Daily strip
Encyclopedia
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.
Bud Fisher
's Mutt and Jeff is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip, launched November 15, 1907 (under its initial title, A. Mutt) on the sports pages of the San Francisco Chronicle
. The featured character had previously appeared in sports cartoons by Fisher but was unnamed. Fisher had approached his editor, John P. Young, about doing a regular strip as early as 1905 but was turned down. According to Fisher, Young told him, "It would take up too much room, and readers are used to reading down the page, and not horizontally." Other cartoonist
s followed the trend set by Fisher, as noted by comic strip historian R. C. Harvey
:
The reading of newspaper comics each day was a major entertainment activity during the first half of the 20th century. A Fortune
poll in 1937 ranked the ten leading strips in popularity (with no. 1 as the most popular):
are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. One of the leading single gag panels for decades, Grin and Bear It
, was created in 1932 by George Lichty
and syndicated by Field Enterprises
.
Throughout the 20th century, daily newspaper strips were usually presented in black and white and Sunday strips in color, but a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers, such as Grit
, have published Sunday strips in black and white. On the web, daily newspaper strips are usually in color, and conversely, some webcomic
s, such as Joyce and Walky, have been created in black and white.
Traditionally, balloons and captions were hand-lettered with all upper case letters. However, there are exceptions such as a few strips which have typeset dialog such as Barnaby. Upper and lower case lettering is used in Gasoline Alley
.
attempts an overlap by inserting daily gags into his Gasoline Alley continuity storylines.
Some newspapers would alter a horizontal strip to fit their page layout by placing the first two panels of a strip atop panels three and four. This then had a shape roughly similar to a gag panel and could be grouped with the gag panels.
The title of a strip was sometimes typeset and pasted into the first panel, enabling the strips to be closely stacked. This had the advantage of making space for additional strips but often resulted in a crowded, unattractive page design. More often during the 1930s and 1940s, the title was typeset (in all upper case letters) and positioned to the right in the white space area above that strip, with the byline on the right. An episode subtitle (in upper and lower case) was centered between the title and the byline. In later years, as continuity strips gave way to humor strips, the subtitles vanished. In a nod toward the classic daily strips of yesteryear, the cartoonist Bill Griffith continues the tradition by always centering a hand-lettered episode subtitle above each of his Zippy
strips. In rare cases, some newspapers assembled pages of stacked strips minus titles, leaving more than a few confused readers.
During the 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. In some cases today, the daily strip and Sunday strip dimensions are almost the same. For instance, a daily strip in The Arizona Republic
measures 4 3/4" wide by 1 1/2" deep, while the three-tiered Hägar the Horrible
Sunday strip in the same paper is 5" wide by 3 3/8" deep.
and Ray Bradbury
have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Many readers related to J. R. Williams
' homespun humor and clipped his long-run daily panel, Out Our Way
. As noted by Coulton Waugh
in his 1947 book, The Comics, anecdotal evidence indicated that more of Williams' daily cartoons were clipped and saved than any other newspaper comic strip.
Strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were clipped and mailed, as noted by the Baltimore Suns 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.)"
Collections of such clipped daily strips can now be found in various archives, including Steve Cottle
's online I Love Comix Archive. Comics historian Bill Blackbeard
had tens of thousands of daily strips clipped and organized chronologically. Blackbeard's San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, consisting of 2.5 million clippings, tearsheets and comic sections, spanning the years 1894 to 1996, has provided source material for books and articles by Blackbeard and other researchers. During the 1990s, this collection was acquired by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
, providing that Ohio State museum with the world's largest collection of daily newspaper comic strip tear sheets and clippings. In 1998, six 18-wheelers transported the Blackbeard collection from California to Ohio.
is an award-winning blog
in which the Baltimore-based freelance writer-editor Josh Fruhlinger provides an ongoing humorous and critical commentary of daily comic strips. The blog's original title was Josh Reads the Comics So You Don't Have To, which is reflected in the URL joshreads.com.
