The Addams Family Started When...

You may recognize the girl in this comic as Wednesday Addams. She is much more recognizable as a character from the 1960s TV show The Addams Family and the string of movies from the 1990s, but her first appearance was as a comic.

The Addams Family was created by Charles Addams who had his first comic published in the 1930s. He was born in New Jersey in 1912 and was very interested in the Gothic architecture he'd grown up seeing overshadowed and in dark themes. He had many comics published in the New Yorker over five decades, and while not all of them are creepy, many have an eerie feeling to them that makes them so unique and enduring. He is able to communicate so much in just one panel, often without words.

Photo by Irving Penn 1947

I have a few collections of his work and want to share some of my favorites.