The word ‘cartoon’ was originally used by painters during the period of the Italian Renaissance. And in fact, it is still used today by artists. This is defined as the first sketch in actual size of any work of art which covers a large area, such as a mural, a tapestry, or stained glass windows.
When newspapers and magazines began to use drawing to illustrate news and editorial opinion to provide amusement, these drawings also came to be called ‘cartoons’!
Before the development of newspapers, famous caricaturists like Hearth, Goya, Daumier, and Rowlandson made series of drawings on a single theme. Each set of drawings represented adventures of one character. These drawings led to the development of present-day cartoons and comic strips. The first comic strips appeared in the early 1900’s. Richard Outcault, the artist who created ‘Buster Brown’, published this comic strip in 1902. It was so popular that children wanted to dress in ‘Buster Brown’ clothes.
Another of early comic strips was ‘Bringing up Father’ which came out in 1912. It has since been translated into 27 different languages, and published in 71 countries!
When most newspapers in the United States began to include cartoons as regular features, the humorous magazines lost their appeal and many of them stopped appearing.
