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 .
114-437: Tim Tyler's Luck is an adventure comic strip created by Lyman Young , elder brother of Blondie creator Chic Young . Distributed by King Features Syndicate , the strip ran from August 13, 1928, until August 24, 1996. When Tim Tyler's Luck started in 1928, Tyler was living in an orphanage. However, he soon left the orphanage for the outside world. When he teamed with an older sidekick, Spud, they began globe-trotting for
228-446: A hanged stickman figure upon a wall, with the name "Tom Nero" underneath, and is pointing to this dog torturer. The second shows Tom Nero has grown up to become a Hackney coach driver. His coach has overturned with a heavy load and his horse is lying on the ground, having broken its leg. He is beating it with the handle of his whip; its eye severely wounded. Other people around him are seen abusing their work animals and livestock, and
342-552: A syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Some newspaper strips begin or remain exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year. Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips . In
456-428: A "standard" size", with strips running the entire width of a page or having more than one tier. By the 1920s, strips often covered six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper. During the 1940s, strips were reduced to four columns wide (with a "transition" width of five columns). As newspapers became narrower beginning in the 1970s, strips have gotten even smaller, often being just three columns wide,
570-430: A child is being run over by the wheel of a dray , as the drayman dozes off on the job. In the third print, Tom is shown to be a murderer, surrounded by a mob of accusers. The woman he has apparently killed is lying on the ground, brutally slain, with a trunk and sack of stolen goods near by. One of the accusers holds a letter from the woman to Tom, speaking of how wronging her mistress upsets her conscience, but that she
684-587: A flock of geese (without anybody mourning their demise). Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks , who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897—a strip starring two German-American boys visually modelled on Max and Moritz . Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons, and thought balloons originated in Dirks' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of
798-430: A full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competition between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920s, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II , the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during
912-419: A funeral ceremony that follows the character's death from venereal disease . The inaugural series was an immediate success and was followed in 1733–1735 by the sequel A Rake's Progress . The second instalment consisted of eight pictures that depicted the reckless life of Tom Rakewell, the son of a rich merchant, who spends all of his money on luxurious living, services from prostitutes, and gambling –
1026-659: A learned artist supported by volumes of Shakespeare , Milton and Swift . In 1749, he represented the somewhat disorderly English troops on their March of the Guards to Finchley (formerly located in Thomas Coram Foundation for Children , now Foundling Museum ). Others works included his ingenious Satire on False Perspective (1754); his satire on canvassing in his Election series (1755–1758; now in Sir John Soane's Museum ); his ridicule of
1140-411: A man for his rank, or a woman for her money; don't frequent foolish auctions and masquerade balls unknown to your husband; don't have wicked companions abroad and neglect your wife, otherwise you will be run through the body, and ruin will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. In the twelve prints of Industry and Idleness (1747), Hogarth shows the progression in the lives of two apprentices , one of whom
1254-425: A manuscript called Apology for Painters ( c. 1761 ) and unpublished "autobiographical notes". Hogarth lived in an age when artwork became increasingly commercialized, being viewed in shop windows, taverns , and public buildings, and sold in printshops . Old hierarchies broke down, and new forms began to flourish: the ballad opera , the bourgeois tragedy , and especially, a new form of fiction called
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#17327934641101368-512: A pointed skewering of upper-class 18th-century society. An engraved version of the same series, produced by French engravers, appeared in 1745. This moralistic warning shows the miserable tragedy of an ill-considered marriage for money. This is regarded by many as his finest project and may be among his best-planned story serials. Marital ethics were the topic of much debate in 18th-century Britain. The many marriages of convenience and their attendant unhappiness came in for particular criticism, with
1482-488: A secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper , such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board , both drawn by Gene Ahern . During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at
1596-663: A series of international adventures. Many tales took place in Africa, as noted by comic strip historian Don Markstein: Starting March 31, 1935, Young added a topper strip, Curley Harper ; it ran until January 14, 1945, and sometimes appeared separately. Young employed several artists, some of whom became famous and successful with their own strips. The illustrators included Alex Raymond , Burne Hogarth , Clark Haas , Tony DiPreta , Nat Edson and Tom Massey. In 1972, Young's son, Bob Young, began sharing credit with his father, and after Lyman Young's death in 1984, Bob completely took over
1710-493: A similar width to the one most daily panels occupied before the 1940s. In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during
1824-506: A single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters ' Mother Goose and Grimm . Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high. Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. During
