About Life In The Comics, The Documentary
Exploring and celebrating an original American art form.
Comic strips are a uniquely American art form – to the visual arts what jazz is to music. Born out of the 1890s circulation wars between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, comics have reflected, revealed and satirized the reality of America’s socio/cultural fabric. Whether it’s the portrayal of family life, politics, technology, industrialization, or social class, readers continue to recognize their own lives.
LIFE IN THE COMICS is a 90-minute theatrical documentary film, in development by two-time Emmy® award winning producer/director Leo Eaton and Communication & Cinema Professor Robert Lemieux, that reveals how the ‘funny pages’ captured the essence of American culture and left a dynamic imprint on America from the 1890s to the present day.
The LIFE IN THE COMICS documentary begins in the present, exploring work of some of today’s top comic strip artists who then become guides to an earlier generation of artists. As the documentary travels across time with artists and historians, it interweaves past and present, telling funny and compelling stories of the artists and their creations.