A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, these were published in newspapers A newspaper is a regularly scheduled publication containing news, information, and advertising. By 2007 there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a day (55 million in the U.S). The worldwide recession of 2008, combined with the rapid growth of web-based alternatives, caused a serious decline in advertising and, with horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in daily newspapers, while Sunday newspapers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. There were more than 200 different comic strips and daily cartoon panels in American newspapers each day of the 20th century for a total of at least 7,300,000 episodes.^[1]

Strips are written and drawn by a comics artist A comics artist is an artist working within the comics medium, on comic strips, comic books or graphic novels. The term may refer to any number of artists who contribute to produce a work in the comics form, from those who oversee all aspects of the work to those who contribute only a part or cartoonist A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. Much of this work was, and still is, humorous and is intended primarily for entertainment purposes. Many print cartoons are of the single-panel variety and are published in print media of various kinds, for example, in magazines such as The New Yorker and Punch. As the name implies, comic strips can be humorous (for example, "gag-a-day" strips such as Blondie Blondie is an American comic strip created by Murat Bernard "Chic" Young and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It has been published in newspapers since September 8, 1930. The success of the comic strip led to a long-run Blondie film series and a popular Blondie radio program (1939-1950), Bringing Up Father Bringing Up Father was an influential comic strip created by George McManus that ran from January 12, 1913 to May 28, 2000. Some readers, however, called the strip Jiggs and Maggie after its two main characters. According to McManus, he introduced these characters in other strip headings as early as November 1911, Marmaduke and Pearls Before Swine Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California. It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat. Although created in 1997, it was not published until 2000, when United Feature Syndicate ran it on its website. Its). Starting in the early 1930s, comic strips expanded to feature adventure stories, as seen in Popeye Popeye the Sailor is a fictional hero notable for appearing in comic strips and animated films as well as numerous television shows. He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar, and first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Popeye has now become the strip's title as well, Captain Easy Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune was an action/adventure comic strip created by Roy Crane that was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association beginning on Sunday, July 30, 1933. The strip ran for more than six decades until it was discontinued in 1988, Buck Rogers Anthony Rogers was a fictional character that originated in two short stories by Philip Francis Nowlan, "Armageddon 2419 A.D." and "The Airlords of Han" published in Amazing Stories, Tarzan Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani "great apes"; he later returns to civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes , and then in twenty-five and The Adventures of Tintin The Adventures of Tintin is a series of comic strips created by the Belgian artist Georges Rémi (1907–1983), who wrote under the pen name of Hergé. The series first appeared in French in Le Petit Vingtième, a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle on 10 January 1929. The success of the series saw the serialised. Soap-opera continuity strips such as Judge Parker See also: Judge Alton B. Parker, New York Court of Appeals , Judge Isaac Parker, United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas (1875-96), Judge John J. Parker, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (1925-58) and Mary Worth Mary Worth is a newspaper comic strip distributed by King Features Syndicate, developed from an earlier Apple Mary strip by writer Allen Saunders and artist Dale Conner in 1939-40, under the pseudonym "Dale Allen". The strip reached its apex under Saunders and artist Ken Ernst. It was also published briefly by Harvey Comics as Love gained popularity in the 1940s. All are called, generically, "comic strips", though cartoonist Will Eisner William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his has suggested that "sequential art" would be a better name for them.^[2]

In the UK A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper and the rest of Europe Europe is one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean and, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines, with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages or more. Comic strips have appeared in American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life Boys' Life is the monthly magazine of the Boy Scouts of America . Its targeted readership is young American males between the ages of 6 and 18 and also on the front covers of magazines, as was the case with the Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly The American Weekly was a United States magazine published by the Hearst Corporation from November 1, 1896 until 1966 Sunday newspaper supplement.

