com: The History of Comic Books]
- [http://www.geocities.com/mbrown123/newfuncomics.html The Greatest Comics: New Fun #1] Wheeler-Nicholson, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Malcolm

Newspaper

A newspaper is a publication containing news and information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It may be general or special interest, most often published daily or weekly. The first printed newspaper was published in 1605. The newspaper industry survived competition from 20th-century technologies, especially radio and television, but 21st-century developments on the Internet are posing major threats. General-interest newspapers are usually journals of current news. Those can include political events, crime, business, sports, and opinions (either editorials, columns, or political cartoons). Many also include weather news and forecasts. Newspapers use photographs to illustrate stories; use editorial cartoonists, usually to illustrate writing that is opinion, rather than news; and also often include comic strips and other entertainment, such as crosswords and horoscopes. horoscope, South Carolina, United States]]

Overview

A daily newspaper is issued every day, often with the exception of Sundays and some national holidays. Saturday, and where they exist Sunday, editions of daily newspapers tend to be large, include more specialized sections, and cost more. Weekly newspapers are also common and tend to be smaller and less prestigious than daily papers. However, those Sunday newspapers that do not have weekday editions are not considered to be weekly newspapers, and are generally equivalent in size and prestige to daily newspapers. Most nations have at least one newspaper that circulates throughout the whole country: a national newspaper, as contrasted with a local newspaper serving a city or region. In the United States and Canada, there are few truly national newspapers, with the notable exceptions of USA Today in the United States and The Globe and Mail and The National Post in Canada. Large metropolitan newspapers with expanded distribution networks such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Toronto Star can fill the role of de facto national newspapers. The owner of the newspaper, or person in charge, is the publisher. The person responsible for content is the editor, editor in chief, or executive editor. Newspapers have been developed around very narrow topic areas, such as news for merchants in a specific industry, fans of particular sports, fans of the arts or of specific artists, and participants in the same sorts of activities or lifestyles.

