The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

section carried in most western newspapers, almost always in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies. The first US newspaper comic strips appeared in the late 19th century, closely allied with the invention of the color press. Jimmy Swinnerton's '' The Little Bears'' introduced sequential art and recurring characters in

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...

's ''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...

''. In the United States, the popularity of color comic strips sprang from the newspaper war between Hearst and

Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer ( ; born Pulitzer József, ; April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American politician and newspaper publisher of the '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' and the ''New York World''. He became a leading national figure in ...

. Some newspapers, such as '' Grit'', published Sunday strips in black-and-white, and some (mostly in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

) print their Sunday strips on Saturday. Subject matter and genres have ranged from adventure, detective and humor strips to dramatic strips with

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio drama ...

situations, such as ''

Mary Worth ''Mary Worth'' is an American newspaper comic strip that has had an eight-decade run from 1938. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, this soap opera-style strip influenced several that followed. It was created by writer Allen Saunders and ar ...

''. A continuity strip employs a narrative in an ongoing storyline. Other strips offer a gag complete in a single episode, such as '' Little Iodine'' and ''

Mutt and Jeff ''Mutt and Jeff'' was a long-running and widely popular American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907 about "two mismatched tinhorns". It is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip. The concept of a newspape ...

''. The Sunday strip is contrasted with the

daily comic 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. Bud Fisher's ''Mutt and Jeff'' is commonly regarded as the first daily ...

, published Monday through Saturday, usually in black and white. Many comic strips appear both daily and Sunday, in some cases, as with ''

Little Orphan Annie ''Little Orphan Annie'' is a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem " Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on ...

'', telling the same story daily and Sunday, in other cases, as with ''

The Phantom ''The Phantom'' is an American adventure comic strip, first published by Lee Falk in February 1936. The main character, the Phantom, is a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bangalla. The char ...

'', telling one story in the daily and a different story in the Sunday. Some strips, such as ''

Prince Valiant ''Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur'', often simply called ''Prince Valiant'', is an American 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 stretc ...

'' appear only on Sunday. Others, such as '' Rip Kirby'', are daily only and have never appeared on Sunday. In some cases, such as ''

Buz Sawyer ''Buz Sawyer'' is a comic strip created by Roy Crane.Ron Goulart, ''The Funnies : 100 Years of American Comic Strips''. Holbrook, Mass. : Adams Pub, 1995. (pp. 149-50) Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it had a run from November 1, 1943 to ...

'', the Sunday strip is a spin-off, focusing on different characters than the daily.

Popular strips

Famous full-page Sunday strips include ''

Alley Oop ''Alley Oop'' is a syndicated comic strip created December 5, 1932, by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association. Hamlin introduced a cast of colorful characters an ...

'', ''

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith ''Barney Google and Snuffy Smith'', originally ''Take Barney Google, F'rinstance'', is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck. Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a large international readership, appearin ...

'', '' Blondie'', ''

Bringing Up Father ''Bringing Up Father'' is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 2, 1913, to May 28, 2000. The strip was later titled ''Jiggs and Maggie'' (or ...

'', ''

Buck Rogers Buck Rogers is a science fiction adventure hero and feature comic strip created by Philip Francis Nowlan first appearing in daily US newspapers on January 7, 1929, and subsequently appearing in Sunday newspapers, international newspapers, books ...

'', ''

Captain Easy '' Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune '' is an American action/adventure comic strip created by Roy Crane that was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association beginning on Sunday, July 30, 1933. The strip ran for more than five decades until it ...

'', ''

Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and 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'' adv ...

'', and ''

Thimble Theatre Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.Bob Gustafson's ''Specs'' and

Virgil Partch Virgil Franklin Partch (October 17, 1916 – August 10, 1984), who generally signed his work Vip,Virgil F ...

's ''The Captain's Gig'' are almost completely forgotten today, other than a brief display in the Stripper's Guide site run by comics historian

Allan Holtz Allan Holtz () is a comic strip historian who researches and writes about newspaper comics for his Stripper's Guide blog, launched in 2005. His research encompasses some 7,000 American comic strips and newspaper panels. In addition to his contribu ...

. Many of the leading cartoonists also drew an accompanying topper strip to run above or below their main strip, a practice which began to fade away during the late 1930s. Holtz notes, "You'll hear historians say that the topper strip was a victim of World War II paper shortages. Don't believe a word of it—it's the ads that killed full-page strips, and that killed the topper. World War II only exacerbated an already bad situation."