History

Storytelling Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters and narrative using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry The Bayeux Tapestry is a 0.5 by 70 metres (1.6 by 230 ft) long embroidered cloth — not an actual tapestry — which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England as well as the events of the invasion itself. The Bayeux Tapestry is annotated in Latin. It is exhibited in a special museum in Bayeux, Normandy called Musée de la. Examples in print form exist in 19th-century Germany and in 18th-century England, where some of the first satirical Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form, although in practice it can be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are censured by ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent of improvement. Although satire is usually or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects". Much of his work poked fun at contemporary politics's English cartoons from the 18th century include both "single panel" work and also narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress A Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–33 then engraved and published in print form in 1735. The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious.

The Biblia pauperum The Biblia pauperum was a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the later Middle Ages. They sought to portray the historical books of the Bible visually. Unlike a simple "illustrated Bible", where the pictures are subordinated to the text, these Bibles placed the illustration in the centre, with only a brief text or sometimes no text ("Paupers' Bible"), a tradition of picture Bibles The Bible refers to collections of sacred scripture of Judaism and Christianity. There is no single version: both the individual books and their order vary. The Hebrew Bible contains 39 books, while Christian Bibles range from the 66 books of the Protestant canon to 81 books in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible. The oldest surviving Christian Bibles beginning in the later Middle Ages The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in, sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in the miniatures The word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment. The generally small scale of the medieval pictures has led secondly to an etymological confusion of the term with minuteness and written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips.

The first newspaper comic strips appeared in America in the late 19th century.^[3] The Yellow Kid The Yellow Kid emerged as the lead character in Hogan's Alley drawn by Richard F. Outcault, which became one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips in an American newspaper although its graphical layout had already been thoroughly established in political and other entertainment cartoons. The Yellow Kid was a bald, snaggle-toothed child with is usually credited as the first. However, the artform combining words and pictures evolved gradually, and there are many examples of proto-comic strips.

The Swiss Switzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation (Confœderatio Helvetica in Latin, hence its ISO country codes CH and CHE), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe[note 4] where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to teacher, author and caricature artist Rodolphe Toepffer Rodolphe Töpffer was a Swiss teacher, author, painter, cartoonist, and caricature artist. He is also considered to be the first modern comic creator (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de M. Vieux Bois Histoire de M. Vieux Bois, published in English as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, and also known as Les amours de Mr. Vieux Bois or simply Monsieur Vieuxbois, is a 19th-century publication written and illustrated by the Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer. Published first in Europe as Histoire de M. Vieux Bois, and then in the United States (1827), first published in the USA in 1842 as "The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck", or "Histoire de Monsieur Jabot" (1831) are believed to have inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, the German A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state, painter, author and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch Wilhelm Busch was a German caricaturist, painter, and poet who is famed for his satirical picture stories with rhymed texts created the strip Max and Moritz, about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter Der Struwwelpeter is a popular German children's book by Heinrich Hoffmann. It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story provides the title of the whole book. Literally translated, ("Shockheaded Peter"); in one, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill and consumed by a flock of geese. Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks Rudolph Dirks was one of the earliest and most noted comic strip artists, who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897. Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, speech and thought balloons, and sawing logs for snoring originated in Dirks' strip.^[4]

Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Pulitzer (unusual, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst) Hearst, in a highly unusual court decision, retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to the characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr Harold Hering Knerr was an American comic strip creator, best known as the second author of The Katzenjammer Kids to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and The Kids). Thus two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate, ran until 1979.

In America, the great popularity of comics Comics is a graphic medium in which images convey a sequential narrative. The term derives from the mostly humorous early work in the medium, and came to apply to that form of the medium including those far from comic. The sequential nature of the pictures, and the predominance of pictures over words, distinguishes comics from picture books, sprang from the newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer , né Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American publisher best known for posthumously establishing the Pulitzer Prizes and for originating yellow journalism along with William Randolph Hearst and William Randolph Hearst Hearst was born in San Francisco to millionaire mining engineer George Hearst and Phoebe Apperson Hearst. Following preparation at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, he enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , the A.D. Club (a prestigious Harvard Final club), and of the. The Little Bears The Little Bears may have been the first American comic strip. Drawn by James Swinnerton, it began its run in 1893 in the San Francisco Examiner, one of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. From 1892 it sometimes appeared under the title Little Bears & Tykes, and in 1896 following a switch to the New York Journal, Swinnerton's feature was (1893–1896) was the first American ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language comic with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892.