History

According to the World Association of Newspapers: 59 BC: Regular publications have been created and distributed by governments for millennia, including Acta Diurna, a listing of events ordered by Julius Caesar in ancient Rome. A.D. 713: The first newspaper, Mixed News in Kaiyuan, was published as a hand-written newssheet in Beijing, China. Kaiyuan was the name given to the year in which the paper was published. 1605: Johann Carolus published the first printed newspaper Relation aller fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (Collection of all distinguished and commemorable news) in Strasbourg, now in France but at the time an independent city within the (mostly) German-speaking Holy Roman Empire. In the same year Abraham Verhoeven of Antwerp (Low Countries/Belgium) publishes Nieuwe Tydingen (source : Encyclopaedia Britannica).The continuous publication of the Nieuwe Tijdingen indicates that the demand for newspapers soon became well-established. 1621: The first English-language private newspaper, The Corante, was first published, in London. 1631: La Gazette, the first French newspaper, was founded. 1632: Courante uyt Italien ende Duytschlandt, the first Dutch newspaper, was founded. 1645: the oldest newspaper still in circulation, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar of Sweden, began publishing. 1650: The world's first daily printed newspaper, Einkommende Zeitungen (Incoming news) founded in Leipzig, Germany. 1665: The oldest surviving English newspaper, The London Gazette begins publication. 1666: The first Danish newspaper, Den Danske Mercurius is published in Ribe by Anders Bording. 1690: Worcester Post-Man founded, which became Berrow's Worcester Journal in 1753, The Worcester Post-Man/Berrow's Worcester Journal is the world's oldest surviving unofficial newspaper. Also, Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick in Boston became the first newspaper published in British North America. It was suppressed after one issue. 1701: (September 6) Estimated first issue of the Norwich Post in England, which was probably the first provincial newspaper. 1702: The first English daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was founded by Samuel Buckley on 11 March. (Publication ceased in 1735). 1728: St. Petersburg Vedomosti, the oldest Russian newspaper still in circulation, is founded in Saint Petersburg. 1749: Berlingske Tidende, the first surviving Danish newspaper, is founded by E.H Berling. 1763: Norske Intelligenz-Sedler, Norway's first newspaper, was published. 1780: The Bengal Gazette, India's first newspaper, was founded. 1785: The Daily Universal Register was founded by John Walters. It became The Times on January 1, 1788. 1803: Just 15 years after the first British penal colony was established, Australia's military government published the Sydney Gazette and the New South Wales Advertiser, Australia's first newspapers. 1821: The Guardian was founded. 1827: El Mercurio, the oldest continually-published Spanish language newspaper, was founded in the port city of Valparaíso, Chile. 1833: (September 3) The New York Sun, the first truly successful penny press in the United States, was first published by Benjamin H. Day. By 1936, the paper was the largest seller in the country, with a circulation of over 30,000 copies. 1851 The New York Times was first published. 1871: Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun (Yokohama Daily News) is launched as the first daily newspaper in Japan. Today, on a per-capita basis, Japan ranks first in the world in circulation of newspapers. 1884: Otto Merganthaler invented the Linotype machine, which casts type in full lines using hot lead, a quantum leap in newspaper publishing, and ushering in the era of "hot lead." The systems remained in general production in the industry well into the 1980s, when computerized pagination became prominent. 1962: The Los Angeles Times drives Linotype hot metal typesetters with perforated tape created from RCA computers speeding up the typesetting. The key was development of a dictionary and method to automate the hyphenation and justification of text in columns (tasks that had taken 40 percent of a manual operator's time). 1973: Harris introduced editing terminals, which were quickly followed by terminals from Raytheon, Atex, Digital Equipment Corporation and others. The output was strips of type on film from phototypesetters ("cold type" replacing the "hot type" of Linotype machines)). Atex worked with the Minneapolis Star to develop the first pagination system that allowed the creation and output of full editorial pages, eliminating the need for manual paste-up of strips of film. The Atex system featured "Atex Messaging" which is widely believed to be the forerunner of both e-mail and instant messenger applications.
Format
Most modern newspapers are in one of three sizes:
- Broadsheets: 600mm by 380mm (23½ by 15 inches), generally associated with more intellectual newspapers, although a trend towards 'compact' newspapers is changing this.
- Tabloids: half the size of broadsheets at 380mm by 300mm (15 by 11¾ inches), and often perceived as sensationalist in contrast to broadsheets.
- Berliner or Midi: 470mm by 315mm (18½ by 12¼ inches) used by European papers such as Le Monde in France, La Stampa in Italy or, from 12 September 2005, The Guardian in the United Kingdom. Newspapers are usually printed on inexpensive, off-white paper known as newsprint. Since the 1980s, the newspaper industry has largely moved away from lower-quality letterpress printing to higher-quality, four-color process, offset printing. In addition, desktop computers, word processing software, graphics software, digital cameras and digital prepress and typesetting technologies have revolutionized the newspaper production process. These technologies have enabled newspaper to make publish color photographs and graphics, as well as innovative layouts and better design. To help their titles stand out on newsstands, some newspapers are printed on coloured newsprint. For example, the Financial Times is printed on a distinctive salmon pink paper, the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport is printed on pink paper, while L'Équipe (formerly L'Auto) is printed on yellow paper. Both the latter promoted major cycling races and their newsprint colours were reflected in the colours of the jerseys used to denote the race leader; thus, the leader in the Giro d'Italia wears a pink jersey, while the Tour de France leader wears a yellow jersey, or maillot jaune.
Circulation and readership
The number of copies distributed on an average day is called the newspaper's circulation, and is one of the principal factors used to set advertising rates. Circulation is not the same as copies sold since some newspapers are distributed without cost. Readership figures are usually higher than circulation figures because of the common assumption that a typical copy of the newspaper is read by more than one person. maillot jaune, February 2005]] According to United Nations data from 1995 Japan has three daily papers - the Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun - with circulations well above 4 million. Germany's Bild, with a circulation of 4.5 million, was the only other paper in that category. In the United Kingdom The Sun is the top seller, with around 3.2 million copies distributed daily (late-2004). In India, The Times of India is the largest English newspaper with 2.14 million copies daily. In the United States and the United Kingdom at least, overall newspaper circulation has been declining for many years, although some individual titles have thrived. USA Today has a daily circulation of approximately 2 million, making it the most widely distributed paper in the country. However, the validity of USA Todays circulation figures are disputed by some in the newspaper community. This is because of the newspaper's contracts with hotels; many of its papers are delivered to hotel guests who do not realise they are being charged for it. (However, this technique of increasing circulation, sometimes known as bulk sales, is not unique to USA Today.) In 2004, several large U.S. newspapers were found to have overstated their circulation.

