The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics' Effect

The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, edited by Bill Blackbeard and Martin Williams, offers easy access to several decades of American newspaper comic strips. From Little Nemo in Slumberland, by Winsor McCay, to B.C., by Johnny Hart, this collection showcases the shift that takes place over the period of time that is shown elapsing between the two covers of this work. While The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics was meant to serve, affectionately, as a history and compilation of the included comics, in the act of grouping these strips together into a single volume (in such close proximity to one another), Blackbeard and Williams created their own comic strip. As mentioned in the book, these strips were constructed with their medium in mind, one where a 24-hour period of suspense was meant to elapse between the viewers’ consumption of the daily comics. Here, however, the next comic is but a short distance down the very same page. As a result, the ebb and flow of the stories, and consequently the overall effect thereof, changes a good deal. For those very few individuals who are able to look back on this full collection with nostalgia, the experience, perhaps, changed very little; for those people of younger generations reading many of these strips for the first time, the effect is of an invariably different nature: one of a broader understanding of the role these comic strips played in our culture rather than experiencing each one individually. Through The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, comic aficionados are able to come to a better understanding of the foundation on which the medium beloved by millions of Americans was built.