Of all the lively arts the Comic Strip is the most despised, and with the
exception of the movies it is the most popular. Some twenty million people
follow with interest, curiosity, and amusement the daily fortunes of five or
ten heroes of the comic strip, and that they do this is considered by all those
who have any pretentions to taste and culture as a symptom of crass vulgarity,
of dullness, and, for all I know, of defeated and inhibited lives. I need
hardly add that those who feel so about the comic strip only infrequently
regard the object of their distaste. (Seldes, G., The Seven Lively Arts)