Advertising

Most newspapers make nearly all their money from advertising. The income from the customer's payment at the news-stand is small in comparison. For that reason newspapers are not expensive to buy, and some (such as AM New York) are free. The portion of the newspaper that is not advertising is called editorial content, editorial matter, or simply editorial, although the last term is also used to refer specifically to those articles in which the newspaper expresses its opinions. Publishers of commercial newspapers strive for higher circulation so that advertising in their newspaper becomes more effective, allowing the newspaper to attract more advertisers and charge more for the service. But some advertising sales also market demographics: some newspapers might sacrifice higher circulation numbers in favor of an audience with a higher income. Many paid-for newspapers offer a variety of subscription plans. For example, someone might only want a Sunday paper, or perhaps only Sunday and Saturday, or maybe only a workweek subscription, or perhaps a daily subscription. Some newspapers provide some or all of their content on the Internet, either at no cost or for a fee. In some cases free access is only available for a matter of days or weeks, after which readers must register and provide personal data. In other cases, free archives are provided.

Newspaper journalism

Since newspapers began as a journal (record of current events), the profession involved in the making of newspapers began to be called journalism. Much emphasis has been placed upon the accuracy and fairness of the journalist - see Ethics. In the yellow journalism era of the 19th century, many newspapers in the United States relied on sensational stories that were meant to anger or excite the public, rather than to inform. The more restrained style of reporting that relies on fact checking and accuracy regained popularity around World War II. Criticism of journalism is varied and sometimes vehement. Credibility is questioned because of anonymous sources; errors in facts, spelling, and grammar; real or perceived bias; and scandals involving plagiarism and fabrication. In the past newspapers have often been owned by so-called press barons, and were used either as a rich man's toy, or a political tool. More recently in the United States, a greater number of newspapers (and all of the largest ones) are being run by large media corporations such as Gannett (the largest in the United States), Cox, The Tribune Company, etc. Many industry watchers have concerns that the growing need for profit growth natural to corporations will have a negative impact on the overall quality of journalism. Even though the opinions of the owners are often relegated to the editorial section, and the opinions of the readers are in the op-ed ("opposite the editorial page") and letters to the editors sections of the paper, newspapers have been used for political purposes by insinuating some kind of bias outside of the editorial section and into straight news. For example, The New York Times is often criticised for a leftist slant to its stories, or, by others, for supporting the American political establishment in nearly all cases, whereas The Wall Street Journal has a history of emphasising the position of the right. Some ways newspapers have tried to improve their credibility are: appointing ombudsmen, developing ethics policies and training, using more stringent corrections policies, communicating their processes and rationale with readers, and asking sources to review articles after publication. Many larger newspapers are now using more aggressive random fact-checking to further improve the chances that false information will be found before it is printed.

The future of newspapers

The future of newspapers is cloudy, with overall readership slowly declining in most developed countries due to increasing competition from television and the Internet. The 57th annual World Newspaper Congress, held in Istanbul in June 2004, reported circulation increases in only 35 of 208 countries studied. Most of the increase came in developing countries, notably China. A report at the gathering indicated that China tops total newspaper circulation, with more than 85 million copies of papers sold every day, followed by India with 72 million—China and India are the two most populous countries in the world—followed by Japan with 70 million and the United States with 55 million. The report said circulation declined by an average of 2.2 percent across 13 of the 15 countries that made up the European Union before May 1. The biggest declines were in Ireland, down 7.8 percent; Britain, down 4.7 percent; and Portugal, where numbers fell by 4.0 percent. One growth area is the distribution of free newspapers, which are not reflected in the above circulation data. Led by the [http://www.metro.lu Metro] chain of newspapers, they grew 16 percent in 2003. Another growth area is high-quality tabloids, particularly in the UK, where several of the major broadsheets are experimenting with the format (see Broadsheet#Switch to smaller sizes). Smaller and easier to hold than broadsheets, but presenting serious journalism rather than traditional tabloid fodder, they appear to have drawn some younger readers who are otherwise abandoning newspapers. Newspapers also face increased competition from the Internet for classified ads, especially for jobs, real estate, and cars, which have long been a key source of revenue.

