Comic strip formats
Encyclopedia
Comic strip formats vary widely from publication to publication, so that the same newspaper comic strip
may appear in a half-dozen different formats with different numbers of panels, different sizes of panels and different arrangement of panels.
and the Sunday strip
. A daily strip is usually carried on a standard newspaper page, often alongside other strips and non-comics matter (such as crossword puzzles). It is usually printed as either a horizontal strip (longer than it is tall) or a box (roughly square) in black and white, although in recent years syndicates have offered daily strips in color, and newspapers with the ability to print it as such have done so.
section. Comics sections usually come in one of two sizes, full page or tabloid. A few newspapers have run their comics in a comic-book size section, and some strips have appeared in the Sunday magazine
of newspapers, such as the 1990 Dick Tracy
reprints in the Daily News Magazine of the New York Daily News.
Expendable parts may include a topper
(a small separate comic strip, no longer used in mainstream comics), "throwaway" panels (a short throw-away gag, still common), or a large title panel or tier. Due to the desire to re-arrange, comics may use a conventional layout of the panels (as demonstrated below) to allow them to be cut up and displayed on a varied number of tiers.
Full page is a format roughly 20 inches high and 14 inches wide. The Reading Eagle
Sunday comics section is full-page size, though today no individual strips are still printed to take up a full page. When Sunday strips first appeared in newspapers, near the beginning of the 20th Century, they were usually in the full-page size. Leading full-page Sundays included Thimble Theater, Little Orphan Annie
, Dick Tracy
and Bringing Up Father
. Many full-page comic strips had a topper
, a small strip that ran above or occasionally below the main strip, usually by the same artist. The topper on Thimble Theater was Sappo, the topper on Little Orphan Annie was Maw Green and ran at the bottom of the full page. Dick Tracy never had a topper while it was still a full page, but much later it had a topper, Sawdust, which ran at the bottom of the tabloid page.
During World War II
, paper rationing led to fewer strips having a full page of their own in the Sunday comics, as did increased advertising in comics sections. Many strips were reduced in size to half of a page or one-third of a page. Collectors call these formats "halfs" and "thirds". Only a few strips, notably Prince Valiant
, were still published in full-page format after WWII. In the mid-1950s, there were a few attempts to revive the full-page Sunday comic strip, notably Lance
and Johnny Reb and Billy Yank
. These were an artistic but not a commercial success and were reduced to half-page format after a short full-page run. The last full-page Sunday strip was Prince Valiant, which continued in full-page format in some newspapers until 1970. New Prince Valiant stories still appear in newspapers today, but in half-page or smaller formats.
Only a few books have been published reprinting full-page Sunday strips in their original size: The Golden Age of Tarzan, Prince Valiant: An American Epic and Little Nemo.
Half page is a Sunday strip format that is roughly 10 inches high and 14 inches wide. Today, it is the largest and most complete format for most Sunday strips, including Peanuts
, Prince Valiant
, and Doonesbury
. The half-page Sunday strip was introduced in the 1920s to fit two Sunday strips on a single page. The Phantom
, Mandrake the Magician
and Terry and the Pirates
were introduced in this format. Other strips, such as Flash Gordon
and Blondie
had panels rearranged, cropped or removed to make the full page fit in a smaller size. WW II paper rationing caused most newspapers to cut back on the number of pages devoted to Sunday comics, and rather than drop strips, they often reduced the size. Beginning about this time, the half page became the standard size, and the third-of-a-page strip was introduced, fitting three strips on each page, one above another. A half page typically had three tiers; the third page either reduced, rearranged and cropped these panels, as seen in Li'l Abner
strips, or more commonly, just dropped the top tier, as was the case with Peanuts
. Most newspaper readers did not realize there were only seeing part of what the artist drew, and the artists were forced into increasingly restrictive formats to make dropping panels possible. Today, only the Reading Eagle
and a few other newspapers run any of their Sunday strips in the complete half-page format. The Sunday Calvin and Hobbes
comic strip was so popular that the artist insisted that it fill half of a page, although many editors ran a shrunken version of the same strip. That strip has since ended, and today the only strip that requires the half-page format, though not necessarily the half-page size, is Opus
.