1938-574: A size of 17" × 37". In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home , drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page. Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune , or with one strip on
2052-496: A tabloid page, as in the Chicago Sun-Times . When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II , because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip
2166-632: A truthful, vivid full-length portrait of his friend, the philanthropic Captain Coram , for the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children , now in the Foundling Museum . This portrait, and his unfinished oil sketch of a young fishwoman, entitled The Shrimp Girl ( National Gallery, London ), may be called masterpieces of British painting . There are also portraits of his wife, his two sisters, and of many other people; among them Bishop Hoadly and Bishop Herring . The engraved portrait of John Wilkes
2280-554: A two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks , but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier. In Flanders , the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero . They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders. In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color. Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts
2394-497: A variety of authors taking the view that love was a much sounder basis for marriage. Hogarth here painted a satire – a genre that by definition has a moral point to convey – of a conventional marriage within the English upper class. All the paintings were engraved and the series achieved wide circulation in print form. The series, which is set in a Classical interior, shows the story of the fashionable marriage of Viscount Squanderfield,
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#17327934641102508-507: A wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors—traditionally, the CMYK color model : cyan, magenta, yellow and "K" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery. The decade of
2622-508: Is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams ' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets . Jimmy Hatlo 's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and
2736-461: Is dedicated and hard working, while the other, who is idle, commits crime and is eventually executed. This shows the work ethic of Protestant England, where those who worked hard were rewarded, such as the industrious apprentice who becomes Sheriff (plate 8), Alderman (plate 10), and finally the Lord Mayor of London in the last plate in the series. The idle apprentice, who begins "at play in
2850-531: Is known. My lord draws upon the counsellor, who kills him, and is apprehended while endeavouring to escape. My lady goes back perforce to the Alderman of the City, and faints upon reading Counsellor Silvertongue's dying speech at Tyburn (place of execution in old London), where the counsellor has been 'executed for sending his lordship out of the world. Moral: don't listen to evil silver-tongued counsellors; don't marry
2964-460: Is perhaps best known for his series A Harlot's Progress , A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode . Familiarity with his work is so widespread that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian". Hogarth was born in the City of London into a lower-middle-class family. In his youth he took up an apprenticeship with an engraver , but did not complete
3078-459: Is resolved to do as he would have her, closing with: "I remain yours till death." The fourth, titled The Reward of Cruelty , shows Tom's withering corpse being publicly dissected by scientists after his execution by hanging; a noose still around his neck. The dissection reflects the Murder Act 1751 , which allowed for the public dissection of criminals who had been hanged for murder. Hogarth
3192-674: Is taken from the title of a strip episode, in turn inspired by H. Rider Haggard 's novel She . Comic strip Most strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist . As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are Blondie , Bringing Up Father , Marmaduke , and Pearls Before Swine . In the late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories , as seen in Popeye , Captain Easy , Buck Rogers , Tarzan , and Terry and
3306-626: The Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page." Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out." NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with
3420-561: The Fleet Prison for five years. Hogarth never spoke of his father's imprisonment. In 1720, Hogarth enrolled at the original St Martin's Lane Academy in Peter Court, London, which was run by Louis Chéron and John Vanderbank . He attended alongside other future leading figures in art and design, such as Joseph Highmore , William Kent , and Arthur Pond . However, the academy seems to have stopped operating in 1724, at around
3534-657: The Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement . In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines , with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages. Storytelling using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry . Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in mid 18th-century England, where some of
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3648-553: The Foundling Hospital (1747, formerly at the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children , now in the Foundling Museum ); Paul before Felix (1748) at Lincoln's Inn ; and his altarpiece for St. Mary Redcliffe , Bristol (1755–56). The Gate of Calais (1748; now in Tate Britain ) was produced soon after his return from a visit to France. Horace Walpole wrote that Hogarth had run a great risk to go there since
3762-798: The Gin Act 1751 . Hogarth's friend, the magistrate Henry Fielding , may have enlisted Hogarth to help with propaganda for the Gin Act; Beer Street and Gin Lane were issued shortly after his work An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers, and Related Writings , and addressed the same issues. Other prints were his outcry against inhumanity in The Four Stages of Cruelty (published 21 February 1751), in which Hogarth depicts
