Important Early Science Fiction Comic Book Authors

By Tracie Knight


Comic books have been popular since the early 1920s. One of the first and most famous of these great writers is A. D. Condo, the author of Mr. Skygack from Mars. A gag group strip found in U. S. Newspapers in the 1930s and early 1940s. The United States along with Japan remain the two largest publishers of science fiction comic books. The UK runs a close second with authors who began developing fantastical themes into various publications in the 1950s.

Buck Rogers based on the series American Stories came onto the scene along with Flash Gordon, Brick Bradford, and the British character Dan Dare in the early 1960s. Representations of the first block buster, Superman, can still be found in a number of formats. While Superman owes most of his fame to these early science fiction Comic book authors, he is now considered part of a subset of genre.

In the 1960s, Frederick Wertham decided that books in this genre and others, may have a negative effect on children and young adults. He published a book called "Seduction of the Innocent" to relay this point to parents. Many of which then disallowed continued reading of fantasy and science fiction oriented material.

The industry rebounded with themes aimed directly at children and young adults in the late 1960s. At which time, underground books, music and posters became more popular. Then, another new wave of material found its way into the mainstream which focused on hippies and the free love movement.

In the 1950s, Japan saw a rise in publications by new writers. Anime became the next stage when the focus became more on creating animated characters. One of the earliest comic books known as manga included Osamu Tezuka's strip, Astro Boy. A large collection of anime has since been released by others which has created a huge and ongoing interest in the genre.

Dan Dare was the earliest well known character to come alive in the UK. The Trigan Empire released in the 1960s is often considered the most popular of all the series. It is believed this success is due to the series being included in a book called Look and Learn. The goal of the book being to teach children about art and entertainment.

The internet now allows a venue for new and well seasoned writers to explore fantasy and science fiction. One of the most popular of the earliest web comics is that of Polymer City Chronicles. Both this and Starship Crisis were quite popular shortly after the activation of the world wide web. Posting historic editions of older comic strips, science fiction and others later became quite popular among both new and emerging graphic artists.

People today can read comic books online, in the traditional form or view many which have been turned into movies or television shows. The latter is especially true when it comes to Japanese comics in which many are now part of a new genre known as anime. Anime includes a vast number of components beyond comics, some of these are animation, including cartoon, clay and live action, games like Pokemon, role playing and a growing video collection.




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