A comic book or comicbook (often shortened to simply comic and sometimes called a funny book, comic paper, or comic magazine) is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog (usually in word balloons, emblematic of the comic book art form) as well as including brief descriptive prose. The first comic book appeared in the United States in 1933, reprinting the earlier newspaper comic strips, which established many of the story-telling devices used in comics. The term "comic book" arose because the first comic books reprinted humor comic strips. Despite their name, comic books are not necessarily humorous in tone; modern comic books tell stories in a variety of genres.

Since the introduction of the comic book format in 1934 with the publication of Famous Funnies, the United States has produced the most titles, with only the British comic and Japanese manga as close competitors in terms of quantity of titles.[citation needed]
Cultural historians divide the career of the comic book in the U.S. into several ages or historical eras:

Proto-comic books and the Platinum Age
Golden Age
Silver Age
Bronze Age
Modern Age

Comic book historians continue to debate the exact boundaries of these eras, but they have come to an agreement, the terms for which originated in the fandom press. Comic books as a print medium have existed in America since the printing of The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck in 1842 in hardcover—making it the first known American prototype comic book. The introduction of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman in 1938 turned comic books into a major industry, and is often presented[by whom?] as the start of the Golden Age of comics. Historians have proposed several names for the Age before Superman, most commonly dubbing it the Platinum Age.