A few comic strips were designed to be run as "thirds", for example, Steve Canyon
, the early Garfield
and On Stage
(except for the last few years of its run). These strips are complete in the third of a page format, and they are cropped and rearranged in the half-page, tab or full-page format. Other strips, such as The Amazing Spider-Man
and the current Alley Oop
are drawn in the third-of-a-page format and the half page is created by adding a title tier, which is either the same every week (in the case of Alley Oop), or comes in a small number of different varieties (in the case of Spider-Man and other strips based on Marvel Comics
characters).
, Little Annie Rooney
and other Sunday strip
s were given extreme vertical rearrangements.
, for example, The New York Times
is a full- size newspaper while the New York Post
is a tabloid. Many collectors of newspaper comic strips prefer the tabloid or "tab" size Sunday strip for such strips as Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy and Terry and the Pirates.
Comic strip
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....
may appear in a half-dozen different formats with different numbers of panels, different sizes of panels and different arrangement of panels.
Daily strip
The first distinction in comic strips formats is between the daily stripDaily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
and the Sunday strip
Sunday strip
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 color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
. A daily strip is usually carried on a standard newspaper page, often alongside other strips and non-comics matter (such as crossword puzzles). It is usually printed as either a horizontal strip (longer than it is tall) or a box (roughly square) in black and white, although in recent years syndicates have offered daily strips in color, and newspapers with the ability to print it as such have done so.
Sunday strip
There is a much greater variety in Sunday strip formats. Sunday strips are usually in color, published in a special newspaper section, the Sunday comicsSunday comics
Sunday comics is the commonly accepted term for the full-color comic strip section carried in most American newspapers. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies....
section. Comics sections usually come in one of two sizes, full page or tabloid. A few newspapers have run their comics in a comic-book size section, and some strips have appeared in the Sunday magazine
Sunday magazine
A Sunday magazine is a publication inserted into a Sunday newspaper. It also has been known as a Sunday supplement, Sunday newspaper magazine or Sunday magazine section...
of newspapers, such as the 1990 Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
reprints in the Daily News Magazine of the New York Daily News.
Variation
A single comic strip may appear in numerous variations; there is a "full" version, to appear at a given size, which may have parts eliminated, be shrunk, or have the panels cut up and re-arranged.Expendable parts may include a topper
Topper (comic strip)
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...
(a small separate comic strip, no longer used in mainstream comics), "throwaway" panels (a short throw-away gag, still common), or a large title panel or tier. Due to the desire to re-arrange, comics may use a conventional layout of the panels (as demonstrated below) to allow them to be cut up and displayed on a varied number of tiers.
Full page
Full page is a format roughly 20 inches high and 14 inches wide. The Reading Eagle
Reading Eagle
The Reading Eagle is the major daily newspaper in Reading, Pennsylvania, in the United States. This family-owned newspaper has a daily circulation of 64,000 and a Sunday circulation of 100,000...
Sunday comics section is full-page size, though today no individual strips are still printed to take up a full page. When Sunday strips first appeared in newspapers, near the beginning of the 20th Century, they were usually in the full-page size. Leading full-page Sundays included Thimble Theater, Little Orphan Annie
Little Orphan Annie
Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and made its debut on August 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News...
, Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...
and Bringing Up Father
Bringing up Father
Bringing Up Father was an influential American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus . Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 12, 1913 to May 28, 2000....
. Many full-page comic strips had a topper
Topper (comic strip)
A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.Toppers usually were drawn...
, a small strip that ran above or occasionally below the main strip, usually by the same artist. The topper on Thimble Theater was Sappo, the topper on Little Orphan Annie was Maw Green and ran at the bottom of the full page. Dick Tracy never had a topper while it was still a full page, but much later it had a topper, Sawdust, which ran at the bottom of the tabloid page.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, paper rationing led to fewer strips having a full page of their own in the Sunday comics, as did increased advertising in comics sections. Many strips were reduced in size to half of a page or one-third of a page. Collectors call these formats "halfs" and "thirds". Only a few strips, notably Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...