Newspapers in different countries

:Main article: List of newspapers

Afghanistan

Printed in Afghanistan and other countries by Afghan nationals. List of newspapers in and out of print:

- Kabul Weekly
- Annis
- Issla
- Kabul Times

- Saraj-ul-Akhbar
- Omaid
- Khorasan

Argentina

In Argentina, the broadsheet format is almost non-existent. The only remaining national newspaper published in that format is La Nación.

Belgium

:Main article: List of newspapers in Belgium Belgium's quality newspapers:
- De Standaard [http://www.standaard.be] (christian, patriotically Flemish - 80,000 copies per day)
- De Morgen (left - 40,000 copies per day)
- Le Soir (French-language, centre - 100,000 copies per day) Popular newspapers:
- Het Laatste Nieuws (right, a lot of sports news - 291,000 copies per day)
- Het Nieuwsblad (christian, a lot of sports news - 200,000 copies per day)
- Vers l'avenir (French-language, catholic roots - 99,000 copies per day)
- Het Volk (left, christian - 92,000 copies per day) Source: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3737311.stm BBC: The press in Belgium]

Brazil

Most important newspapers of Brazil are:
- Folha de São Paulo
- O Estado de São Paulo (also known as Estadão)
- O Globo
- Jornal do Brasil
- Correio Braziliense
- Zero Hora

Chile

- El Mercurio
- La Tercera
- Las Últimas Noticias
- La Cuarta
- La Nación

Europe

There are several newspapers that target Europe, or the European Union, as a whole. Many are published in English, being owned both by USA-based or European-based companies.
- European Voice: Owned by the British (European Union) The Economist Group
- The Wall Street Journal Europe: Owned by the USA-based Wall Street Journal
- International Herald Tribune: Owned by USA-based The New York Times Company
- New Europe: Owned by USA-based News Corporation
- EU Reporter: (ownership unchecked), distributed without charge

Germany

:Main article: List of German newspapers Important national newspapers are the daily Die Welt and the weekly Die Zeit as well as the daily tabloid Bild, but local ones draw a much wider readership. Some local or regional newspapers assume the role of national papers, such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine of Frankfurt and the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich. The taz (long form: Die Tageszeitung) was founded 1978, partly in reaction to the terrorist events of the German Autumn, and considers itself as an alternative to the (in 1978) mostly conservative newspaper market. The now independent Neues Deutschland was the newspaper of the Socialist_Unity_Party_of_Germany, which ruled the communist East Germany until 1989. The largest publishing companies are located in Hamburg, notably the Axel Springer Verlag and Gruner und Jahr. About one half of Germany's nation-wide newspapers and magazines are produced in Hamburg. The Axel Springer Verlag dominates the newspaper market with its tabloid Bild and a large number of local papers.

France

Daily: Le Figaro Libération Le Monde Weekly: Les Échos Le Canard Enchâiné

Hong Kong

:Main article: Newspapers in Hong Kong Hong Kong has a vibrant newspaper publishing industry. Most papers use the broadsheet size. Almost all newspapers focus on the local Hong Kong market, but some may also target at the markets in Macau and Pearl River Delta. Although they are broadsheets, the three papers with the largest circulation are all considered tabloid-style, with large and colourful photos and sensational coverage to attract readers. Most papers adopt a daily magazine approach, with coverage ranging from local and international news, entertainment, culture, lifestyle, economic and finance, sport and horseracing. Hong Kong Economic Journal, Hong Kong Economic Times and South China Morning Post have are stronger focus on economics and finance. Ta Kung Pao, Wen Wei Po, Singtao Daily and Oriental Daily are the mouthpieces of the communist government in Beijing (Peking). There are also papers specifically published for horse racing tips.