3876-549: The Internet . Many are exclusively published online, but the majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams , creator of Dilbert , include an email address in each strip. Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston 's award-winning For Better or For Worse ,
3990-546: The editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip was awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal . Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics , and Tank McNamara often appears on
4104-935: The miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips. In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884. The origin of the modern English language comic strip can be traced to the efflorescence of caricature in late 18th century London. English caricaturists such as Richard Newton and George Woodward developed sophisticated caricature styles using strips of expressive comic figures with captions that could be read left to right to cumulative effect, as well as business models for advertising and selling cheap comic illustration on regular subscription. Other leading British caricaturists produced strips as well; for example James Gillray in Democracy;-or-a Sketch of
4218-536: The newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst . The Little Bears (1893–96) was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal ' s first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced
4332-426: The novel with which authors such as Henry Fielding had great success. Therefore, by that time, Hogarth hit on a new idea: "painting and engraving modern moral subjects ... to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer; my picture was my stage", as he himself remarked in his manuscript notes. He drew from the highly moralizing Protestant tradition of Dutch genre painting , and the very vigorous satirical traditions of
4446-465: The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle . Back home, he immediately executed a painting of the subject in which he unkindly represented his enemies, the Frenchmen, as cringing, emaciated and superstitious people, while an enormous sirloin of beef arrives, destined for the English inn as a symbol of British prosperity and superiority. He claimed to have painted himself into the picture in the left corner sketching
4560-623: The "grand style of painting" which avoids "minute attention" to the visible world. In Reynolds' Discourse XIV , he grants Hogarth has "extraordinary talents", but reproaches him for "very imprudently, or rather presumptuously, attempt[ing] the great historical style." Writer, art historian and politician, Horace Walpole , was also critical of Hogarth as a history painter, but did find value in his satirical prints. Hogarth's history pictures include The Pool of Bethesda and The Good Samaritan , executed in 1736–1737 for St Bartholomew's Hospital ; Moses brought before Pharaoh's Daughter , painted for
4674-673: The ' Gin Craze .' It started in the early 18th century, after a series of legislative actions in the late 17th century impacted the importation and manufacturing of alcohol in London. Among these, were the Prohibition of 1678 , which barred popular French brandy imports, and the forced disbandment, in 1690, of the London Guild of Distillers , whose members had previously been the only legal manufacturers of alcohol, leading to an increase in
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4788-441: The 1920s the medium became wildly popular. While radio, and later, television surpassed newspapers as a means of entertainment, most comic strip characters were widely recognizable until the 1980s, and the "funny pages" were often arranged in a way they appeared at the front of Sunday editions. In 1931, George Gallup's first poll had the comic section as the most important part of the newspaper, with additional surveys pointing out that
4902-458: The 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for
5016-1055: The 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers , which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers . Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated. Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode , Dan O'Neill , Gilbert Shelton , and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy , National Lampoon , and Pete Millar's CARtoons . Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books. Webcomics , also known as online comics and internet comics , are comics that are available to read on
5130-413: The 1970s had been waning as an entertainment form. From 1903 to 1905 Gustave Verbeek , wrote his comic series "The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins". These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6 panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. The longest-running American comic strips are: Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated;
5244-474: The 1997 Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, an artist taking over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy ), and Terry and
5358-481: The British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross in 1867, Ally Sloper is one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday , in 1884. While in the early 20th century comic strips were a frequent target for detractors of "yellow journalism", by
5472-456: The Day (1738), and Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn (1738). He may also have printed Burlington Gate (1731), evoked by Alexander Pope 's Epistle to Lord Burlington , and defending Lord Chandos, who is therein satirized. This print gave great offence, and was suppressed. However, modern authorities such as Ronald Paulson no longer attribute it to Hogarth. In 1731, Hogarth completed
5586-399: The English broadsheet and other types of popular print. In England the fine arts had little comedy in them before Hogarth. His prints were expensive, and remained so until early 19th-century reprints brought them to a wider audience. When analysing the work of the artist as a whole, Ronald Paulson says, "In A Harlot's Progress , every single plate but one is based on Dürer 's images of
