A history of American comic books in six panels

Here's a new comic I did for the Colgate University alumni magazine, Colgate Scene:

©Matt Madden 2012
click to enlarge

I drew it to accompany a very good article by Professor Paul Lopes on the evolution in the US from the comic book to the graphic novel.


For those who are curious here's a list of the references in each panel:
panel 1: Siegel & Shuster's Superman
panel 2: Harvey Kurtzman & Wally Wood's parody, "Superduperman" from Mad Magazine
panel 3: an R. Crumb pastiche, featuring one of his iconic "keep on truckin'" figures
panel 4: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen (this panel is copied pretty directly from a Vietnam flashback in the book)
panel 5: art spiegelman's Maus (the panel I swiped the background from happens to appear in the article)
panel 6: the foreground figure is a Chris Ware character (equal parts Jimmy Corrigan and "Super-Man") and the background is an invented out-take from the final pages of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World

I even got featured in a mini-interview at the end of the article:

click to enlarge

[July 2017 update: if you're dropping by from Twitter, thanks! If you're interested I have a print available of this comic which I'm going to put on sale for $15 (free shipping) until July 6. DM me on Twitter if you're interested or contact me on my new site for more details.]