India

Compared with many other developing countries, the Indian press has flourished since independence and exercises a large degree of independence. In 2001, India had 45,974 newspapers, including 5364 daily newspapers published in over 100 languages. The largest number of newspapers were published in Hindi (20,589), followed by English (7,596), Marathi (2,943), Urdu (2,906), Bengali (2,741), Gujarati (2,215), Tamil (2,119), Kannada (1,816), Malayalam(1,505) and Telugu (1,289). The Hindi daily press has a circulation of over 23 million copies, followed by English with over 8 million copies. There are several major publishing groups in India, the most prominent among them being the Times of India Group, the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group, The Hindu group, the Anandabazar Patrika Group, the Malayala Manorama Group, the Sahara group, the Bhaskar group, and the Jagran group. India has more than forty domestic news agencies. The Express News Service, the Press Trust of India, and the United News of India are among the major news agencies. See Also: Mass media in India

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man publishes three weekly newspapers; Isle of Man Courier, Manx Independent and Isle of Man Examiner. All three newspapers are printed by Isle of Man Newspapers who have their publishing house in Douglas, the capital. The Courier is free and is distributed to all households on the Island every Thursday. They have no official political affiliations. The Courier is distributed to approximately 30,000 households weekly.

Mexico

In Mexico there is no publication that can be considered a national newspaper. The most important ones, such as El Universal, La Jornada and Reforma are in Mexico City, and because of a heavy national centralisation, a lot of redistribution happens (newspapers from Mexico City are sold in almost every city in the country, some with a day or two lag). The only attempts to create a national newspaper originate in Monterrey. One of them is Milenio, a midi format newspaper, which is distributed in Mexico City; Monterrey, Nuevo León; Veracruz, Veracruz; Guadalajara, Jalisco; Tampico, Tamaulipas; and the state of Tabasco. The other attempt to make a national newspaper is from the Reforma News Group, which also originated and is run in Monterrey but that has big coverage from Mexico City. Reforma publishes different newspapers with the same main content, but with specific local content in the major cities of the country: El Norte in Monterrey, Reforma in Mexico City, Mural in Guadalajara and Palabra in Saltillo. All of the newspapers by Reforma are published in the broadsheet format. Reforma is one of the most prestigious, and often considered among the most reliable news sources in Mexico, in spite of its youth (it appeared in Mexico City in 1993). It has gained its prestige with its attractive editorial design, wide-spectrum editorialists and denouncements of government corruption. Until very recently, newsprint in Mexico was a product made only by the government-owned monopoly. Importing the product from other countries was illegal. This allowed the Mexican government, for many years, to put out of circulation any dissident newspaper. Reforma survived the boycott and fought heavily until the government allowed for importing the product in the 1990s. Since then, the Mexican press has been undergoing a process towards more freedom of speech, especially after the election of President Vicente Fox in the year 2000.

Netherlands

The biggest left winged quality paper in the Netherlands is the "de Volkskrant" [http://www.volkskrant.nl De Volkskrant]. Its opposite is the right winged "NRC Handelsblad", which stands for "Nieuwe Roterdamse Courant"[http://www.nrc.nl NRC]. A right winged paper of inferior quality is "de Telegraaf". [http://www.telegraaf.nl de Telegraaf] Further there is "Trouw", a conservative and good paper. It is founded in the second World War by the Dutch resist. [http://www.trouw.nl Trouw]

Norway

- Verdens Gang (VG) (tabloid)
- Aftenposten
- Dagbladet (tabloid)
- Morgenbladet
- Stavanger Aftenblad
- Rogalands Avis (tabloid)

Philippines

The Philippine press has been flourishing, with a large number of newspapers and tabloids. A partial list is provided below:
- Philippine Daily Inquirer
- The Philippine Star
- Manila Bulletin
- Malaya
- The Manila Times
- Manila Standard Today
- BusinessWorld
- Business Mirror
- The Daily Tribune
- Abante (tabloid)
- Balita (tabloid; owned by the Manila Bulletin)
- Bulgar (tabloid)
- Pilipino Star Ngayon (tabloid; owned by the Philippine Star)
- Tonite (tabloid)
- Tiktik (tabloid)

Poland

:Main article: List of Polish newspapers List of Polish newspapers (the most popular ones)

- Gazeta Wyborcza
- Fakt (tabloid)
- Rzeczpospolita
- Super Express (tabloid)

