COMIC BOOK Draw celebrates one of the most unique American art forms — the COMIC BOOK.

While cartoons and comic strips may have appeared in other parts of the world first, comic books were born in America and they are one form of visual entertainment that remains uniquely American.

Comic books have been part of the American culture since the early 1930’s. Super heroes, talking animals and lettered sound effects captured the imagination of several generations of readers who grew up reading them under bedcovers, in barber shops, candy stores and hidden inside textbooks. Once thought to be evil or illicit fun, comic books have become an art form.

In the beginning, comic-book artists were unheralded, faceless laborers, toiling in oblivion, scorned by others in more respectable professions. From the super-hero genre to the adaptations of famous novels (called Classic Comics and later Classics Illustrated), the artists of the golden age of comic books worked unfettered with little to inhibit them. Their patrons were children and for a dime you could buy imaginative variations on adventure, romance, terror, and war.

And then there was the art. Much of it was amateurish and poorly reproduced but there were notable exceptions; talented artists that produced amazing drawings and characters — Superman, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, Captain America. So take that.... Zap!, Aargh!, EEEEHAAA!.

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