Where did western comics come from?

In the latter half of the 2020s, there can be no doubt that comics are cool. No longer the sole province of nerds and picky readers, comics are in vogue, are art on bookshelves and walls, and inspiring everything from Netflix’s next big hit to summer blockbusters. But where did they come from and how did we get here?

Most people will have an image of western comics or Japanese anime and manga, but comics are as varied as the genres they cover and the mediums they’re created in.

They range from satirical single panels in political magazines and daily newspapers to short strips such as Fred Bassett, Peanuts and Strange Planet, to longer story-length titles like Watchman, Kabuki or adaptations of other media, such as The Last Unicorn, Doctor Who or Hellraiser (our tips on how to draw comic panels are a good place to start if you're inspired to try to create your own).

The most freeing part of the medium is its versatility; each publication or strip has its own distinctive art style, some black and white, others coloured. Some are written by one person, others are collaborations between writers and artists, with patron saints such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Alan Moore.

And, now we live in an online world, they’re often available in digital form as well, meaning they’re even more accessible than ever for anyone with a phone, Kindle or library card.

Art as education

Art has always been a way for people to tell stories, dating back to hunters in the famed French caves of Lascaux – now a UNESCO World Heritage site – where the art has been dated to around 20,000 years ago. This was well before humans could write, before complex civilisations existed or words were pressed into clay tablets or scribed on papyrus paper. In times when literacy was rare, art became instructive.

Look at stained glass in churches, which was used to tell stories to non-literate worshippers back when every window was not just about glory to God but also about instructing a populace who could rarely read, let alone had access to the Bible in anything but Latin.

By this definition, the Bayeux Tapestry – a 70-metre work that retells the Battle of Hastings of 1066 in colour and stitches – is, technically, a woven narrative that could easily be an early ancestor of modern graphic novels. It has a narrative. It has scope and characters with their own arcs. And it exists today thanks to its fame.

From satire to something more

Early newspapers used drawn images where we would use black and white or colour photographs today, relying on artists to illustrate stories. As a result, the first comics were often found in satirical newspapers. Thanks to politics being a universal medium for comedy and caricature, these became named “cartoons” in 1845, although that term is much, much older, and originally referred to a kind of Italian art form on over sized paper.

During this period, serialisation was popular, with novels serialised in literary magazines and only afterwards printed into so-called penny dreadfuls and early paperbacks. It’s no surprise that the latter evolved into a way to bring illustrated stories and cartoons to the masses.

Modern comics were born in the early 20th century, with The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé (the pen name of Georges Remi) in 1929 and The Beano in 1938. In the US, Detective Comics (or DC) was founded in 1937 and introduced Superman the following year, ushering in the Golden Age of Comics.

Such publications were initially aimed at children, with serialised stories and popular characters including superheroes – but each has its own distinctive art style, some black and white, others coloured, some available weekly and others sold as graphic novels or collected volumes.

Comic books feel like a modern and accessible format, mixing art and words to create a hybrid medium that takes the best of imagery and mixes it with the narrative found in language. Yet they’ve been looked down on for decades as somehow being lesser than novels and other non-art-based fiction. Thankfully, the digital age means anyone, be they an artist or a writer with a flare for storytelling, can publish work online for all to read.

Freedom of expression

Austin Briggs, an artist from Tacoma in the US, says: “What draws me to comics is the freedom – they feel bold, personal and unapologetically creator driven. Indie and strip formats especially have this raw honesty where you can feel the artist behind every panel. That authenticity is what makes them powerful and why readers connect so deeply with them.”

Comic books have been viewed as somehow inferior or even cheating when it comes to exploring narratives but the reality is that, thanks to the accessibility of the format, comic books are an evolved form, which takes the best from novels along with the distinctive art styles of their artists.

Think of comics and you’ll probably focus on the United States, the ancestral home of modern comics, on DC and Marvel, the two great publishers of so many popular series, from Batman to The Avengers. But that’s only the start. When you mention comics, especially the Big Two, it’s often superheroes who come to mind first.

