The strip "Thimble Theatre" began in 1919, with Popeye joining the cast of characters from 1929. From 1933, the series is also called "Popeye". In the same year, the production of a series of animated films about Popeye begins. Like Thimble Theatre/Popeye, the adventure series that emerged during the onset of the Depression also benefited from Nemo's serialisation principle. The funnies are increasingly displaced in favour of escapist escape worlds. 7 January 1929 can be regarded as a turning point in comic history. On this day, the science fiction story "Buck Rogers" and the adventure comic "Tarzan" appear for the first time, thus expanding the range of comic themes. They are modelled on the pulp magazines of their time. Their naturalistic, gritty style and spectacular visual effects set them apart from the previously dominant funnies. Today, this development is often seen as a reaction to the need for strong leadership and identification figures in economically precarious times.

The era of comic books began in the 1930s. With their appearance, the target group also changed. Newspapers are no longer the sole publication venue for comics and newspaper readers are no longer the sole audience. In Europe, the first comics appeared in clerical magazines (e.g. Tintin) or in the children's supplements of daily newspapers and were therefore aimed at a young audience from the outset. While the magazines initially printed newspaper comics, they quickly began to produce their own series for cost reasons. In addition to the new readership, a new generation of comic producers also emerged. Comics are produced by young people for young people. Andreas C. Knigge sees this development as the first commercial phenomenon of a youth culture.

Towards the end of the 1930s, the superhero figure emerged within the adventure genre, starting with "Superman" (1938) by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and "Batman" (1939) by Bob Kane. The first comic books to be serialised were the "Famous Funnies". Other genres quickly followed suit; Superman, for example, was first published as a gap-filler in the first issue of "Action Comics" and, like other popular characters after him, was subsequently given his own series, of which over a million copies were printed every month. The rise of superhero comics was also fuelled by the onset of the Second World War. After "Captain America" in 1940, almost all other superheroes also went to war.