Text - Rhodes University

Most of these comics are produced as comics purely because of the cheapness and
simplicity of the medium. Certainly the most effective way to reach a teenage audience
visually would be through their daily media: advertising, television, and especially music
video. Underground comics often approach the condition of a three-minute music video
in their brevity and economy, as well as stylistically. (The issue of style will be discussed
in more detail later.) In a sense, comics are the "la-tech" version of video and film.
Video cameras, computer graphics programmes and editing suites are expensive,
specialised, and hard to come by, in contrast to the pen, paper and photocopy machine
needed for the production of a comic. "Comics aren't difficult. You can draw a frame or
two over breakfast", is the opinion of Petr Sorfa, a computer graphics student who has
published comics annually since 1990.
Any discussion of the sources of SA comics will have to focus on the naming of comics,
simply because there is so much confusion about and resistance to the terminology
applied to comics. At present:
"... a comic is what has been produced under the definition of a 'comic'.
There has been a historical process whereby public arguments and comics,
and what is acceptable under that name, have become in their turn
powerful determinants of what is produced." (Barker, 1989, p.8)
"Even so, we cannot answer the question 'What is a comic?' by formal
qualities alone. A comic is what has been produced under that controlling
definition." (p.9)
Taking this into consideration, I have incorporated definitions of the various relevant
types of comics into a brief history of comics, using changes and innovations in the
medium as a means of clarifying and separating different types. The following is by no
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