Daniel Gete, an artist from Spain who worked on Uber: Invasion, Warrior Nun and Biker Mice from Mars, explains: “I guess I love Western comics and particularly superhero comics because that’s what I started reading as a child. They were simply there first for me.

“Later, I started reading and also falling in love with European comics and manga, but superhero comics were my first love. I loved everything about them: the mythology, the costumes, those vibrant colours. They were easy to follow and so much fun. I was mainly focused on the art: Alan Davis, Jim Lee, Arthur Adams. That’s how they got me!”

There are smaller but still influential publishers like Dark Horse Comics, IDW, Oni Press and the like. Then there are all the independent publishers and artists who post their art online, either on their own custom sites and social media like Instagram, X and Facebook, or via platforms such as Webtoon, Pixiv and ArtStation.

But comics are as universal as art, with myriad styles and focuses, from black and white and simplicity, to full colour panels and pages that tell longer, more complex narratives.

Evolution and Accessibility

Stephen Brown, a UK artist who’s made the jump, says : “Going from indie to professional work has meant higher standards and tighter deadlines, but the creative passion remains the same. I think Western comics stay popular because they evolve with culture, and the internet has made them more accessible than ever.”

Mari Costa, an artist from Melbourne, Australia, explains: “As a child growing up in Brazil, I was an avid reader of Turma da Monica (Monica’s Gang) and it’s even the primary way I learned how to read, so I’ve bought into the comic book hype for a long time!”

Most people immediately think of US comics but countries like France have had a complex comic culture for decades, with series like Barbarella and Le Transperceneige (Snowpiercer). Many of these stories are probably better known by their film or TV adaptations but the graphic novels have their own stories and fanbases who are just as loyal to the medium.

The are plenty of stories that, like manga, find themselves adapted as movies and television shows – films such as Snowpiercer (which exists as both) and The Eternaut, which is based on the Argentine comic book by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López, for instance.

There’s a long legacy of series that have seen adaptations that give a new lease of life to old stories. Comic books might be fashionable but they’ve also become the next big thing when it comes to adaptations in other forms of media. While we often assume that this is something new tied to the cinematic worlds of publishers such as Marvel, it’s not.

For example, Superman hit radios between 1940 and 1951, and has now found new life as a podcast. The franchise then moved to TV, with spin-off series such as Smallville, and more movie adaptations than you can shake a cape at. Yes, the MCU did kick-start a cinematic universe, but comics have been inspiring TV series, novels and film for decades.

The real question is, as media evolves and our consumption of it changes, where will comics go next? How long until we have holographic comics or mixed media for VR headsets that brings comics into augmented reality

With many of these series, like The Boys, Strange Planet and The Old Guard, hitting massive streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Apple Originals and Netflix, as well as independent creators on YouTube, this means a potential worldwide audience who might never have otherwise seen them, but who will now look out for the comic and read it.

Thanks to the internet and the rise in non-English media – partly due to the popularity of manga and similar media from across Asia – this has led to curiosity around comic books from other countries, from China to France. And thanks to the internet and international bookstores, it’s also a lot easier to access both original series in their native languages and authentic versions in translation.

Mari continues: “Seeing the evolution of Western comics, from cape comics to graphic novels to webcomics all the way to webtoons, has been really incredible! I’m super grateful it’s happening in my lifetime! Nowadays it’s super-easy to get started making your own comic and I encourage anyone to try it.”

As we enter a new digital golden age, comics are continuing to evolve and change, sometimes changing society at the same time, as well as introducing new generations to classics of the genre, plus new takes on older narratives, such as 2025’s Superman and the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.

Regardless, 2026 is a great time to be a comic book reader and this is only set to continue as we edge towards 2030 and beyond. The world is embracing original work, in English and other languages, as a dynamic form of media, offering new stories to tell beyond what we’re used to.

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.