A comic strip is a sequence of 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 century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images intended for satire, caricature, or humor; or a motion picture that relies on a sequence of illustrations for its animation. Someone who creates cartoons in the first sense is called a cartoonist, and in the second sense they are usually called an animator.
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 newspaper strip featuring recurring characters in multiple panels on a six-day-a-week schedule had previously been pioneered through the short-lived A. Piker Clerk by Clare Briggs, but it was Mutt and Jeff as the first successful daily comic strip that staked out the direction of the future trend.
Richard Felton Outcault was an American cartoonist. He was the creator of the series The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown and is considered a key pioneer of the modern comic strip.
The Family Circus is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Keane's death in 2011, is written, inked and rendered (colored) by his son Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from the magazine Family Circle. The series debuted on February 29, 1960 and has been in continuous production ever since. According to publisher King Features Syndicate, it is the most widely syndicated cartoon panel in the world, appearing in 1,500 newspapers. Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold more than 13 million copies worldwide.
Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis. The series began on December 31, 2001. It chronicles the daily lives of an ensemble cast of suburban anthropomorphic animals: Pig, Rat, Zebra, Goat, and a fraternity of crocodiles, as well as a number of supporting characters, one of whom is Pastis himself. Each character represents an aspect of Pastis's personality and worldview. The daily and Sunday comic strip is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication.
Stephan Thomas Pastis is an American cartoonist and former lawyer who is the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. He also writes children's chapter books, commencing with the release of Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. The seventh book, It's the End When I Say It's the End, debuted at #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Middle Grade Books.
Nancy is an American comic strip, originally written and drawn by Ernie Bushmiller and distributed by United Feature Syndicate and Andrews McMeel Syndication. Its origins lie in Fritzi Ritz, a strip Bushmiller inherited from its creator Larry Whittington in 1925. After Fritzi's niece Nancy was introduced in 1933, Fritzi Ritz evolved to focus more and more on Nancy instead of Fritzi. The new strip took the old one's daily slot, while Fritzi Ritz continued as a Sunday, with Nancy taking the Sunday slot previously filled by Bushmiller's Phil Fumble strip beginning on October 30, 1938.
Non Sequitur is a comic strip created by Wiley Miller starting February 16, 1992 and syndicated by Andrews McMeel Syndication to over 700 newspapers. It is also published on gocomics.com and distributed via email.
Henry is a comic strip created in 1932 by Carl Thomas Anderson. The title character is a young bald boy who is mute. Except a few early episodes, the comic strip character communicates largely but not entirely through pantomime, a situation which changed when Henry moved into comic books. Henry has spoken in at least one Betty Boop cartoon from 1935. In the feature, Betty Boop has a pet shop and Henry speaks to a dog in the window.
A gag cartoon 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 balloons, following the common convention of comic strips.
Mallard Fillmore is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bruce Tinsley until 2019 and Loren Fishman since 2020. It has been syndicated by King Features Syndicate since June 6, 1994. The strip follows the exploits of its title character, an anthropomorphic green-plumaged duck who works as a politically conservative reporter at fictional television station WFDR in Washington, D.C. Mallard's name is a pun on the name of the 13th president of the United States, Millard Fillmore.
Brad Guigar is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic Greystone Inn and its sequel Evil Inc.
The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in most western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies.
Love Is... is a comic strip created by New Zealand cartoonist Kim Casali in the 1960s. The cartoons originated from a series of love notes that Grove drew for her future husband, Roberto Casali. They were published in booklets in the late 1960s before appearing in strip form in a newspaper in 1970, under the pen name "Kim". They were syndicated soon after and the strip is syndicated worldwide today by Tribune Content Agency. One of her most famous drawings, "Love Is...being able to say you are sorry", published on February 9, 1972, was marketed internationally for many years in print, on cards and on souvenirs. The beginning of the strip coincided closely with the 1970 film Love Story. The film's signature line is "Love means never having to say you're sorry." At the height of their popularity in the early to mid 1970s, the cartoons were earning Casali around five to six million dollars annually.
Between Friends is an internationally syndicated comic strip written by Canadian Sandra Bell-Lundy. The comic strips appear in more than 175 newspapers in ten countries around the world. Three middle-aged professional women and the problems that they face in their lives are the main focus throughout the comic strip series. Initially, Maeve, Susan, and Kimberly were all childless, but Susan and Kimberly are now mothers. Between Friends initially appeared in the St. Catharines Standard in May 1990, and was syndicated by King Features in February 1994.
John Hambrock is the creator of the comic strip The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee. It first appeared in newspapers on November 12, 2006, and is syndicated worldwide by King Features Syndicate.
James Robert Williams was a Canadian 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 other newspaper comics. A newspaper promotion of 1930 compared him to poets Eugene Field and James Whitcomb Riley.
Out Our Way was an American single-panel comic strip series by Canadian-American comic strip artist J. R. Williams. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association, the cartoon series was noted for its depiction of American rural life and the various activities and regular routines of families in small towns. The panel introduced a cast of continuing characters, including the cowboy Curly and ranch bookkeeper Wes. Out Our Way ran from 1922 to 1977, at its peak appearing in more than 700 newspapers.
Comics has developed specialized terminology. Several attempts have been made to formalize and define the terminology of comics by authors such as Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey and Dylan Horrocks. Much of the terminology in English is under dispute, so this page will list and describe the most common terms used in comics.
![Edison Lee [bottom left first panel] with his parents and grandfather EdisonLee20071102.png](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/EdisonLee20071102.png)