Role of the color press

After the publisher of the '' Chicago Inter-Ocean'' saw the first color press in Paris at the offices of '' Le Petit Journal'', he had his own color press operating late in 1892.Becker, Stephen. ''Comic Art in America''. Simon & Schuster, 1959. At the '' New York Recorder'', manager George Turner had R. Hoe & Co. design a color press, and the ''Recorder'' published the first American newspaper color page on April 2, 1893. The following month, Pulitzer's ''

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...

'' printed cartoonist

Walt McDougall Walter Hugh McDougall (February 10, 1858 – March 6, 1938) was an American cartoonist. He produced some of the earliest full color newspaper comic strips, and was one of the first producers of regular political cartoons in American daily papers. ...

's "The Possibilities of the Broadway Cable Car" as a color page on May 21, 1893. In 1894, Pulitzer introduced the Sunday color supplement. ''

The Yellow Kid The Yellow Kid (Mickey Dugan) is an American comic strip character that appeared from 1895 to 1898 in Joseph Pulitzer's ''New York World'', and later William Randolph Hearst's ''New York Journal''. Created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault in t ...

'' is usually credited as one of the first US newspaper comic strips. However, the artform combining words and pictures evolved gradually, and there are many examples of proto-comic strips. In 1995,

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editori ...

president Joseph F. D'Angelo wrote: :It was in Joseph Pulitzer's ''New York World'' that cartoonist Richard Outcault's legendary ''Yellow Kid'' made his newspaper debut in 1895, but it was Hearst's ''

New York Journal :''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...

'' that cannily snatched the Kid away from the rival sheet and deployed him as a key weapon in the historic newspaper circulation wars. The Kid led the charge in Hearst's trailblazing ''American Humorist'' comic supplement, with its famous motto: "Eight Pages of Iridescent Polychromous Effulgence That Makes The Rainbow Look Like A Lead Pipe!" Pulitzer fought back by hiring another artist to draw Outcault's character for the ''World''. The publishers' fierce battle over the bald urchin in the yellow nightshirt led bystanders to refer to sensational, screaming-headline style newspaper combat as "yellow journalism." The popularity of that expression tainted the early comics as a less-than-genteel entertainment, but it also made it clear that the "funnies" had become serious business, seemingly overnight. In 1905, Winsor McCay's ''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' began. Stephen Becker, in ''Comic Art in America'', noted that ''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' was "probably the first strip to exploit color for purely aesthetic purposes; it was the first in which the dialogue, occasionally polysyllabic, flirted with adult irony. By 1906, the weekly Sunday comics supplement was commonplace, with a half-dozen competitive syndicates circulating strips to newspapers in every major American city. In 1923, ''

The Commercial Appeal ''The Commercial Appeal'' (also known as the ''Memphis Commercial Appeal'') is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, als ...

'' in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mo ...

, became among the first in the nation to acquire its own radio station, and it was the first Southern newspaper to publish a Sunday comic section.The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
/ref> For most of the 20th century, the Sunday funnies were a family tradition, enjoyed each weekend by adults and kids alike. They were read by millions and produced famous fictional characters in such strips as ''

'', ''

Dick Tracy ''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (character), Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the ''De ...

'' and ''

Terry and the Pirates ''Terry and the Pirates'' is an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff, which originally ran from October 22, 1934, to February 25, 1973. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, ...

''. Leading the lists of classic humor strips are ''

'', ''

Gasoline Alley ''Gasoline Alley'' is a comic strip created by Frank King and distributed by Tribune Content Agency. It centers on the lives of patriarch Walt Wallet, his family, and residents in the town of Gasoline Alley, with storylines reflecting traditio ...

'', ''

Li'l Abner ''Li'l Abner'' is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and drawn b ...

'', '' Pogo'', ''

Peanuts ''Peanuts'' is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ''Peanuts'' is among the most popular and inf ...

'' and ''

Smokey Stover ''Smokey Stover'' is an American comic strip written and drawn by cartoonist Bill Holman (cartoonist), Bill Holman from March 10, 1935, until he retired in 1972 and distributed through the ''Chicago Tribune''. It features the misadventures of t ...