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
comic strip
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....
format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a 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...
, which typically only appears on Sundays.
Bud Fisher
Bud Fisher
Harry Conway "Bud" Fisher was an American cartoonist who created Mutt and Jeff, the first successful daily comic strip in the United States....
's Mutt and Jeff is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip, launched November 15, 1907 (under its initial title, A. Mutt) on the sports pages of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. The featured character had previously appeared in sports cartoons by Fisher but was unnamed. Fisher had approached his editor, John P. Young, about doing a regular strip as early as 1905 but was turned down. According to Fisher, Young told him, "It would take up too much room, and readers are used to reading down the page, and not horizontally." Other cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
s followed the trend set by Fisher, as noted by comic strip historian R. C. Harvey
R. C. Harvey
Robert C. Harvey , popularly known as R. C. Harvey, is an author, critic and cartoonist. He has written a number of books on the history of the medium, with special focus on the history of the comic strip, and he has also worked as a freelance cartoonist.Harvey describes himself as having created...
:
- The strip's regular appearance and its continued popularity inspired imitation, thus establishing the daily "strip" form for a certain kind of newspaper cartoon. Until Mutt and Jeff set the fashion, newspaper cartoons usually reached readers in one of two forms: on Sunday, in colored pages of tiered panels in sequence (some like Winsor McCayWinsor McCayWinsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator.A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades...
's Little Nemo in Slumberland, intended chiefly for children to read): on weekdays, collections of comic drawings grouped almost haphazardly within the ruled border of a large single-frame panel (directed mostly to adult readers)... Then on that November day in 1907, Fisher made history by spreading his comic drawings in sequence across the width of the sports page. And when his editor consented to this departure from the usual practice, the daily comic strip format was on its way to becoming a fixture in daily newspapers."
The reading of newspaper comics each day was a major entertainment activity during the first half of the 20th century. A Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
poll in 1937 ranked the ten leading strips in popularity (with no. 1 as the most popular):
- Little Orphan AnnieLittle Orphan AnnieLittle 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...
- PopeyePopeyePopeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...
- Dick TracyDick TracyDick 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...
- Bringing Up FatherBringing up FatherBringing 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....
- The GumpsThe GumpsThe Gumps, a popular comic strip about a middle-class family, was created by Sidney Smith in 1917, launching a 42-year run in newspapers from February 12, 1917 until October 17, 1959....
- BlondieBlondie (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...
- Moon MullinsMoon MullinsMoon Mullins, created by cartoonist Frank Willard , was a popular American comic strip which had a long run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923 to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who...
- Joe PalookaJoe PalookaJoe Palooka was an American comic strip about a heavyweight boxing champion, created by cartoonist Ham Fisher in 1921. The strip debuted in 1930 and was carried at its peak by 900 newspapers....
- Li'l AbnerLi'l AbnerLi'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...
- Tillie the ToilerTillie the ToilerTillie the Toiler was a newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Russ Westover who initially worked on his concept of a flapper character in a strip he titled Rose of the Office...
Formats and color
The two conventional formats for daily newspaper comicsComics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. One of the leading single gag panels for decades, Grin and Bear It
Grin and Bear It
Grin and Bear It is a daily panel created by George Lichtenstein under the penname George Lichty. Initially distributed by United Feature Syndicate, it was syndicated by Field Enterprises beginning in 1940. Field Enterprises was sold in 1986 to King Features Syndicate which continues to distribute...
, was created in 1932 by George Lichty
George Lichty
George Lichty was an American cartoonist, creator of the daily and Sunday cartoon series Grin and Bear It. His work was signed Lichty and often ran without mention of his first name....
and syndicated by Field Enterprises
Field Enterprises
Field Enterprises was a private holding company founded on August 31, 1944, by Marshall Field III and others whose main asset was the Chicago Sun. That same year the company acquired the book publishers Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books....
.
