Extremely rare example of perhaps the first superhero comic!
Digital download — Available instantly upon purchase
If you would like to see the entire page from here, simply right-click and open in a new window.
I am not big on declaring “firsts” of anything in popular culture history — there always seems to be an earlier example that crops up. While Hugo Hercules doesn’t exactly wear a colorful costume or fight crime, he does posses superhuman strength and so could qualify as comics’ first superhero — appearing more or less at the dawn of the American comic strip. In this beautifully printed episode, he lifts an elephant off the ground with ease! The treatment was always comic, lampooning stage heroics. Note in this case, the elephant talks!
The strip ran for just five months, from September 7, 1902 to January 11, 1903. This is episode six of nineteen from October 12, 1902.
W.H.D. Koerner, the strip’s creator, went on to become an important western artist. His staging and graphic treatments of western scenes became iconic and influenced generations of artists and especially filmmakers.
Artist: W.H.D. Koerner (Körner)
Source: Newspaper Sunday supplement, originally published October 12, 1902
Resolution: 600 DPI
Dimensions: 6228 × 4418 pixels (10.4 × 7.4 inches)
Format: .tiff
File Size: 131 MB
Extremely rare example of perhaps the first superhero comic!
Digital download — Available instantly upon purchase
If you would like to see the entire page from here, simply right-click and open in a new window.
I am not big on declaring “firsts” of anything in popular culture history — there always seems to be an earlier example that crops up. While Hugo Hercules doesn’t exactly wear a colorful costume or fight crime, he does posses superhuman strength and so could qualify as comics’ first superhero — appearing more or less at the dawn of the American comic strip. In this beautifully printed episode, he lifts an elephant off the ground with ease! The treatment was always comic, lampooning stage heroics. Note in this case, the elephant talks!
The strip ran for just five months, from September 7, 1902 to January 11, 1903. This is episode six of nineteen from October 12, 1902.
W.H.D. Koerner, the strip’s creator, went on to become an important western artist. His staging and graphic treatments of western scenes became iconic and influenced generations of artists and especially filmmakers.
Artist: W.H.D. Koerner (Körner)
Source: Newspaper Sunday supplement, originally published October 12, 1902
Resolution: 600 DPI
Dimensions: 6228 × 4418 pixels (10.4 × 7.4 inches)
Format: .tiff
File Size: 131 MB