In China, with its traditions of block printing Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua Lianhuanhua (Chinese: 连环画 連環畫 (Traditional); Pinyin: Liánhuánhuà or 連環圖) is a palm-size picture book of sequential drawings found in China in the early 20th century. It is considered the predecessor of manhua date back to 1884.^[5]

Newspapers

Newspaper comic strips come in two varieties: daily strips and Sunday strips A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in full color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies. Some newspapers, such as Grit, published Sunday strips in black-and-white, and some printed. Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated; that is, a syndicate The word syndicate comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος (syndikos) which means caretaker of an issue, compare to ombudsman or representative hires people to write and draw the strip, and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. A few newspaper strips are exclusive to one newspaper. For example the Pogo Pogo was the title and central character of a long-running daily comic strip created by Walt Kelly and distributed by the Post-Hall Syndicate. Set in the Okefenokee Swamp of the southeastern United States, the strip often engaged in social and political satire through the adventures of its anthropomorphic funny animal characters comic strip by Walt Kelly Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. , better known as Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the classic funny animal comic strip, Pogo. He won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award in 1951 for Cartoonist of the Year, and their Silver T-Square Award in 1972, given to persons having "demonstrated outstanding originally appeared only in the New York Star PM was a leftist New York City daily newspaper published by Ralph Ingersoll from June 1940 to June 1948 and bankrolled by the eccentric Chicago millionaire Marshall Field III in 1948, and was not picked up for syndication until the following year.^[6]

In the United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appear on Sundays. Daily strips usually use black and white and Sunday strips are usually in color, but a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and a few newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. During the 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high.^[7] As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced.

The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic and Ray Bradbury Raymond Douglas "Ray" Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles (1950) and The Illustrated Man (1951), Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th and 21st have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were clipped and mailed, as noted by the Baltimore Sun's Linda White: "I followed the adventures of Winnie Winkle, Moon Mullins and Dondi, and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn’t miss it.)"^[8]

Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for the reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at the Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page."^[9] Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out."^[10][11]

Cartoon panels

Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets. Jimmy Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and the second panel revealing the truth of the situation.^[4]

Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches in height.^[12] Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by the year 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip.

NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with a two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks, but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier.^[4]

In Flanders, the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero.^[13] They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders.^[14] In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color.

Sunday comics

Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips, such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie, filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page. Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried a secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper, such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board, both drawn by Gene Ahern.

During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at a size of 17"x37".^[15] In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home, drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page.

Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune, or with one strip on a tabloid page, as in the Chicago Daily News. When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II, because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971.

Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers.

Underground comic strips

The decade of the 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers, which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated.^[16] Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode, Dan O'Neill, Gilbert Shelton and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy, National Lampoon and Pete Millar's CARtoons. Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books.

Webcomic

Webcomics, also known as online comics and internet comics, are comics that are available to read on the Internet. Many are exclusively published online, while some are published in print but maintain a web archive for either commercial or artistic reasons. Two of the most popular are Penny Arcade, focused primarily on video gaming, and User Friendly, which bases its humor on the Internet and other computer-user issues. The majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, include an email address in each strip.

Conventions and genres

Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston's award-winning For Better or For Worse, the characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley.

The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, Mary Worth, Modesty Blaise and Tarzan. Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books, for example Superman, Batman and The Amazing Spider-Man.

A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal (Marmaduke, The Angriest Dog in the World), some have verbal thoughts but aren't understood by humans, (Garfield, Snoopy in Peanuts), and some can converse with humans (Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Mutts, Citizen Dog, Buckles, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, and Pooch Cafe). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck. Gary Larson's The Far Side was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens, chickens, cows, worms, amoebas and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal and fantasy characters, he does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur. Bob Thaves's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved the way for some of these strips as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms — as animals, vegetables, and minerals.^[4]

Social and political influence

The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the right-wing views of Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Doonesbury. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables.

