Kid Comic Strips ─ A Genre Across Four Countries

This book looks at the humor that artists and editors believed would have appeal in four different countries. Ian Gordon explains how similar humor played out in comic strips across different cultures and humor styles. By examining Skippy and Ginger Meggs, the book shows a good deal of similarities between American and Australian humor while establishing some distinct differences. In examining the French translation of Perry Winkle, the book explores questions of language and culture. By shifting focus to a later period and looking at the American and British comics entitled Dennis the Menace, two very different comics bearing the same name, Kid Comic Strips details both differences in culture and traditions and the importance of the type of reader imagined by the artist. 

Ian Gordon is a cultural historian at the National University of Singapore, where he is the Convenor of American Studies. His publications include Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 (1998, 2002) the co-edited volumes Film and Comic Books (2007) and Comics & Ideology (2001), and the forthcoming monograph Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon (2017).