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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter 2021

16 Richard F. Outcault: The Yellow Kid

From the book Handbook of Comics and Graphic Narratives

  • Christina Meyer

Abstract

This chapter deals with one of the first popular comic figures in the late nineteenth century, which originated in the Sunday colored comic supplements of the American mass press: the Yellow Kid. It will provide contextual background information about the comic figure’s emergence in the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York newspaper The World, follow the Yellow Kid’s appearance in various - and competing - comics series, and give a short overview of the comic figure’s proliferations outside of the original carrier medium. The main part of this chapter focuses on the reading options that are inscribed in the Yellow Kid comics, and explains the consumption practices that are generated by the diverse modes of representation. The final part offers perspectives on the impact and reception of the Yellow Kid and the comics series the figure appeared in.

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
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