Relevant Content Standard - Students will read and comprehend stories that modern writers have adapted into comic strips.
The first commercially successful comic strip in the United States was titled The Yellow Kid by Robert Outcault. Created in 1894, it featured a character named Mickey Dugan who was known as The Yellow Kid and other characters that lived in a place called Hogan’s Alley in the slums of New York City. The Yellow Kid was a strip that appeared in the New York World newspaper, which was owned by Joseph Pulitzer. It later appeared in the New York Journal newspaper owned by William Randolph Hearst. From 1895 to 1898, people could buy a newspaper to find out what was going on in the world and also look to be entertained by stories from Outcault about a bald, snaggle-toothed, barefoot boy who wore an oversized yellow nightshirt and hung around in an alley typical of certain areas of squalor that existed in late 19th-century New York City. In fact, the popularity of The Yellow Kid amongst newspaper readers influenced the basic appearance and use of balloons in subsequent newspaper comic strips and comic books.
It was about that time in America that newspaper publishers such as Pulitzer and Hearst also began to recognize the fact that comic strips increased the number and the type of readers for their papers. Newspapers were known to have serious news of the day that was primarily consumed by wealthy and working-class individuals. However, the comic strips in the papers appealed to anyone who could read – the young and the old. They were also delightfully humorous diversions from the serious and sometimes grim issues that were being reported. This meant that as the number and type of readers increased, so did newspaper sales.
Back when comic strips first began appearing in newspapers, the local newspaper was the main and most up-to-date medium of communication about local and world events. In 1899, there was no World Wide Web, and there was no cable television. The telephone had just been invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, but most people did not yet have one. Newspapers carried the news, the gossip, and anything else anyone wanted to hear about current events of each day, and they were sold by newspaper boys or at corner newsstands.
As the number of newspaper businesses grew, so did newspaper sales, and the interesting characters in the popular comic strips became increasingly well-known by news readers. Early comic strips such as Buster Brown, The Katzenjammer Kids, The Blackberries, and Mutt and Jeff published in 1907, actually established what amounted to a type of trial run with regards to the potential success of comic strips. Comic writers and artists learned that they could profit from making comic strips which led to the eventual introduction of the superhero character Superman in Action Comics #1. After Superman was introduced to the public in 1938, the popularity of comic books skyrocketed.
Comic Strips vs. Cartoons
It is important to note the distinction between comic strips and cartoons. A cartoon is a type of visual art consisting of an image or series of images drawn in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. A cartoon image is intended for satire, caricature, or humor. Comic strips are serialized stories or narratives that include cartoon images. To further illustrate the difference, we can think about how Walt Disney began his career as a visual artist who later became a filmmaker, As a child, Disney had an interest in drawing and art. According to Wikipedia, he began practicing and learning to draw by copying the cartoons on the front page of the local newspaper that his father subscribed to in Missouri. In school, he took art classes and in 1911, he and his brother Roy began delivering newspapers for the Kansas City Star and the Kansas City Times. This job taught him some of the basics of the newspaper business. In 1917, he moved with his family to Chicago where he attended high school and became the cartoonist of the school newspaper, drawing patriotic pictures about World War I. He joined the Red Cross in 1918 and had some of the cartoons he had drawn published in the army newspaper Stars and Stripes. When he returned home to Kansas City in 1919, he got a job at an art studio where he drew commercial illustrations for advertising, theater programs and catalogs.
In January 1920, Disney and fellow artist Ub Iwerks started a business as artists and animators for commercials. Disney had become interested in motion pictures when he first moved to Kansas City in 1911, and animated short films had begun to grow in popularity starting in the late 1800s. The release of the film Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914 was groundbreaking for its time. As a cartoonist, Disney was most interested in animation and filmmaking, and the success of his Laugh-O-Gram Studio provided the foundation for him to begin his career in animation.
Years later when Disney created Mickey Mouse, he had moved to Hollywood, California and had begun working in the film industry. The release of Steamboat Willie in 1928 is the historical first appearance of Mickey Mouse in animation. However, the evolution of Mickey as a character included Disney featuring him in a comic strip. Disney’s Mickey Mouse comic strip appeared in 1930 in a magazine. By 1933, there were two Mickey Mouse comic magazines. However, Mickey Mouse found stardom as an animated cartoon character in films.
Popeye the Sailor Man is another character who evolved from a comic strip to an animated cartoon star in films. Popeye was created by Elzie Crisler Segar and first appeared on January 17, 1929, in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre. The strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, but the one-eyed sailor quickly became the lead character, and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular properties during the 1930s.
King Features was a syndicating newspaper company owned by William Randolph Hearst. Established in 1913 as Newspaper Feature Service, Inc., Hearst had been receiving requests for material such as comic strips from newspapers across the country since 1895. Newspaper syndication businesses distribute news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The content is submitted by writers and artists so that it can be published for local and national audiences. King Features was one of the largest syndication companies during the 1920s and 1930s and in addition to the Thimble Theatre comic strip, they distributed other well-known strips such as Blondie, Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, and The Phantom. Other newspaper syndication businesses include the following:
- McClure Newspaper Syndicate - the first American newspaper syndicate launched in 1884 by publisher Samuel S. McClure.
- Andrews McMeel Syndication (formerly Universal Uclick) – an American content syndicate formed in 2009 as a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal.
- Creators Syndicate - an American independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns to daily newspapers, websites, and other digital outlets founded in 1987 and the first to allow cartoonists ownership rights to their work.
- Tribune Content Agency (TCA) - a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing.