''. Some newspapers added their own local features, such as ''

Our Own Oddities ''Our Own Oddities'' is an illustrated panel that ran in the Sunday comics section of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' from September 1, 1940 to February 24, 1991. The feature displayed curiosities submitted by local readers and is often remembered ...

'' in the '' St. Louis Post-Dispatch''. There were educational strips, such as King Features' ''Heroes of American History''. In addition to the comic strips, Sunday comics sections also carried advertisements in a comics format, single-panel features, puzzles, paper dolls and cut-and-paste activities. '' The World Museum'' gave readers instructions for cutting pictures apart and assembling them into a

diorama A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum. Dioramas are often built by hobbyists as part of related hobbies such as military vehicle mode ...

, often with a subject from nature, such as ''The

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

'' or '' Buffalo Hunt''. A page on

covered wagon The covered wagon or prairie wagon, historically also referred to as an ambulance or prairie schooner, was a vehicle usually made out of wood and canvas that was used for transportation, prominently in 19th-century America. With roots in the he ...

s carried the headline, "Covered wagons shown in an easy-to-build model: Scissors, paste and wrapping paper are all you need to make this Western set." Some radio stations across the United States featured Sunday morning programs in which an announcer read aloud from the Sunday comics section, allowing readers to follow action in the panels as they listened to the dialogue. Most notably, on July 8, 1945, during a New York newspaper deliverers' strike, New York mayor

Fiorello H. La Guardia Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City fr ...

read comic strips over the radio.

Sunday strip layout

Early Sunday strips filled an entire newspaper page. Later strips, such as ''

'' and ''

'', were usually only half that size, with two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the ''

New Orleans Times Picayune ''The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate'' is an American newspaper published in New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,

'', or with one strip on a tabloid page, as in the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicago ...

''.Holtz, Allan. Stripper's Guide Dictionary Part 1: Sunday Strips, August 14, 2007.
/ref> When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to follow a standardized strip layout, which provides newspapers with the greatest flexibility in determining how to print a strip. One notable distinction among Sunday comics supplements was the supplement produced in a comic book-like format, featuring the character The Spirit. These sixteen-page (later eight-page) standalone Sunday supplements of

Will Eisner William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series ''The Spirit'' (1940–1952) was not ...

's character (distributed by the

Register and Tribune Syndicate The Register and Tribune Syndicate was a syndication service based in Des Moines, Iowa, that operated from 1922 to 1986, when it was acquired by King Features to become the Cowles Syndicate affiliate. At its peak, the Register and Tribune Syndic ...

) were included with newspapers from 1940 through 1952. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller, to save the expense of printing so many color pages. The last full-page comic strip was the ''

'' strip for 11 April 1971. The dimensions of the Sunday comics continued to decrease in recent years, as did the number of pages. Sunday comics sections that were 10 or 12 pages in 1950 dropped to six or four pages by 2005. One of the last large-size Sunday comics in the United States is in the ''

Reading Eagle The ''Reading Eagle'' is the major daily newspaper in Reading, Pennsylvania. A family-owned newspaper until the spring of 2019, its reported circulation is 37,000 (daily) and 50,000 (Sundays). It serves the Reading and Berks County region of ...

'', which has eight Berliner-size pages and carries 36 comics. Its banner headline is "Biggest Comics Section in the Land". Another big-size comic section is that of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' which carries 41 strips in eight broadsheet pages although it also contains a sudoku and a Jumble puzzle. Canadian newspaper comic sections are unique not only because of being printed on Saturdays, but these usually are also part of the entertainment or lifestyle section. A notable exception is that of the ''

Winnipeg Free Press The ''Winnipeg Free Press'' (or WFP; founded as the ''Manitoba Free Press'') is a daily (excluding Sunday) broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It provides coverage of local, provincial, national, and international news, as well as ...

'' which publishes an eight-page comic-only tabloid section.