, were still published in full-page format after WWII. In the mid-1950s, there were a few attempts to revive the full-page Sunday comic strip, notably Lance
Lance (comic strip)
Lance, one of the last of the full-page comic strips, was self-syndicated by the artist, Warren Tufts. Comic strip historians regard Lance as one of the great adventure strips. It had an impressive five-year run through the late 1950s....
and Johnny Reb and Billy Yank
Johnny Reb and Billy Yank
Johnny Reb and Billy Yank was a Sunday comic strip drawn by Frank Giacoia from November 18, 1956 to May 24, 1959. It was one of the last full page Sunday strips. The last full page appeared in late 1957. On May 18, 1958 the title changed to Johnny Reb...
. These were an artistic but not a commercial success and were reduced to half-page format after a short full-page run. The last full-page Sunday strip was Prince Valiant, which continued in full-page format in some newspapers until 1970. New Prince Valiant stories still appear in newspapers today, but in half-page or smaller formats.
Only a few books have been published reprinting full-page Sunday strips in their original size: The Golden Age of Tarzan, Prince Valiant: An American Epic and Little Nemo.
Half page
Half page is a Sunday strip format that is roughly 10 inches high and 14 inches wide. Today, it is the largest and most complete format for most Sunday strips, including Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
, Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...
, and Doonesbury
Doonesbury
Doonesbury is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college...
. The half-page Sunday strip was introduced in the 1920s to fit two Sunday strips on a single page. The Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...
, Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk , which began June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate.Davis worked on the strip until his death in 1964,...
and Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates (comic strip)
Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, had admired Caniff’s work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare and hired him to create the new adventure strip,...
were introduced in this format. Other strips, such as Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
and Blondie
Blondie (comic strip)
Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip has been published in newspapers since September 8, 1930...
had panels rearranged, cropped or removed to make the full page fit in a smaller size. WW II paper rationing caused most newspapers to cut back on the number of pages devoted to Sunday comics, and rather than drop strips, they often reduced the size. Beginning about this time, the half page became the standard size, and the third-of-a-page strip was introduced, fitting three strips on each page, one above another. A half page typically had three tiers; the third page either reduced, rearranged and cropped these panels, as seen in Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...
strips, or more commonly, just dropped the top tier, as was the case with Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
. Most newspaper readers did not realize there were only seeing part of what the artist drew, and the artists were forced into increasingly restrictive formats to make dropping panels possible. Today, only the Reading Eagle
Reading Eagle
The Reading Eagle is the major daily newspaper in Reading, Pennsylvania, in the United States. This family-owned newspaper has a daily circulation of 64,000 and a Sunday circulation of 100,000...
and a few other newspapers run any of their Sunday strips in the complete half-page format. The Sunday Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his...
comic strip was so popular that the artist insisted that it fill half of a page, although many editors ran a shrunken version of the same strip. That strip has since ended, and today the only strip that requires the half-page format, though not necessarily the half-page size, is Opus
Opus (comic strip)
Opus was a Sunday strip drawn by Berkeley Breathed for a period of five years, 2003 to 2008. It was Breathed's fourth comic strip, following The Academia Waltz, Bloom County and Outland....
.
Third
Third is used by comic strip collectors and dealers to describe one of the formats in which Sunday strips appear in American newspapers. One page of a full-color comics section can be divided horizontally into two, three or four parts. Comic strip collectors call strips that occupy one-third of a full page "thirds". From the mid-1940s until at least the 1980s, "thirds" were the most common comic strip format, and "thirds" are still common today. "Thirds" usually drop several panels, and these incomplete strips are not sought after by collectors as much as half-page or full-page strips. Most people who casually read the Sunday comics are not aware that they are missing several panels of a strip if their newspaper runs it as a "third".A few comic strips were designed to be run as "thirds", for example, Steve Canyon
Steve Canyon
Steve Canyon was a long-running American adventure comic strip by writer-artist Milton Caniff. Launched shortly after Caniff retired from his previous strip, Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon ran from January 13, 1947 until June 4, 1988, shortly after Caniff's death...