5700-769: The English passion for cockfighting in The Cockpit (1759) ; his attack on Methodism in Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism (1762); his political anti-war satire in The Times , plate I (1762); and his pessimistic view of all things in Tailpiece, or The Bathos (1764). In 1757, Hogarth was appointed Serjeant Painter to the King. Hogarth wrote and published his ideas of artistic design in his book The Analysis of Beauty (1753). In it, he professes to define
5814-595: The Gormagons (1724); A Just View of the British Stage (1724); some book illustrations; and the small print Masquerades and Operas (1724). The latter is a satire on contemporary follies, such as the masquerades of the Swiss impresario John James Heidegger , the popular Italian opera singers , John Rich 's pantomimes at Lincoln's Inn Fields , and the exaggerated popularity of Lord Burlington 's protégé,
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#17327934641105928-591: The Grecian Venus doth but coarsely imitate." On 23 March 1729, Hogarth eloped with Jane Thornhill at Paddington Church , against the wishes of her father, the artist Sir James Thornhill . Sir James saw the match as unequal, as Hogarth was a rather obscure artist at the time. However, when Hogarth started on his series of moral prints, A Harlot's Progress , some of the initial paintings were placed either in Sir James' drawing room or dining room, through
6042-804: The Life of Buonaparte . His contemporary Thomas Rowlandson used strips as early as 1784 for example in The Loves of the Fox and the Badger . Rowlandson may also be credited with inventing the first internationally recognized comic strip character: Doctor Syntax whose picaresque journeys through England were told through a series of comic etchings, accompanied by verse. Original published in parts between 1809 and 1811 in Rudolf Ackermann 's Poetical Magazine , in book form The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of
6156-859: The NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which since the 1970s (and particularly the 1990s) has been considered to be in decline due to numerous factors such as changing tastes in humor and entertainment, the waning relevance of newspapers in general and the loss of most foreign markets outside English-speaking countries. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie , held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield ' s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie ' s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams ( Dilbert ) traded strips with Bil Keane ( The Family Circus ). While
6270-402: The Pirates . In the 1940s, soap-opera -continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity. Because "comic" strips are not always funny, cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that sequential art would be a better genre -neutral name. Comic strips have appeared inside American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life , but also on the front covers, such as
6384-490: The Pirates , started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder . A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers ' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed
6498-490: The United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. Making his first appearance in
6612-561: The World ), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, ( Garfield , Snoopy in Peanuts ), and some can converse with humans ( Bloom County , Calvin and Hobbes , Mutts , Citizen Dog , Buckles , Get Fuzzy , Pearls Before Swine , and Pooch Cafe ). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck . Gary Larson 's The Far Side
6726-685: The adventures of Winnie Winkle , Moon Mullins and Dondi , and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn't miss it.)" The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for
6840-498: The apprenticeship. His father underwent periods of mixed fortune, and was at one time imprisoned in lieu of payment of outstanding debts, an event that is thought to have informed William's paintings and prints with a hard edge. Influenced by French and Italian painting and engraving, Hogarth's works are mostly satirical caricatures, sometimes bawdily sexual, mostly of the first rank of realistic portraiture. They became widely popular and mass-produced via prints in his lifetime, and he
6954-808: The architect and painter William Kent . He continued that theme in 1727, with the Large Masquerade Ticket . In 1726, Hogarth prepared twelve large engravings illustrating Samuel Butler 's Hudibras . These he himself valued highly, and they are among his best early works, though they are based on small book illustrations. In the following years, he turned his attention to the production of small " conversation pieces " (i.e., groups in oil of full-length portraits from 12 to 15 inches (300 to 380 mm) high. Among his efforts in oil between 1728 and 1732 were The Fountaine Family ( c. 1730 ), The Assembly at Wanstead House , The House of Commons examining Bambridge , and several pictures of
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#17327934641107068-553: The case was decided in his favour on 28 May 1728. Early satirical works included an Emblematical Print on the South Sea Scheme ( c. 1721 , published 1724), about the disastrous stock market crash of 1720, known as the South Sea Bubble , in which many English people lost a great deal of money. In the bottom left corner, he shows Protestant , Roman Catholic , and Jewish figures gambling, while in
7182-573: The character's life ultimately ends in Bethlem Royal Hospital . The original paintings of A Harlot's Progress were destroyed in the fire at Fonthill House in 1755; the oil paintings of A Rake's Progress (1733–34) are displayed in the gallery room at Sir John Soane's Museum , London, UK. When the success of A Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress resulted in numerous pirated reproductions by unscrupulous printsellers, Hogarth lobbied in parliament for greater legal control over
