Comic books embraced the infrastructure of what made some of the more intricate and ongoing compelling comics most people found in the newspaper, but pushed for a on-the-go, comic-only-no-news viewing system. A lot of these comics were ongoing series of superheroes, cartoon characters, and punchline-oriented multi-storied books. Normally the comics recount a main character, whether as a protagonist or a comedian, and sticks with them throughout most of the book's entirety. Another large factor found in earlier comic books was that often the books weren't just distributed in a series, but the books themselves had several chapters or sub-series of their own, sometimes telling multiple stories in the same book. Often these books were taken by soldiers in wartimes to pass the hours away when they were stationed somewhere for a while. For this look-over, I read through some of the Uncle Scrooge McDuck series, as well as Tales of the Crypt.
Reading over the Scrooge McDuck series, I chose House of Haunts, a narrative in which Scrooge was preparing to combat the day the Beagle Boys got out of jail and attempted to steal his fortune like they do every year on the same day. In this scenario, Scrooge put his fortune in the catacombs of an old castle site, and the Beagle Boys use the knowledge they spent their jail time learning against him, making him forget where it was, even to the point of convincing Scrooge he was a ghost. The ever non-level-headed Donald Duck and Huey, Dewy, and Louie however teamed up with Scrooge to stop the Beagle Boys, and recover the lost fortune.
Analyzing the structure of the comic book, it's a single story that takes up the whole book focusing on the main character, portrayed often in the title of the series, Scrooge McDuck. The pages are multiple linked panels, and are colored, rather than being black and white. Much like what you'd expect from a cartoon from that era, there's punchlines and conflict within the story itself, and it's enough to anchor attention from younger and older audiences. The characters portrayed in this series, regardless of the comic book in the series selected, are normally the same in terms of personality and actions, and even if a reader is new to the series, things such as certain-spelled words to portray accents or personality traits are very clear and easy to pick up.
Moving over to the Tales of the Crypt series, we have our ever-prevalent character, the Crypt Keeper, breaking the fourth wall and speaking to the reader, telling them what horrifying stories they might encounter in the pages of the comic book. Now unlike the Scrooge McDuck series, the Tales of the Crypt series tells multiple sub-stories not directly related to each other in the same comic book, often spanning 5 different stories in one comic book. There's still noticeable humor in each of them to a certain degree, often a play on words or feelings towards things, and often the conflicts are supernatural or psychological. The first of the Tales of the Crypt series was and interesting premise to build the series on, being compromised of multiple short stories with easy to dive-into characters and settings that were general but specific enough to get attached to them.
Stories like a man telling his wife she's going crazy and worrying that she's hearing or seeing things when the final twist at the end is that he's the crazy one not hearing or seeing things she's seeing are a prevalent case across with the story structure: there's an introduction of characters, and an uneasy atmosphere often described. From this, the author and/or illustrator pushes out a strange unexplained conflict, and places a buildup that leads to a twist of fate at the end, often going unresolved to leave a sense of "what if that could be me next," in the reader.
Overall, the two different comic books displayed two different sides of the spectrum, and one can only wonder what many more corners lie on that spectrum that have yet to be seen from this era in which comic books began to arise. With each page-turn, it's easier an easier to get sucked into the stories, characters, and entertainment they provide readers, regardless of age or time.
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