[0219] A Short History Of Newspaper Comic Strips
└ posted on Monday, 22 November 2010, by Novil
The height of the 3rd panel on my 19″ monitor is 7.4 cm. If your monitor has the same or a similar physical resolution, you can have a look at this scaled version in which the 3rd panel is exactly 4.8 cm high.
- Caption: A short history of newspaper comic strips
- Caption: 7.6 cm x 24.2 cm
Original full-page format at
the beginning of the last century
- Caption: 5.8 cm x 18.4 cm
Commonly used format of
daily strips in the last
century until the 1990’s
- Caption: 4.8 cm x 15.2 cm
Commonly used format
of daily strips today
- Sandra: The walls are getting closer!
- Woo: I’m scared.
- Caption: 3.8 cm x 12.1 cm
Format of a daily
strip printed in
The Arizona Republic
![[0219] A Short History Of Newspaper Comic Strips](/comics/2010-11-22-[0219]-a-short-history-of-newspaper-comic-strips.png "[0219] A Short History Of Newspaper Comic Strips")
Living in Arizona myself I gotta say yeah, it does suck pretty badly to have to read comics with a magnifying glass.
@ Doop doop:
I was thinking of that when I first read this strip a few days ago. He had made the point a couple of other times, including in the hardcover collection.
When my parents and I were cleaning out my great-grandfather’s farm house back in 1997, I had pried off a wall of one of the old buildings, a “biddy house”, where the chicks were kept. Inside were piles of old bottles, margarine bowls (back when they were made of a harder plastic, and could be reused as regular bowls), and stacks of newspapers, primarily the comics section. I remember seeing one or two comic strips covering the entire page, and that there was more to take in than just the characters. I also remember in one or two different sections (two different Sundays), there was an advertisement for a tablet or powder that turned regular water into cola-flavored water, and that it was just like real soda, that “it even tickles your nose.” Another advertisement was for Kool-Aid. The company was running a contest to name the pitcher, and the winner would receive a lifetime supply of Kool-Aid, along with a boys’ or girls’ Schwinn or Huffy bicycle.
Comics of back then offered more detail, so there was more than just the characters to look at. The entire background was something to behold. I don’t think anyone did it better than Walt Kelly, who did the Pogo comics, and George Herriman, who did Krazy Kat. Bill Watterson had always said that Krazy Kat was one of his biggest inspirations, especially the crazy, lopsided, Picassoesque backgrounds that he used in some strips. I think Walt Kelly was another inspiration, since his (Watterson’s) nature backgrounds (like when Calvin and Hobbes are walking through the woods) are reminiscent of the swamp background in Pogo.
Another good example of this would have to be the early years of MAD Magazine. One of the greatest artists for MAD would have to be Bill Elder. He worked for MAD when they were a satire of comic book genres. He often put little hidden jokes and gags in the backgrounds of each panel, so you couldn’t just look at the characters and read the dialogue; you had to look at the background. Otherwise you wouldn’t have caught some of the gags in the story “MOLE!” or in “Dragged Net”.
Woahh, is it really that small there or is that a joke?!?!
It’s sad how comics have gotten smaller and smaller… it limits the artist’s creativity.
It’s funny because I live in Arizona. That’s pretty true.
I never realized they were so small until now. I actually dug out today’s comics (funny how you actually mentioned the exact paper I get), and I compared the two.
I admit, I was struggling to figure out where you got 12.1 cm until I scrolled through the comments and realized you meant the entire strip rather than per panel.
I was also going to correct you until I realized that it was only a 2 mm difference, which is likely a result of me including the borders in the measurement and you not doing so.
The colour slighty destroys the punchline, as this was newspaper strips, shouldn’t it be (or an option to see) in the orignal black and white?
The latest format is also the more common in France. In the not so common case of newspapers have a comic strip in it.
But lot of TV programs (Is that the correct English nomination for these magazines saying what you can see on TV, on which channels at which time ?) have a full comic page.
About comics… We, inhabitant of France, have strange habits:
– We call comics “BD”, for “bande dessinée”. (You can translate this per “drawing strips”, in English)
– We use your word “comics” for all Americans “graphic novels” about Super Heroes. (like Fantastic Four, Batman, the X-Men, …)
– We commonly use the Japanese word “manga” for all black & white comics published in pocket format. (I don’t really understand why.)
@ Neutrino:
However, one Bill Waterson, the creator of “Calvin And Hobbes” managed to successfully fight against the restrictions made to Sunday Comics. If one takes some time to look through the books you would see outragously beautiful backgrouds and almost absurdly irregular formating. Its a shame though, how Calvin has now been diminished to a brat that pees on things (Waterson has gone on record as saying how much he hates those bumperstickers).
I would like to request that the sizes be shown in both inches and centimetres.
Are they playing monopoly back there?
….you know usually people shrink to fit. Of course,im surprised no one has made this joke before. Especially Garfield or The far side strips.
reminds me of a “bloom county” comic where the comic page shrank so much it turned into “an inky black hole”-nothing but a single tiny spot!
Knowing this will probably not be seen, this is my second time reading through the comics and I just noticed this one referenced the local newspaper for where I live.
I currently work for the Arizona Republic, as a janitor/product handler.