7296-623: The characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley . The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom , Prince Valiant , Dick Tracy , Mary Worth , Modesty Blaise , Little Orphan Annie , Flash Gordon , and Tarzan . Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books , for example Superman , Batman , and The Amazing Spider-Man . A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal ( Marmaduke , The Angriest Dog in
7410-466: The characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids ). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate , ran until 1979. In the United States, the great popularity of comics sprang from
7524-513: The chief actors in John Gay 's popular The Beggar's Opera . One of his real-life subjects was Sarah Malcolm , whom he sketched two days before her execution. One of Hogarth's masterpieces of this period is the depiction of an amateur performance by children of John Dryden 's The Indian Emperour, or The Conquest of Mexico by Spaniards, being the Sequel of The Indian Queen (1732–1735) at
7638-541: The church yard" (plate 3), holes up "in a Garrett with a Common Prostitute" after turning highwayman (plate 7) and "executed at Tyburn" (plate 11). The idle apprentice is sent to the gallows by the industrious apprentice himself. For each plate, there is at least one passage from the Bible at the bottom, mostly from the Book of Proverbs , such as for the first plate: Later prints of significance include his pictorial warning of
7752-594: The comic strips were the second most popular feature after the picture page. During the 1930s, many comic sections had between 12 and 16 pages, although in some cases, these had up to 24 pages. The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards , clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun ' s Linda White recalled, "I followed
7866-457: The consequences of alcoholism in Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751). Hogarth engraved Beer Street to show a happy city drinking the 'good' beverage, English beer , in contrast to Gin Lane , in which the effects of drinking gin are shown – as a more potent liquor, gin caused more problems for society. There had been a sharp increase in the popularity of gin at this time, which was called
7980-415: The conspiring of Jane and her mother, in the hopes of reconciling him with the couple. When he saw them, he inquired as to the artist's name and, upon hearing it, replied: "Very well; the man who can produce such representations as these, can also maintain a wife without a portion ." However, he soon after relented, becoming more generous to, and living in harmony with the couple until his death. Hogarth
8094-410: The cruel treatment of animals which he saw around him and suggests what will happen to people who carry on in this manner. In the first print, there are scenes of boys torturing dogs, cats and other animals. It centers around a poorly dressed boy committing a violent act of torture upon a dog, while being pleaded with to stop, and offered food, by another well-dressed boy. A boy behind them has graffitied
8208-412: The earliest of his series of moral works, a body of work that led to wide recognition. The collection of six scenes was entitled A Harlot's Progress and appeared first as paintings (now lost) before being published as engravings. A Harlot's Progress depicts the fate of a country girl who begins prostituting – the six scenes are chronological, starting with a meeting with a bawd and ending with
8322-484: The engraver Ellis Gamble in Leicester Fields , where he learned to engrave trade cards and similar products. Young Hogarth also took a lively interest in the street life of the metropolis and the London fairs, and amused himself by sketching the characters he saw. Around the same time, his father, who had opened an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house at St John's Gate , was imprisoned for debt in
8436-525: The feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens , drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style. As newspapers have declined , the changes have affected comic strips. Jeff Reece, lifestyle editor of The Florida Times-Union , wrote, "Comics are sort of the ' third rail ' of the newspaper." In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received
8550-402: The fifties and sixties led to Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. As newspapers have reduced the page count of Sunday comic sections since the late 1990s (by the 2010s, most sections have only four pages, with the back page not always being destined for comics) has also led to further downsizes. Daily strips have suffered as well. Before the mid-1910s, there was not
8664-468: The first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth 's 18th-century English caricature include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress , and single panels. The Biblia pauperum ("Paupers' Bible"), a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the Late Middle Ages , sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in
8778-400: The first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer , it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to
8892-623: The fourth in the quartet of paintings (later released as engravings) collectively entitled the Four Times of the Day . His main home was in Leicester Square (then known as Leicester Fields), but he bought a country retreat in Chiswick in 1749, the house now known as Hogarth's House and preserved as a museum, and spent time there for the rest of his life. The Hogarths had no children, although they fostered foundling children. He
9006-430: The gate, with a "soldier's hand upon my shoulder", running him in. Notable Hogarth engravings in the 1740s include The Enraged Musician (1741), the six prints of Marriage à-la-mode (1745; executed by French artists under Hogarth's inspection), and The Stage Coach or The Country Inn Yard (1747). In 1745, Hogarth painted a self-portrait with his pug dog, Trump (now also in Tate Britain ), which shows him as