Throughout the 20th century, daily newspaper strips were usually presented in black and white and Sunday strips in color, but a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers, such as Grit
Grit (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...
, have published Sunday strips in black and white. On the web, daily newspaper strips are usually in color, and conversely, some webcomic
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....
s, such as Joyce and Walky, have been created in black and white.
Traditionally, balloons and captions were hand-lettered with all upper case letters. However, there are exceptions such as a few strips which have typeset dialog such as Barnaby. Upper and lower case lettering is used in Gasoline Alley
Gasoline Alley
Gasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and currently distributed by Tribune Media Services. First published November 24, 1918, it is the second longest running comic strip in the US and has received critical accolades for its influential innovations...
.
Gag-a-day
A distinction is made between continuity strips which have continuous storylines and gag-a-day strips in which the same characters appear in different humorous situations with no ongoing plot. In some cases, a gag-a-day strip might depict totally different characters each day. Writer-artist Jim ScancarelliJim Scancarelli
James Scancarelli , known professionally as Jim Scancarelli, is an American cartoonist who has been writing and drawing the syndicated comic strip Gasoline Alley for Tribune Media Services since 1986...
attempts an overlap by inserting daily gags into his Gasoline Alley continuity storylines.
Layout
Newspapers can display strips on separate pages randomly or thematically, such as placing a sports strip on the sports page. 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 gathered the strips together on a single page, along with news articles, columns, puzzles and/or other illustrated features. In many newspapers, the width of the strips made possible an arrangement of the strips into two stacks displayed from the top to the bottom of the page.Some newspapers would alter a horizontal strip to fit their page layout by placing the first two panels of a strip atop panels three and four. This then had a shape roughly similar to a gag panel and could be grouped with the gag panels.
The title of a strip was sometimes typeset and pasted into the first panel, enabling the strips to be closely stacked. This had the advantage of making space for additional strips but often resulted in a crowded, unattractive page design. More often during the 1930s and 1940s, the title was typeset (in all upper case letters) and positioned to the right in the white space area above that strip, with the byline on the right. An episode subtitle (in upper and lower case) was centered between the title and the byline. In later years, as continuity strips gave way to humor strips, the subtitles vanished. In a nod toward the classic daily strips of yesteryear, the cartoonist Bill Griffith continues the tradition by always centering a hand-lettered episode subtitle above each of his Zippy
Zippy the Pinhead
Zippy is an American comic strip created by Bill Griffith. The character of Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications during the 1970s...
strips. In rare cases, some newspapers assembled pages of stacked strips minus titles, leaving more than a few confused readers.
Shrinkage
Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches in height. In the 1920s, an eight-column newspaper usually ran a daily strip over six columns. 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.During the 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. In some cases today, the daily strip and Sunday strip dimensions are almost the same. For instance, a daily strip in The Arizona Republic
The Arizona Republic
The Arizona Republic is a daily newspaper published in Phoenix. Circulated throughout Arizona, it is the state's largest newspaper. Since 2000, it has been owned by the Gannett newspaper chain. It was ranked tenth in US daily newspapers by circulation in 2007.-Early years:The newspaper was founded...
measures 4 3/4" wide by 1 1/2" deep, while the three-tiered Hägar the Horrible
Hägar the Horrible
Hägar the Horrible is the title and main character of an American comic strip created by cartoonist Dik Browne , and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It first appeared in February 1973, and was an immediate success. Since Browne's retirement in 1988 , his son Chris Browne has continued the...
Sunday strip in the same paper is 5" wide by 3 3/8" deep.
Archival clippings
The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved or posted on bulletin boards or refrigerators. Authors John UpdikeJohn Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
and Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Many readers related to J. R. Williams
J. R. Williams (cartoonist)
James Robert Williams was a cartoonist who signed his work J. R. Williams. He was best known for his long-run daily syndicated panel, Out Our Way. As noted by Coulton Waugh in his 1947 book, The Comics, anecdotal evidence indicated that more Williams' cartoons were clipped and saved than were...
