Action and adventure

The stereotype of a comic as something inherently 'comical' was one that dominated the initial emergence of the form in both Britain and America. Nevertheless once the psychological leap had been made that an 'adventure comic' was not necessarily a non-sequitur, the effect on the industry was transforming: as a result, any new stereotype would now have to incorporate the 'Biff! Pow!' of fisticuffs and the 'Bratt-att-att!' of machine-gun fire. This being the case, the adventure comics were the next stage in the medium's evolution, and their heyday can be dated to roughly the years between 1940 and 1970: the period we will be covering here.
In Britain, adventure only became widely popular after 1950, even though it had been the basis for a long tradition of British story papers; and had been present in newspaper strips since the First World War. Artistically speaking, the genre made new demands on comics. Invariably, the style would have to be 'realistic' in order to carry the story, and this required a new attention to detail. For young readers, meticulous accuracy was a large part of the spell: as many artists have testified, the sin of getting the turret-shape wrong on a tank, or the type of sword wrong for a particular period, could be greeted by complaining letters. Cinematic techniques also now became appropriate in a way that had not been previously considered: panoramas, close-ups, long-shots and exciting 'cuts' increasingly became the action comic's stock in trade. Whether this was a heuristic development or originated as a steal from the movies is still debated. Whatever the case, when the demands of authenticity and cinematic structuring were wed together, the results added up to a new level of sophistication in the medium.