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When did the first true comic books begin to be marketed in the United States?
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comic strip
Thirteen panels from the comic strip Gasoline Alley by Frank King, 1921. It shows Walt Wallet feeding and then chasing the turkey that he and baby Skeezix have raised for Thanksgiving dinner.
The first true comic books were marketed in the United States in 1933 as giveaway advertising premiums. These early publications utilized a 7.5- by 10.25-inch page size, a format that has since become standard.12
By 1935, the industry began to evolve as publishers started selling large quantities of comic books, which initially consisted primarily of reprints of newspaper comic strips before transitioning to include original stories. In February 1935, National Allied Publications released New Fun #1, which was the first comic-book series to consist exclusively of original comic strips. The market continued to specialize in the following years with the debut of titles such as Detective Comics in 1937 and Action Comics in 1938.123