A comic strip is a drawing or sequence of drawings that tells a story. Written and drawn by a cartoonist, such strips are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet.
Storytelling using pictures, often combined with words, has existed at least since the ancient Egyptians..
As the name implies, comic strips can be humorous. Starting circa 1930, comic strips began to include adventure stories. Buck Rogers was one of the first. Soap-opera continuity strips such as Mary Worth were popular. All are called, generically, "comic strips", though cartoonist Will Eisner said that "sequential art" would be a better name for them.
Newspaper comic strip
The Yellow Kid is usually credited as being the very first newspaper comic strip. Newspaper comic strips are divided into daily strips and Sunday strips. Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated; that is, a syndicate hires people to write and draw the strip, and then distributes the strip to many newspapers for a fee.
Daily strips
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip that appears in newspapers Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip which appears on Sunday.
Sunday strips
Sunday strips appear in Sunday newspapers, usually in a special color section.
The Yellow Kid
Origins
The Yellow Kid the first color comic, part of the first Sunday comic section in 1897 (and the source of the term "yellow journalism")
The 1865 German strip Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for Rudolph Dirks. He created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897.
Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids was responsible for one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium.
Most comic strip characters are unageing throughout the strip's life. 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 Phantom,Dick Tracy, and Tarzan. Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books, for example Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man.
A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal (Marmaduke), some have verbal thoughts but aren't understood by humans, (Garfield, Snoopy), and some can converse with humans (Calvin And Hobbes).
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 has been commonplace.
The problems cited with attaining a second cartoonist state that the second cartoonist is generally less funny or compelling than the creator.
Pogo by Walt Kelly
Social and political influence
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.
Kelly also defended the medium against 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 his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire.
Doonesbury by Gary Trudeau
Underground comic strips
The 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers, which carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat. College newspapers also began to carry their own strips. Doonesbury began in college papers, and later moved to syndication.
A gag cartoon is a single-panel cartoon, usually including a written caption that appears beneath the drawing, most often published in magazines. As the name implies—"gag" being a show business term for a comedic idea—these cartoons are most often intended to provoke laughter. Their basis in "gags" and their publication in magazines rather than newspapers separates them from political cartoons. Popular magazines that have featured gag cartoons include Punch (UK), The New Yorker (US), and Nick Magazine (US).