During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst, who's papers were the biggest carriers of them in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism, and he was detested by readers of the New York Times and other "serious" papers, most of which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all the strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. Nowadays considered one of the great strips of all time and an inspiration for cartoonists such as Bill Watterson, Krazy Kat was never well liked or understood by the average reader, although it gained a considerable following among celebrities and intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s.

Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era. At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm the members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire.

Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and The Boondocks, may be printed on the editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal. Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics, and Tank McNamara often appears on the sports page because of its subject matter.

Publicity and recognition

The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival.^{[citation needed]} The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts the history of London.

The Reuben, named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists' Society (NCS).

Today's strip artists, with the help of the NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which is considered to be in decline due to fewer markets and ever-shrinking newspaper space. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie, held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield’s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie’s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams (Dilbert) traded strips with Bil Keane (The Family Circus). Even the United States Postal Service got into the act, issuing a series of commemorative stamps marking the comic-strip centennial in 1996.

While the Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, for one artist to take over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924–44 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy), and Terry and The Pirates, started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder.

A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed the feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens, drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style.^[4]

Issues in U.S. newspaper comic strips

As newspapers change, the changes have affected comic strips.

Size

In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received a full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson has written extensively on the issue, arguing that size reduction and dropped panels reduce both the potential and freedom of a cartoonist. After a lengthy battle with his syndicator, Watterson won the privilege of making page-sized Sunday strips where he could arrange the panels any way he liked. Many newspaper publishers and a few cartoonists objected to this, and some papers continued to print Calvin and Hobbes at small sizes. One newspaper, the Reading Eagle, still displays many strips in the largest available size.

Format

In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels.

In the early 20th century, it was commonplace for strips to have lengthy adventure stories spanning weeks or months. One of the longest ever was the "Monarch of Medioka" story in Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse comic strip, which ran from September 8, 1937 to May 2, 1938. By the 1950s, syndicators were abandoning adventure stories and urging cartoonists to switch to simple daily gags.

The writing style of comic strips changed as well after the war. With an increase in the number of college-educated readers, there was a shift away from slapstick comedy and towards more cerebral humor. Slapstick and visual gags became more confined to Sunday strips, because as Garfield creator Jim Davis put it, "Children are more likely to read Sunday strips than dailies."

Second author

Many older strips are no longer drawn by the original cartoonist, who has either died or retired. A cartoonist, paid by the syndicate, or sometimes a relative of the original cartoonist continues writing the strip, a tradition that became commonplace in the early half of the 20th century. Hägar the Horrible and Frank and Ernest are both drawn by the sons of the creators. Some strips which are still in affiliation with the original creator are produced by small teams or entire companies, such as Jim Davis' Garfield and Lynn Johnston's For Better or for Worse.

This act is commonly criticized by, primarily modern, cartoonists including Watterson and Pearls Before Swine's Stephan Pastis. The issue was in fact addressed in six consecutive Pearls strips in 2005.^[18] Charles Schulz, of Peanuts fame, requested that his strip not be continued by another cartoonist after his death. He also rejected the idea of hiring an inker or letterer, comparing it to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts. Schulz's family has honored his wishes and refused numerous proposals by syndicators to continue Peanuts with a new author.

The problems cited with attaining a second cartoonist state that the second cartoonist is generally less funny or compelling than the creator, and that the new cartoonist does not have the same style of writing or understand the characters as well. Also, some claim that continuing such strips stops newer cartoonists from breaking through.

Censorship

Starting in the late 1940s, the national syndicates which distributed newspaper comic-strips subjected them to very strict censorship. Li'l Abner was censored in September 1947 and was pulled from papers by Scripps-Howard. The controversy, as reported in Time, centered around Capp's portrayal of the U.S. Senate. Said Edward Leech of Scripps, "We don't think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks... boobs and undesirables."^[19]

Stephan Pastis has said that the "unwritten" censorship code is still "stuck somewhere in the 1950s." Generally, comics are not allowed to include such words as "damn", "sucks", "screwed" and "hell", although there have been a few exceptions. Naked back sides and shooting guns cannot be shown, according to Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams.^[20]

Many issues such as sex, drugs and terrorism cannot or can very rarely be openly discussed in strips, although there are exceptions, usually for satire, as in Bloom County. This led some cartoonists to resort to double entendre or dialogue children do not understand, as seen in Greg Evans' Luann. Young cartoonists have claimed commonplace words, images and issues should be allowed in the comics. Some of the taboo words and topics are mentioned daily on television and other forms of visual media. Web comics and comics distributed primarily to college newspapers are much freer in this respect.

