A gag-a-day

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

is the style of writing comic cartoons such that every installment of a strip delivers a complete joke or some other kind of artistic statement. It is opposed to story or continuity strips, which rely on the development of a story line across a sequence of the installments. Most syndicated comics are of this type.''The Art of Cartooning & Illustration'', 2014,
p.98
/ref> Another term for this distinction is non-serial (gag-a-day) vs. serial strips. Compared to single-panel cartoons ("

gag panel A gag cartoon (also panel cartoon, single-panel cartoon, or gag panel) is most often a single-panel cartoon, usually including a caption beneath the drawing. A pantomime cartoon carries no caption. In some cases, dialogue may appear in speech bal ...

s"), gag-a-day comic strips can deliver a better timing for the narrative of a joke. The distinction between continuity and gag-a-day strip may be blurred: a continuous story may still be delivered in the gag-a-day format. In fact,

Lynn Johnston Lynn Johnston (born May 28, 1947) is a Canadian cartoonist and author, best known for her newspaper comic strip '' For Better or For Worse''. She was the first woman and first Canadian to win the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Award. Ea ...

recommends it for story strips, to keep the readership and engage new audience which may be not very familiar with the background of the story.''Cartoon Success Secrets: A Tribute to 30 Years of Cartoonist Profiles''
p. 311

References

Comic strips Comics formats Comics genres {{comic-stub