How Comics Were Made:
From Artist’s Hand to Printed Page

SEATTLE, October 18, 2024—How Comics Were Made, a book tracing the history of newspaper comics from an artist’s pen to the result held in readers’ hands, was released today by Aperiodical LLC. Written by Glenn Fleishman, the book traces the history of regularly appearing comic strips from the Yellow Kid in the 1890s to webcomics and print newspapers in the 2020s. The foreword is by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Michael Chabon. The book remains available for order in limited quantities.

Author Glenn Fleishman relies on years of deep study into historical and contemporary printing processes crossed with research into the production and reproduction of the unique medium of newspaper comic strips. He has interviewed 40 cartoonists and historians for the project, including Lynn Johnson, Bill Watterson, Derf Backderf, Barbara Brandon-Croft, and Garry Trudeau. After raising nearly $170,000 in a successful Kickstarter campaign in March 2024, the roughly 8¼ tall × 10½ inches wide book shipped to crowdfunding backers and pre-order customers starting today.

The softcover 288-page full-color book is richly illustrated with historical and modern photos, film stills, original artwork, and scans of reproductions in newsprint. How Comics Were Made, broken into five broad historical parts, starts each section with an overview of technological change, then dives into illustrated features on topics like how syndicates distributed comics in the metal printing era, how cartoonists began to represent Black faces realistically in the comics, the creation and emergence of newspaper-like cartoons as part of the webcomics revolution, and much more. The book contains many never-before-seen comics and comics artifacts, including from Peanuts and Doonesbury.

Author Glenn Fleishman has spent decades as a freelancer journalist after founding a pioneering webhosting company in 1994 and working at Amazon.com in 1996–1997. He’s an expert in 19th and 20th century print production methods. Designer and illustrator Mark Kaufman has been a designer, illustrator, animator, and cartoonist for the likes of the New York Times, The Stranger, the Cornell Daily Sun, In These Times, T-Mobile, Waste Management, Brooks Sports, and Airbnb. Editor Harry McCracken held a variety of editorial positions at PC World over 13 years and has spent the last ten years as technology editor of Fast Company. Harry is also a deeply nerdy comics and animation fan with a deep appreciation and knowledge of the classics—particularly forgotten comics, such as Scrappy.

Glenn can be reached for questions or interviews at glenn@glennf.com.