' homespun humor and clipped his long-run daily panel, Out Our Way
Out Our Way
Out Our Way was a single-panel cartoon by J. R. Williams which was syndicated for decades after it first appeared in a half-dozen small-market newspapers on March 20, 1922.-Characters and story:...
. As noted by Coulton Waugh
Coulton Waugh
Frederick Coulton Waugh was a cartoonist, painter, teacher and author, best known for his illustration work on the comic strip Dickie Dare and his book The Comics , the first major study of the field.His father was the marine artist Frederick Judd Waugh, and his grandfather was the Philadelphia...
in his 1947 book, The Comics, anecdotal evidence indicated that more of Williams' daily cartoons were clipped and saved than any other newspaper comic strip.
Strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were clipped and mailed, as noted by the Baltimore Suns Linda White: "I followed the adventures of Winnie Winkle
Winnie Winkle
Winnie Winkle was an American comic strip which appeared over a 76-year span . Created by Martin Branner, who wrote the strip for over 40 years, Winnie Winkle was one of the first comic strips about working women. It was titled Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner until 1943...
, Moon Mullins
Moon Mullins
Moon Mullins, created by cartoonist Frank Willard , was a popular American comic strip which had a long run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923 to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who...
and Dondi
Dondi
Dondi was a daily comic strip about a large-eyed war orphan of the same name. Created by Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen, it ran in more than 100 newspapers for three decades .-Interview:...
, 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.)"
Collections of such clipped daily strips can now be found in various archives, including Steve Cottle
Steve Cottle
Steve Cottle, Jr. , dedicated to the preservation of vintage comic strips, is also known as Mr. ilovecomix. In 2008, he founded the I Love Comix Archive and began to recruit vintage comic strip collectors as contributors, noting, "This is a collaborative effort to save and digitize old newspaper...
's online I Love Comix Archive. Comics historian Bill Blackbeard
Bill Blackbeard
William 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...
had tens of thousands of daily strips clipped and organized chronologically. Blackbeard's San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection, consisting of 2.5 million clippings, tearsheets and comic sections, spanning the years 1894 to 1996, has provided source material for books and articles by Blackbeard and other researchers. During the 1990s, this collection was acquired by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, a research library of American comic art, is affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio...
, providing that Ohio State museum with the world's largest collection of daily newspaper comic strip tear sheets and clippings. In 1998, six 18-wheelers transported the Blackbeard collection from California to Ohio.
Commentary
The Comics CurmudgeonThe Comics Curmudgeon
The Comics Curmudgeon is a blog devoted to humorous and critical analysis of newspaper comics. Its author, Josh Fruhlinger, is a Baltimore-based freelance writer and editor who additionally blogs about editorial cartoons for Wonkette in a weekly feature called Cartoon Violence...
is an award-winning blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
in which the Baltimore-based freelance writer-editor Josh Fruhlinger provides an ongoing humorous and critical commentary of daily comic strips. The blog's original title was Josh Reads the Comics So You Don't Have To, which is reflected in the URL joshreads.com.
See also
- Allan HoltzAllan HoltzAllan Holtz is a comic strip historian who researches and writes about newspaper comics for his Stripper's Guide, launched in 2005. His research encompasses some 7,000 American comic strips and newspaper panels...
- Graphic novelGraphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
- Fred Waring Cartoon Collection
- List of comic strip syndicates
- List of newspaper comic strips A-F
- Michigan State University Comic Art Collection
- Sunday comicsSunday comicsSunday 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....
Further reading
- Becker, Stephen. Comic Art in America. Simon & Schuster, 1959.
- Blackbeard, Bill and Dale Crain, The Comic Strip Century, Kitchen Sink Press, 1995. ISBN 0878163557
- Blackbeard, Bill and Martin Williams, The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, Smithsonian Institution Press and Harry N. Abrams, 1977. ISBN 810920816