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| R. F. Outcault |
"The Yellow Kid was not an individual but a type.
When I used to go about the slums on newspaper assignments
I would encounter him often, wandering out of doorways
or sitting down on dirty doorsteps. I always loved the
Kid. He had a sweet character and a sunny disposition,
and was generous to a fault. Malice, envy or selfishness
were not traits of his, and he never lost his temper." (from
1902 Bookman interview with R. F. Outcault) 1
R. F. Outcault, a former technical illustrator who eventually
drew some of the most famous comic strip characters of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, describes
his earliest success in making a character, above, as a "type."
The urban environment, with its oversized communities, pushed
its citizens to view each other types, because knowing them
as individuals was increasingly difficult. "Typing" people
was a common source of comedy during the nineteenth century
in minstrel, variety, and vaudeville shows that featured
such "types" as the drunken Irish brawler, the hard-working
German, and the foolish Black man. Urban entertainment, even
when it traveled to rural areas, helped audience members
make sense of the world by simplifying it; individuals were
complicated and not funny; types were. Outcault and his cartooning
colleagues used such lessons from theater to forge a new
entertainment that offered theater in brief—and on paper.
Illustrated magazines, an increased interest in and writing
of tenement literature, and the improving capabilities
of newspaper press technology, all helped influence the creation
of the Yellow Kid. Americans also had a newfound interest
in the urban environment, as shown through the realism movement
in literature and as the reform movement in society. Victorians
were interested in portraying the urban
poor in art and literature,
but their attempts at formulating a critique of capitalism
were undercut because they treated the poor as entertainments
themselves.
 
1 Blackbeard,
Bill. Introduction. R. F. Outcault's The Yellow
Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started
the Comics. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press,
1995. 135.
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