- Życie Warszawy
- Trybuna
- Nasz Dziennik

United Kingdom

:Main article: List of newspapers in the United Kingdom :See also: History of British newspapers In the United Kingdom, newspapers can be classified by distribution as local or national, and by page size as tabloids and broadsheets. The principal newspapers of England are all nationals edited in London. Wales and Northern Ireland are also dominated by the London-based press; in Scotland, although the London-based press is widely available and widely read, two Scottish newspapers can claim quasi-national status: The Scotsman (based in Edinburgh) and the Glasgow Herald. There is often an implication that tabloids cater for more vulgar tastes than broadsheet. Within the tabloid category the most down market titles are classed as red-tops because of the design of their front pages. This term is often used deprecatingly by newspapers that consider themselves more serious. There are also "middle-market" tabloids such as The Daily Mail and The Daily Express. This distinction began to be blurred in October 2003 as two broadsheet newspapers, The Independent and The Times, began tabloid editions in some parts of the U.K. The Independent switched entirely to producing what it prefers to call a "compact" edition from May 2004, and The Times changed to this format at the beginning of November 2004, despite initial opposition from its more traditional and conservative readership. The Guardian changed to a Berliner format (larger than a tabloid, more compact than a broadsheet) in September 2005. This leaves The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times as the UK's only daily national broadsheets. Aside from The Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mirror (combined circulation of approximately 2,500,000), all of the other daily national newspapers (combined circulation of approximately 9,500,000) are known for holding conservative or right-wing political views. Due to this, many people (especially those on the political left) argue that there is a conservative bias amongst British newspapers. The fact that many of these (e.g. The Times, The Sun, the News of the World) are owned by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch strengthens these claims. There are daily paid papers in most of the larger cities, and weekly paid papers in some other areas. These focus on local news and generally do not attempt to be a direct substitute for the London-based national newspapers, although some such as The Western Mail (based in Cardiff), Eastern Daily Press in Norwich and Yorkshire Post in Leeds offer competition to the London newspapers within their limited home territories. Most areas also typically have one or more free local papers, with extensive classified advertising. Many towns with professional football teams also have a weekly paper dedicated to that sport, usually published on Saturdays. Free morning newspapers for commuters have been launched in major metropolitan areas, offering a concise summary of the news designed to be read on public transport. In London, Glasgow and a number of other urban centres this is the Metro. There are also a wide variety of English language national newspapers catering for ethnic minority readers including The Voice, Eastern Eye and Desi Xpress.

External link

- [http://www.abc.org.uk The Audit Bureau of Circulation] provides circulation figures for British newspapers. Their research is also reproduced in digested form at [http://media.guardian.co.uk/circulationfigures/ this Media Guardian index] along with commentary.

United States

:Main article: List of newspapers in the United States List of newspapers in the United States, November 11, 1918.]] The majority of American newspapers are printed as broadsheets. A small number of daily papers are printed in the tabloid format. U.S. dailies commonly separate the physical newspaper into sections on particular topics. Most major American cities' papers will have sections covering at least a few of the following topics:
- National and international news, usually the first section. In the most prestigious newspapers like the New York Times, the majority of articles in this section are dispatched by the paper's own journalists from bureaux around the world. Smaller papers usually fill almost all of this section with stories taken from newswires like the Associated Press or Reuters.
- Local and regional news, usually the second section. This is often called the metro (from metropolitan) section. Many large newspapers use "zoning," with different zones, receiving somewhat different articles, or the same articles arranged differently. Zoning is most predominant in the local section, but also plays a role in the front page.
- Sports
- Business
- Classified ads
- Features: This may include Arts, Home furnishing, Fashion, Style, or some combination. This section usually also includes general advice columns and amusements, such as comic strips, horoscopes and puzzles.
- A weekly general-interest magazine-type feature, usually appearing on Sunday, such as Parade, USA Weekend, or their own magazine (for larger papers) such as The New York Times Magazine or the Washington Post Magazine.
- Weekend or Entertainment. This section includes advertisements for entertainment events; this section usually appears on a Friday, or the last newspaper printed before the weekend.
- Comics. Typically only a separate section on Sundays; daily papers will include a page or more of comics in another section. Although colour printing technology has seen the use of colour in comics (and other editorial content) to daily editions, for many years the expense of colour printing meant that only the Sunday editions of many newspapers carried most comics in full colour.
- Opinion or Editorial. Includes both editorials by the newspaper's editorial staff and letters to the editor from readers. Typically only a separate section on Sundays; daily papers will include these materials in the back of the national, regional, metro, or local news sections. Sometimes may include commentaries or "op-ed pieces" from nationally renowned writers.

