Comical comics
Comical comics |
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Page 30 of 34  Panic (EC Comics), a sister comic to Mad that never garnered the same following. Examples of individuals who were taken advantage of are endless. The only name to appear on the Dell-published Disney comics, for instance, was Disney's, even though the real work was being done by others. The aforementioned Carl Barks, perhaps the greatest of all Disney artists, laboured anonymously for much of his working life, and saw no extra money for the characters he created (a tale that is even more galling when it is remembered that they were to become the subject for lucrative cartoons and merchandising). It is a sad reflection on the industry as a whole that for every Leo Baxendale in Britain there were several Carl Barks-es ' in the United States. Before we leave the subject of the British and American comedy comics, it is necessary to take stock of their impact on society's perception of comics as a medium. For put together, the industries of the two nations constituted a major force in children's, and teenagers', leisure, and the immense popularity of their products forced the adult world to come to some sort of reckoning. Put simply, youngsters were involving themselves in something over which adults had no control, and for the reason above there seemed to be a need for people to have an opinion. Comics thus became a discussion topic in newspaper opinion columns and on radio chat shows: the question was, were they 'a good thing' or not?' |