, the early Garfield
Garfield
Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield ; his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Arbuckle's dog, Odie...
and On Stage
Mary Perkins, On Stage
Mary Perkins, On Stage is an American newspaper comic strip by Leonard Starr for the Chicago-Tribune-New York News Syndicate. It ran from February, 1957 to September 9, 1979, with the switch to the longer title in 1961...
(except for the last few years of its run). These strips are complete in the third of a page format, and they are cropped and rearranged in the half-page, tab or full-page format. Other strips, such as The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man is an American comic book series published by Marvel Comics, featuring the adventures of the fictional superhero Spider-Man. Being the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it began publication in 1963 as a monthly periodical and was published continuously until it was...
and the current Alley Oop
Alley Oop
Alley Oop is a syndicated comic strip, created in 1932 by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the popular and influential strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association...
are drawn in the third-of-a-page format and the half page is created by adding a title tier, which is either the same every week (in the case of Alley Oop), or comes in a small number of different varieties (in the case of Spider-Man and other strips based on Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
characters).
Quarter
Quarter is used by comic strip collectors and dealers to describe the format in which a full page is divided horizontally into four equal parts. Quarter pages are small, but often have all of the panels of a half-page, rearranged into two tiers instead of three. Some quarters drop one panel, some add a title panel to the left of the two tiers. Some newspapers crowd five or even six quarters into a single page.Other formats
As newspapers print fewer and fewer pages in the Sunday comics section, a variety of other formats have been introduced over the years, including formats that divide the page into vertical and horizontal sections. To fit the format of the weekly GritGrit (newspaper)
Grit is a magazine, formerly a weekly newspaper, popular in rural areas throughout the United States during much of the 20th century. It carried the subtitle America's Greatest Family Newspaper. In the early 1930s, it targeted small town and rural families with 14 pages plus a fiction supplement...
, Little Annie Rooney
Little Annie Rooney
Little Annie Rooney was a comic strip about a young orphaned girl who traveled about with her dog, Zero. King Features Syndicate launched the strip on January 10, 1927, not long after it was apparent that the Chicago Tribune Syndicate had scored a huge hit with Little Orphan Annie.Although the King...
and other Sunday strip
Sunday strip
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 color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
s were given extreme vertical rearrangements.
Tab
A tab or tabloid comic strip is a strip published on a full page of a tabloid-size newspaper. Most cities without subways have newspapers that are roughly 20 inches high and 14 inches wide, while cities with subways usually have smaller newspapers, roughly 14 inches high and 10 inches wide. The smaller format is called "tabloid". In New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, for example, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
is a full- size newspaper while the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
is a tabloid. Many collectors of newspaper comic strips prefer the tabloid or "tab" size Sunday strip for such strips as Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy and Terry and the Pirates.
Half tab
Half tab is a comic strip format that fills half of a page in a tabloid newspaper Sunday comics section. Usually, though not always, it is the same as the half-page format, only smaller. As modern newspapers cram more and more strips onto one Sunday page, even full-sized newspapers often use the half-tab format. More and more tabloid newspapers put three or more reduced thirds on a single tabloid page.Further reading
- Robinson, Jerry, The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art (1974) G.P. Putnam's Sons
- Horn, Maurice, The World Encyclopedia of Comics (1976) Chelsea House, (1982) AvonAvon (publishers)Avon Publications was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. As of 2010, it is an imprint of HarperCollins, publishing primarily romance novels.-History:...
- Blackbeard, BillBill BlackbeardWilliam Elsworth Blackbeard , better known as Bill Blackbeard, was a writer-editor and the founder-director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, a comprehensive collection of comic strips and cartoon art from American newspapers...
, ed. The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (1977) Smithsonian Inst. PressSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
/Harry Abrams