External links

- [http://www.allyoucanread.com/ AllYouCanRead.com - 23,000 Newspapers and Magazines from 200 Countries]
- [http://www.newspaperindex.com/ Worldwide Newspaper Directory by country]
- [http://rni.nic.in/ Registrar of Newspapers for India]
- [http://www.hotbulletin.com Read hundreds of newspapers online]
- [http://library.prakashan.org/newspapers-worldwide-directory/ Newspapers List Worldwide]
- [http://www.wan-press.org/ World Association of Newspapers]
- [http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/ Daily showcase of newspaper front pages from around the world]
- [http://www.gazetelerin.com/ Turkish Newspapers]
- [http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/index.php?id=32&language=e Exhibition on the Occasion of the 400th Anniversary of the Newspaper in the Gutenberg-Museum Mainz (Germany)] Category:Newspapering Category:Ephemera Category:Serials, periodicals and journals ja:新聞 ms:Akhbar simple:Newspaper th:หนังสือพิมพ์ zh-cn:报纸 zh-tw:報紙

Comic strips

:This article is about the sequential art form. See also Daily strip and Sunday strip. For the British comedy group, see The Comic Strip. A comic strip is a short strip or sequence of drawings, telling a story. Drawn by a cartoonist, they are published on a recurring basis (usually daily or weekly) in newspapers or on the Internet. In the UK and Europe they are also published within comic magazines, with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages or more. They usually communicate to the reader via speech balloons. As the name implies, they can be humorous (as in "gag-a-day" strips like Beetle Bailey, Hi & Lois, or Hagar the Horrible) but not by necessity. Serious soap-opera continuity strips (like Judge Parker or Little Orphan Annie) have serious story lines in serial form. They are, however, nonetheless known as "comics" – though the term "sequential art", coined by cartoonist Will Eisner, is becoming increasingly popular.

Origins

In America, the great popularity of comics sprang from the newspaper war between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. The Little Bears was the first American comic with recurring characters; The Yellow Kid the first color comic, part of the first Sunday comic section in 1897 and the source of the term "yellow journalism"); Mutt and Jeff the first daily comic strip, first appearing in 1907. The comic strip, in a manner of speaking, began in 1865 in Germany with Max and Moritz, a strip about two trouble-making boys. It was more a series of severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories like "Struwwelpeter" ("Shockheaded Peter"): in one, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by a flock of geese. Max and Moritz did provide an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks, leading to the debut of The Katzenjammer Kids in 1897, probably the first comic strip in the modern sense of the term. Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, speech and thought balloons, and sawing logs for snoring originated in Dirks' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids was responsible for one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Pulitzer (unusual, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst) Hearst in a highly unusual court decision retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to the characters. Hearst promptly hired a cartoonist named Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and The Kids). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate, ran until 1979. Hundreds of comic strips followed, with many running for decades.

Conventions and genres

Most comic strip characters stay the same age throughout the strip's life, but in strips like Lynn Johnston's award-winning For Better or For Worse characters age. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley. The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, Mary Worth, Modesty Blaise and Tarzan. Sometimes the

New Fun Comics

References

Comic book

The comic book in the United States

Underground comics

Independent and alternative comics

Decline of serial comic-book format

The comic of Europe

Franco-Belgian comics

The British comic

The comic annual

Italian comics

Other European comics

The graphic novel

Regional categories

Other Forms

Genres

Some particularly notable comic books

See also

Comics - the sequential art form in general

Comic book awards

Miscellaneous

Lists

References

External links

Pulp magazine

Terminology and history

Genres

Famous and infamous characters of pulp fiction

Authors and pulp magazines today

External links

See also

Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson

Early life and career

New Fun Comics

Later career

Other works

Quotes

Footnotes

Other References

External links

Newspaper

Overview

History

Format

Circulation and readership

Advertising

Newspaper journalism

The future of newspapers

Newspapers in different countries

Afghanistan

Argentina

Belgium

Brazil

Chile

Europe

Germany

France

Hong Kong

India

Isle of Man

Mexico

Netherlands

Norway

Philippines

Poland

United Kingdom

External link

United States

See also

External links

Comic strips

Origins

Conventions and genres