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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.
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 influential in the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being". At the time of Schulz's death in 2000, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of around 355 million in 75 countries, and was translated into 21 languages. It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States, and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion.
Webcomics are comics published on the internet, such a on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
Marvin, later called Marvin & Family, is a daily newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Tom Armstrong and distributed in the U.S. by Hearst's King Features Syndicate. Debuting in 1982, it revolves around the life and times of a young baby boy named Marvin, along with his parents, Jeff and Jenny Miller, and their dog Bitsy. In 1989, CBS aired a special, "Marvin, Baby of the Year."
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.
Boy on a Stick and Slither is a webcomic by Steven L. Cloud. Strips usually feature a short, pithy and sometimes surreal exchange between the title characters. The strip is characterized by dry and cynical humor.
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, like The Cuphead Show!, which it produced with Netflix, and licenses its classic characters and properties.
Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic and former newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III. The comic began in 2000, originally hosted at robotstories.com. From January 2007 until August 2008 it was syndicated to over 20 United States newspapers, including major daily newspapers like The Detroit News and Houston Chronicle.
Mark Trail is a newspaper comic strip created by the American cartoonist Ed Dodd. Introduced April 15, 1946, the strip centers on environmental and ecological themes. As of 2020, King Features syndicated the strip to "nearly 150 newspapers and digital outlets worldwide."
United Media was a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core businesses were the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (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 from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. United Features has syndicated many notable comic strips, including Peanuts, Garfield, Li'l Abner, Dilbert, Nancy, and Marmaduke.
The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news service to the Scripps Howard News Service; it later evolved into a general syndicate best known for syndicating the comic strips Alley Oop, Our Boarding House, Freckles and His Friends, The Born Loser, Frank and Ernest, and Captain Easy / Wash Tubbs; in addition to an annual Christmas comic strip. Along with United Feature Syndicate, the NEA was part of United Media from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. The NEA once selected college All-America teams, and presented awards in professional football and professional [NBA] basketball.
Sheldon is a daily comedy webcomic created by Dave Kellett. It centers on the odd family unit of 10-year-old software billionaire Sheldon, his grandfather guardian and his talking duck, Arthur. Much humour is character-based, often joking at traits such as Sheldon's geekiness, Gramp's old age or Arthur's over-inflated ego. Kellett's other webcomic, Drive, had appeared on the Sheldon site each Saturday, before moving to a site of its own.
Wally and Osborne, formerly titled On the Rocks, is a humor webcomic by Tyler Martin. It was launched on July 4, 2005. The first strip is dated June 27 because Martin launched the site with a week's backlog of strips.
The New Adventures of Queen Victoria is a daily webcomic created by Pab Sungenis. It uses the photo-manipulation technique popularized by Adobe Photoshop and other image editing programs to insert actual photographs and paintings of the characters into situations, instead of more conventional methods. It was syndicated online by GoComics, a division of Andrews McMeel Universal, and has been collected into six trade paperback editions.
A comic strip syndicate functions as an agent for cartoonists and comic strip creators, placing the cartoons and strips in as many newspapers as possible on behalf of the artist. A syndicate can annually receive thousands of submissions, from which only two or three might be selected for representation. In some cases, the work will be owned by the syndicate as opposed to the creator. The Guinness World Record for the world's most syndicated strip belongs to Jim Davis' Garfield, which at that point (2002) appeared in 2,570 newspapers, with 263 million readers worldwide.
Barkeater Lake is a webcomic by cartoonist Corey Pandolph, originally published by United Media as part of its Comics.com website from early 2004 through January 5, 2007. Pandolph began publishing the online strip independently on January 22, 2007.
Shortcuts is a syndicated Sunday strip by artist and educator Jeff Harris, which is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication via the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Notable events of the late 1990s in webcomics.
References
- ↑ "Syndicates", United Media website. Accessed Jan. 19, 2010. Archived 2010-01-17 at the Wayback Machine .