See also

• Biblia pauperum
• Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
• Comics Studies
• List of cartoonists
• List of comic strips

References

1. ^ Michigan State Libraries Comic Art Collection
2. ^ Eisner, Will (2008). Comics and Sequential Art. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393331264.
3. ^ Robinson, Jerry (1974). The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e} Toonopedia
5. ^ "histoire de la bande dessinée chinoise, les lianhuanhua (1) [History of Chinese comics: lianhuanhua]" (in French). 2008-01-20. http://www.nico-wong.over-blog.net/article-15817717.html. Retrieved 2010-01-10. "[...] le quotidien Shenbao (申报) publie dès 1884 un supplément intitulé Magazine du Studio de la pierre gravée (点石斋画报) contenant des séries d’images narratives, exécutées dans la technique baimiao. Cela permet ainsi au journal d’augmenter sa lisibilité en illustrant l’actualité, intérieure comme extérieure, ou en dépeignant la vie quotidienne, les mœurs et les coutumes en Chine à une époque où les photographies sont encore rares. [Translation: ... from 1884 the daily Shenbao (申报) published a supplement called "Magazine of the Studio of carved stone" (点石斋画报) which contained series of narrative images done with the baimiao technique. So this allowed the newspaper to enhance its readability by illustrating contemporary events at home and abroad, or by depicting daily life and behavior and customs in China at a time when photographs still remained uncommon.]"
6. ^ Kelly, Walt (1992). "Introduction". Complete Pogo, Volume 1. R. C. Harvey. Fantagraphics Books. p. v. ISBN 1560970189.
7. ^ Live Auctioneers, Etta Kett, January 2, 1933.
8. ^ White, Linda. "You can't go home again".
9. ^ Scott, Randy. "The King Features Proof Sheet Collection," Insight. [Fall 2009] p.3
10. ^ Holtz, Allan. Stripper's Guide, December 15, 2009.
11. ^ "How Cartoons Are Syndicated," Popular Mechanics, March 1926.
12. ^ Newspaper Archive
13. ^ Baudart, Sébastien (2005) (in Dutch). Strips in de Belgische dagbladpers, 1945-1950. p. 69. http://www.flwi.ugent.be/btng-rbhc/pdf/BTNG-RBHC,%2035,%202005,%201,%20pp%2053-97.pdf. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
14. ^ Michielsen, Stefaan (26 September 2003). "Zondagskrant als antwoord van uitgevers op krimpende markt" (in Dutch). De Standaard. http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelId=dst26092003_084. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
15. ^ ComicStripFan
16. ^ Estren, Mark James (1993). "Foreword: Onward!". A History of Underground Comics. Ronin Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 091417164X.
17. ^ Moynihan, Shawn (May 14, 2009). "Comics-Page Changes Can Come at a Price". Editor & Publisher. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003973207. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
18. ^ Comics.com
19. ^ "Tain't Funny". Time. Monday, September 29, 1947. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804275,00.html. Retrieved 2009-05-15.
20. ^ Adams, Scott (2007). Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Ignores Helpful Advice. ISBN 9781591841852.

Sources

• Walker, Brian (2004). The Comics: Before 1945. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810949709.
• Walker, Brian (2002). The Comics: After 1945. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810934817.

External links

• National Cartoonists Society
• Comic Strip Nation
• The Comic Strip Project. WebCitation archive.
• List of Comic Strips

Categories: Comic strips | Comics formats

See Also:

• Comic Strips: Encyclopedia
• Arts: Comics: Fan Pages: Comic Strips: Directory
• Arts: Comics: Comic Strips and Panels: Directory
• Arts: Comics: Comic Strips and Panels: Directories: Directory
• Comic Books

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