- The Washington Post Writers Group (WPWG) – operated by The Washington Post, it is a press syndication service that provides syndicated columns, editorial cartoons, features, and comic strips to newspapers, magazines, and other subscribers globally.
Together, these and other syndication newspaper services, businesses and companies distribute comic strips to be published in newspapers, magazines and on websites worldwide. You may have read a few of the following titles: Agnes, Andy Capp, Animal Crackers, Archie, Baby Blues, Batman and Robin, Beetle Bailey, Betty Boop, Betty Boop and Felix, Bloom County, Broom-Hilda, Calvin and Hobbes, Cathy, Curtis, Dennis the Menace, Dick Tracy, Dilbert, Donald Duck, Doonesbury, Dumb Dora, Dumplings, Felix the Cat, For Better or For Worse, Garfield, Gasoline Alley, Gearhead Gertie, Grin and Bear It, Hägar the Horrible, Hazel, Heathcliff, Herb and Jamaal, Hi and Lois, Hubert, In the Bleachers, Inside Woody Allen, Intelligent Life, Jerry on the Job, Johnny Hazard, José Carioca, Judge Parker, Jungle Jim, Kennesaw, Kevin and Kell, Liberty Meadows, Li'l Abner, Little Lulu, Little Orphan Annie, Lola, Mary Worth, Merry Menagerie, Oh, Brother!, Peanuts, Prince Valiant, Rugrats, Sambo and His Funny Noises, Secret Agent X-9, Speed Bump, Superman, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Better Half, The Boondocks, The Family Circus, The Far Side, The Middletons, The Wizard of Id, Tillie the Toiler, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Tumbleweeds, Wee Pals, Winnie the Pooh, Ziggy, and Zits
Baby Blues
Baby Blues is an American comic strip created and produced by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott since January 7, 1990. Distributed by King Features Syndicate from 1995 until January 2022, and distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication as of January 2022, the strip focuses on the MacPherson family and specifically on the raising of the three MacPherson children. Both Kirkman and Scott have drawn from their own parenting experiences as a source for the strip's content.
Herb and Jamaal
Herb and Jamaal is a comic strip by Stephen Bentley syndicated by Creators Syndicate. It is published daily and centers on the eponymous friends who own and run a diner together, inspired by the illustrator's experience at a high school reunion, and a desire to provide increased representation for Black people in comics.
The Boondocks
The Boondocks was a daily syndicated comic strip written and originally drawn by Aaron McGruder that ran from 1996 to 2006. Created by McGruder in 1996 for Hitlist.com, an early online music website, it was printed in the monthly hip hop magazine The Source in 1997. As it gained popularity, the comic strip was picked up by the Universal Press Syndicate and made its national debut on April 19, 1999. A popular and controversial strip, The Boondocks satirizes African American culture and American politics as seen through the eyes of young African American radical Huey Freeman. The strip is about Huey and his younger brother Riley, who have been moved out of the West Side of Chicago with their grandfather Robert to live with him in the predominantly White fictional suburb of Woodcrest in Maryland. This relates to McGruder's childhood move from Chicago to Columbia, a diverse Maryland suburb. Huey is a politically perceptive devotee of Black radical ideas of the past few decades, and is in fact named after Black Panther Huey P. Newton. He is harshly critical of many aspects of modern Black culture. Riley, on the other hand, is enamored of gangsta rap culture and the "thug"/bling-bling lifestyle. Their grandfather Robert is a firm disciplinarian, World War II veteran, and former civil rights activist who is offended by both their values and ideas.
The Far Side
The Far Side is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which began appearing in newspapers on December 31, 1979. Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world, logical fallacies, impending bizarre disasters, (often twisted) references to proverbs, or the search for meaning in life. As of July 2020, new Far Side strips are available through the comic's official website.
The Wizard of Id
The Wizard of Id is a daily newspaper comic strip created by American cartoonists Brant Parker and Johnny Hart. Beginning November 9, 1964, the strip follows the antics of a large cast of characters in a shabby medieval kingdom called "Id". The title is a play on The Wizard of Oz, combined with the Freudian psychological term id, which represents the instinctive and primal part of the human psyche.
Popeye the Sailor Man was a character who evolved from being featured in a comic strip to one who also appeared as a cartoon character in films. In 1933, Max Fleischer adapted the Thimble Theatre characters into a series of Popeye the Sailor theatrical cartoon shorts for Paramount Pictures. These cartoons proved to be among the most popular of the 1930s, and Fleischer Studios, which later became Paramount's own Famous Studios, continued production through 1957. These cartoon shorts are now owned by Turner Entertainment and distributed by its sister company Warner Bros.
Like Popeye, Betty Boop’s evolution as a cartoon character includes being featured in a comic strip as well. Although she was created as a cartoon animated film character, Betty Boop was also created by Max Fleischer for the Fleischer Studios Talkartoon film series. She first appeared in the cartoon film Dizzy Dishes, released on August 9, 1930. The Betty Boop comic strip by Bud Counihan was featured in newspapers beginning on July 23, 1934. It was a title distributed by King Features Syndicate. Betty Boop comic graphic novels have also been released since then in 1990 and in 2016.
Other characters that evolved from comic strips to films include Felix the Cat, Garfield, and Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang.
The “Funnies” Section
Most newspaper publishers have discontinued their print editions due to the widespread use of the internet as a primary source of information about news and current events. However, the print editions were known to have a section for comic strips that were informally called the “funnies” section.
Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on internet websites. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be compared to self-published print comics in that anyone with an Internet connection can publish their own webcomic.