Early strips

Early Sunday strips usually filled a full newspaper page, but over decades they shrank in size, becoming smaller and smaller. Currently, no Sunday strips stand alone on a page, and some newspapers crowd as many as eight Sunday strips on a single page. The last full-page Sunday strip was ''Prince Valiant'', which was published as a full page in some newspapers until 1971. Shortly after the full-page ''Prince Valiant'' was discontinued,

Hal Foster Harold Rudolf Foster, FRSA (August 16, 1892 – July 25, 1982) was a Canadian-American comic strip artist and writer best known as the creator of the comic strip '' Prince Valiant''. His drawing style is noted for its high level of draftsmanship ...

retired from drawing the strip, though he continued to write it for several more years. Manuscript Press published a print of his last ''Prince Valiant'' strip in full-page format; this was the last full-page comic strip, though it did not appear in that format in newspapers.Holtz, Allan. Stripper's Guide Dictionary Part 1: Sunday Strips, August 14, 2007.
/ref>

Revivals

During the 1950s, there were a few short-lived attempts to revive the full-page Sunday strip. Examples such as ''

Lance A lance is a spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior or cavalry soldier (lancer). In ancient and medieval warfare, it evolved into the leading weapon in cavalry charges, and was unsuited for throwing or for repeated thrusting, unlike s ...

'' by Warren Tufts and Frank Giacoia's '' Johnny Reb and Billy Yank'' proved artistic, though not commercial, successes.

Other formats

Other formats for Sunday strips include the half-page, the third of a page, the quarter page, the tabloid page or tab, and the half tab, short for half of a tabloid page. Today, with the ever-shrinking size of Sunday strips, many other smaller formats abound. Usually, only the largest format is complete, with the other formats dropping or cropping one or more panels. Such "throwaway" panels often contain material that is not vital to the main part of the strip. Most cartoonists fill the first two panels of their strips with a "

throwaway gag In comedy, a throwaway line (also: throwaway joke or throwaway gag) is a joke delivered "in passing" without being the punch line to a comedy routine, part of the build up to another joke, or (in the context of drama) there to advance a story or de ...

," knowing that the public may not see them, and making them integral to the plot would likely be wasteful. Exceptions to this rule include ''

Steve Canyon ''Steve Canyon'' is an 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. It e ...

'' and, until its last few years, '' On Stage'', which are complete only in the

third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hi ...

format. An alternative is to have a separate strip, a " topper" (though it may appear at the bottom), so with the topper it comprises a three-tier half-page, and without it comprises a two-tier third-page. Half-page Sunday strips have at least two different styles. The

King Features King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial ...

, the Creators' and the Chicago Tribune syndicates use nine panels (with only one used for the title), while

United Features United Feature Syndicate (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media (along wi ...

and Universal Press' half-page Sunday strips (most of them use a third-page format instead) use two panels for the title (except for Jim Davis' ''

U.S. Acres ''U.S. Acres'' (known as ''Orson's Farm'' outside the United States and as ''Orson's Place'' in Canada) was an American comic strip that originally ran from 1986 to 1989, created by Jim Davis, author of the comic strip ''Garfield''. ''U.S. Ac ...

''—which used the nine-panel format- during the 1980s, when most UFS strips -particularly Davis' more successful ''

Garfield ''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his hum ...

''—would have a throwaway gag). Currently, the largest and most complete format for most Sunday strips, such as ''

'', is the

half page 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. ...

. A few strips have been popular enough for the artist to insist on the Sunday strip being run in a half-page format, though not necessarily in a half-page size. ''

Calvin and Hobbes ''Calvin and Hobbes'' is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Bill Watterson that was syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. Commonly cited as "the last great newspaper comic", ''Calvin and Hobbes'' has enjoyed b ...

'' was the first strip to do this, followed by '' Outland'' and later ''

Opus ''Opus'' (pl. ''opera'') is a Latin word meaning "work". Italian equivalents are ''opera'' (singular) and ''opere'' (pl.). Opus or OPUS may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Opus number, (abbr. Op.) specifying order of (usually) publicatio ...

''. ''The

'' is one of the few newspapers that still run half-page Sunday strips. Today, Slylock Fox & Comics for Kids is a popular example of a three tier half-page standard Sunday strip. 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'' is an American daily Lists of newspapers, newspaper published in Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix. Circulated throughout Arizona, it is the state's largest newspaper. Since 2000, it has been owned by the Gannett newspaper chain ...

'' measures 4" wide by 1" deep, while the three-tiered ''

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 retirem ...

'' Sunday strip in the same paper is 5" wide by 3" deep.

References

External links

Don Markstein's ToonopediaPatrick Hilger''Comic Strip Artists in American Newspapers, 1945–1980'' by Moira Davison Reynolds
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sunday Comics Comic strips Comics formats Newspapers Newspaper terminology

Popular strips

Role of the color press

Sunday strip layout

Early strips

Revivals

Other formats

See also

References

Further reading

External links