The History of Comics in 500 Issues

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A leisurely, issue-by-issue walk through the history of comic books from the 1820s onward. Each episode selects one issue and explains why it matters: historically, aesthetically, or as a window into the era that produced it.

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Status

Active

Language

English

Last Updated

5 hours ago

Recent Episodes

Showing the 10 most recent episodes. Subscribe for full archive.

Nov 09, 2025

Episode 28: Tijuana Bibles

In this episode, I discuss the notorious Tijuana Bibles, the first pornographic comic books. Except that you can't really tell the story of the Tijuana Bibles without also covering...

Oct 19, 2025

Episode 27: African Comics Before WW2

A somewhat scattershot (sorry) chronology of the development of comics and graphic narrative in the colonies and countries of Africa before the beginning of World War Two. In this episode I...

Sep 28, 2025

Episode #26: Marvel Comics #1

One of my longer efforts to date, this one is about Marvel Comics #1, the first issue by what would eventually become the juggernaut of American comic book publishing. In this podcast I di...

Aug 10, 2025

Episode 25: Rin Tin Tin #1

In this episode, which is ostensibly about the Spanish comic Rin-Tin-Tin, I go allll over the place. (Sorry). I begin with the early history of theater among the Egyptians and the...

Jul 27, 2025

Episode 24: Amazing-Man Comics #5

In this episode I use the superhero Amazing Man, who debuted in Amazing-Man Comics #5 (cover date Sept 1939), to take a look at just what, exactly, constitutes a "typical" superhero of the...

Jul 13, 2025

Episode #23: Colonialism in the Bandes Dessinées beginning with Alain Saint-Ogan's "Zig et Puce"

ln this episode I use Alain Saint-Ogan's bande dessinée "Zig et Puce" as a springboad for a discussion of colonialism in the French bandes dessinées. I start, of course, with the 1814 Treaty of Par...

Jun 22, 2025

Episode 22: Superman #1

In this episode I discuss the publication of Superman #1, the first comic book dedicated to the stories of one character. I talk about why this is significant, what DC Comics was probably...

Jun 19, 2025

500 Issues, the Juneteenth episode: Black Creators, Paraliterature, and Golden Age comic books

To help celebrate Juneteenth, I made an episode in which I discuss Black creators of paraliterature, which (as I'm sure you know) is all of that literature which is not "respectable" or within the...

Jun 07, 2025

Episode 21: The Early History of the Dutch Comics Industry

In this episode I discuss the beginnings of the Dutch comics industry from 1493, when an imprisoned Dutch nobleman drew a comic strip in one of his letters, to March 15, 1940, when the Netherlands...

May 31, 2025

Episode 20: Detective Comics #27 and the Batman

In this epsiode I discuss Detective Comics #27, the issue in which Batman debuted. I talk about the background behind the creation of Batman, why Batman's original artist was a genuinely b...