Catch Comics is a my personal blog dedicated to exploring the vast world of the comic book. As a comic book fan myself, my earliest forays into this fascinating world were in the early 1980s and during the first few years of the legendary 2000AD. This ground breaking comic was the home of Judge Dredd, Halo Jones, Robo-Hunter and a whole host of now famous characters, many of whom have attracted additional publicity in the form of big budget movies adapted from the original stories.
Of course 2000AD was only one comic in one country and the development of the genre dates back far into the past. In the United States some historians will tell you that the 1920s were when the first recognisable comic strips were drawn but others will pre-date that by sixty years, naming The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (1942) as the first published example. The artist, Rudolphe Toppfler, was actually Swiss and had been publishing similar material in his home country since 1827.
An even older but even more tenuous link is the editorial cartoon by Benjamin Franklin published in a newspaper in 1754. The famous Join, or Die picture was an effort to exhort the colonies to join the new United States for a better future.
All these works are blown away though by what some consider to be some of the earliest comic style drawings. In the 11th century a Japanese painter-priest named Toba Sojo drew what we could now refer to as satirical comics whose subjects were priests and even the Buddha. Although he included no speech bubbles or commentary the style was recognisably comic book in nature. Interestingly,as it was drawn on scrolls, one would read the story left to right as the scroll was unfolded. Modern day manga cartoons are widely accepted to be the descendants of Sojo’s work and they still read from left to right.
As we add to this site we will elaborate on the most influential artists and comics of recent history and of course a detailed history of the comic book itself. Check back at your convenience for updates.