Word: comical
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...etymology of the word relates to the origins of the medium. When humorous cartoon strips first appeared in magazines and newspapers in the late 1800s they were referred to, quite naturally and accurately, as "comics." The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first use in this context in 1889. In the 1910s some of the these strips' runs were collected together and printed as periodicals in their own right. The word naturally carried over to describe these literal comic books...
...Comix," as a word and concept, first appeared in the mid-1960s, and described a radical new subgenre of black-and-white, adult-oriented, "underground" comic books. The appearance of these books coincided with an entire cultural atmosphere of rebellion and self-declaration that encouraged such renaming. Even the choice of the "x" over "ks," for example, seems tied in with the radicalism of Malcolm X and resurgence of Karl Marx...
...name also made artistic and pragmatic sense. The comic book medium of the time consisted entirely of superheroes and gag books. Furthermore, these books had positioned themselves (and we live with this legacy today) as a childish treat akin to toy cars and baby dolls. How then to fit in works that were similar-looking but contained copulating, dope-smoking hippies and motorcycle club beat-downs? The answer was, and remains: You don't. You call it something else. So "comix" was born, or more accurately, evolved, just as the medium...
...Some have argued that the continued use of "comix" is pretentious and useless. To begin with, the difference between comic book subgenres has long been smeared into a smooth gradient. As a result, people sense an elitism in the term, and resent...
...readers and allow them to visualize clearly the entire issue," wrote a Los Angeles reader. A TIME reader in Monroe, Conn., got pretty colorful himself: "Even the most highly educated readers may dive into this piece with the kind of youthful fervor they remember when buying the latest Archie comic book, though the West Bank is far from Riverdale, and you won't find Archie, Betty and Veronica living there...