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.
Garfield is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as Jon in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, Odie the dog, and their owner Jon Arbuckle. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals; the comic held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.
The Wizard of Id is a daily newspaper comic strip created by American cartoonists Brant Parker and Johnny Hart. Beginning November 16, 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.
Patrick McDonnell is a cartoonist, author, and playwright. He is the creator of the daily comic strip Mutts, which follows the adventures of a dog and a cat, that has been syndicated since 1994. Prior to creating Mutts, he was a prolific magazine illustrator, and would frequently include a dog in the backgrounds of his drawings.
The Far Side is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995. Its surrealistic humor is often based on uncomfortable social situations, improbable events, an anthropomorphic view of the world, logical fallacies, impending bizarre disasters, references to proverbs, or the search for meaning in life. Larson's frequent use of animals and nature in the comic is popularly attributed to his background in biology. The Far Side was ultimately carried by more than 1,900 daily newspapers, translated into 17 languages, and collected into calendars, greeting cards, and 23 compilation books, and reruns are still carried in many newspapers. After a 25-year hiatus, in July 2020, Larson began drawing new Far Side strips offered through the comic's official website.
Moon Mullins is an American comic strip which had a run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923, to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who reside at the Schmaltz boarding house. The central character, Moon, is a would-be prizefighter—perpetually strapped for cash but with a roguish appetite for vice and high living. Moon took a room in the boarding house at 1323 Wump Street in 1924 and never left, staying on for 67 years. The strip was created by cartoonist Frank Willard.
Mutt and Jeff is 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.
Tom the Dancing Bug is a weekly satirical comic strip by cartoonist and political commentator Ruben Bolling that covers mostly US current events from a liberal point of view. Tom the Dancing Bug won the 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008, and 2009 Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Awards for Best Cartoon. The strip was awarded the 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial cartooning by the Society of Professional Journalists and best cartoon in the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards. His work on the strip won Bolling the 2017 Herblock Prize and the 2021 Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons, and he was a finalist in the Editorial Cartooning category for the 2019 and 2021 Pulitzer Prize.
Randy Glasbergen was an American cartoonist and humorous illustrator best known for three decades of newspaper syndication as well as a freelance career. He produced the syndicated strip The Better Half from 1982 to 2014.
The Family Circus is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Keane's death in 2011, 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 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.
Bizarro is a single-panel cartoon written and drawn by American cartoonist Dan Piraro and later by cartoonist Wayne "Wayno" Honath. The cartoon specializes in surrealist humor and at times is slightly cryptic in its humor. The creator often includes hidden symbols in the drawing that refer to inside jokes or other elements.
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an 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 cartoons, puzzles, and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises, and licenses its classic characters and properties.
Frank W. Bolle was an American comic-strip artist, comic book artist and illustrator, best known as the longtime artist of the newspaper strips Winnie Winkle and The Heart of Juliet Jones; for stints on the comic books Tim Holt and Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom; and as an illustrator for the Boy Scouts of America magazine Boys' Life for 18 years. With an unknown writer, he co-created the masked, Old West comic-book heroine the Black Phantom. Bolle sometimes used the pen name FWB and, at least once, F. L. Blake.
Henry is a comic strip created in 1932 by Carl Thomas Anderson. The title character is a young bald boy who is mostly mute in the comics. Except in a few early episodes, when the comic strip character communicates, he does so largely but not entirely through pantomime. He also spoke in a comic book series of 1946–1961 and in at least one Betty Boop cartoon from 1935 in which Betty Boop has a pet shop and Henry speaks to a dog in the window.
A panel is an individual frame, or single drawing, in the multiple-panel sequence of a comic strip or comic book, as well as a graphic novel. A panel consists of a single drawing depicting a frozen moment. When multiple panels are present, they are often, though not always, separated by a short amount of space called a gutter.
Thomas Albert Wilson, was an American cartoonist. Wilson was the creator of the comic strip Ziggy, which he drew from 1971 to 1987. The strip was then continued by his son, Tom Wilson Jr.
William Pierce Hoest was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip The Lockhorns, distributed by King Features Syndicate to 500 newspapers in 23 countries, and Laugh Parade for Parade. He also created other syndicated strips and panels for King Features. His wife Bunny Hoest succeeded him as writer for The Lockhorns after his death, continuing to this day.
Happy Hooligan is an American comic strip, the first major strip by the already celebrated cartoonist Frederick Burr Opper. It debuted with a Sunday strip on March 11, 1900 in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers, and was one of the first popular comics with King Features Syndicate. The strip ran for three decades, ending on August 14, 1932.
Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.
Half Hitch is an American comic strip by Hank Ketcham, in syndication first between 1943 and 1945 and later from 1970 to 1975. It is an example of military humor, but unlike most cartoons and comics of this genre, is focused on the navy, rather than the army. The unnamed character first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1943.