9120-571: The history of London. The Reuben , named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg , is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). In 1995, the United States Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, Comic Strip Classics , marking the comic-strip centennial. Today's strip artists, with the help of
9234-458: The home of John Conduitt , master of the mint, in St George's Street, Hanover Square . Hogarth's other works in the 1730s include A Midnight Modern Conversation (1733), Southwark Fair (1733), The Sleeping Congregation (1736), Before and After (1736), Scholars at a Lecture (1736), The Company of Undertakers (1736), The Distrest Poet (1736), The Four Times of
9348-401: The late 1960s, it became a mouthpiece for Capp's repudiation of the counterculture. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who
9462-403: The late 19th century. The Yellow Kid is usually credited as one of the first newspaper strips . However, the art form combining words and pictures developed gradually and there are many examples which led up to the comic strip. The Glasgow Looking Glass was the first mass-produced publication to tell stories using illustrations and is regarded as the world's first comic strip. It satirised
9576-443: The lives of his creations. Thus, as a "comic history painter", he often poked fun at the old-fashioned, "beaten" subjects of religious art in his paintings and prints. Hogarth also rejected Lord Shaftesbury 's then-current ideal of the classical Greek male in favour of the living, breathing female. He said, "Who but a bigot, even to the antiques , will say that he has not seen faces and necks, hands and arms in living women, that even
9690-505: The members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst , whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism , and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all
9804-519: The mid-to-late 80s and 1990s respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run "generic" title panels. William Hogarth William Hogarth FRSA ( / ˈ h oʊ ɡ ɑːr θ / ; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver , pictorial satirist , social critic , editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip -like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects", and he
9918-593: The middle there is a huge machine, like a merry-go-round, which people are boarding. At the top is a goat, written below which is "Who'l Ride". The people are scattered around the picture with a sense of disorder , while the progress of the well dressed people towards the ride in the middle shows the foolishness of the crowd in buying stock in the South Sea Company , which spent more time issuing stock than anything else. Other early works include The Lottery (1724) ; The Mystery of Masonry brought to Light by
10032-474: The most important and highly wrought of the Hogarth comedies. The care and method with which the moral grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable as the wit and skill of the observing and dexterous artist. He has to describe the negotiations for a marriage pending between the daughter of a rich citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squanderfield, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl ... The dismal end
10146-462: The nation's first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal . The history of this newspaper rivalry and the rapid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon . Numerous events in newspaper comic strips have reverberated throughout society at large, though few of these events occurred in recent years, owing mainly to the declining use of continuous storylines on newspaper comic strips, which since
10260-632: The picturesque ran to 9 editions between 1812 and 1819, spun off two sequels, a prequel, numerous pirate imitations and copies including French, German, Danish and translations. His image was available on pottery, textiles wallpaper and other merchandise. The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror , an influential English comic series published in London between 1807 and 1819 by Thomas Tegg included some satirical stories in comic strip format such as The Adventures of Johnny Newcome . The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in
10374-615: The political and social life of Scotland in the 1820s. It was conceived and illustrated by William Heath. Swiss author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the US in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, German painter, author, and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created
10488-494: The principles of beauty and grace which he, a real child of Rococo , saw realized in serpentine lines (the Line of Beauty ). By some of Hogarth's adherents, the book was praised as a fine deliverance upon aesthetics; by his enemies and rivals, its obscurities and minor errors were made the subject of endless ridicule and caricature. For instance, Paul Sandby produced several caricatures against Hogarth's treatise. Hogarth wrote also
10602-458: The production and then consumption of domestic gin. In Beer Street , people are shown as healthy, happy and prosperous, while in Gin Lane , they are scrawny, lazy and careless. The woman at the front of Gin Lane , who lets her baby fall to its death, echoes the tale of Judith Dufour , who strangled her baby so she could sell its clothes for gin money. The prints were published in support of
10716-455: The reproduction of his and other artists' work. The result was the Engravers' Copyright Act (known as 'Hogarth's Act'), which became law on 25 June 1735 and was the first copyright law to deal with visual works as well as the first to recognise the authorial rights of an individual artist. In 1743–1745, Hogarth painted the six pictures of Marriage A-la-Mode ( National Gallery, London ),
10830-439: The reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at
10944-518: The same time that Vanderbank fled to France in order to avoid creditors. Hogarth recalled of the first incarnation of the academy: "this lasted a few years but the treasurer sinking the subscription money the lamp stove etc were seized for rent and the whole affair put a stop to." Hogarth then enrolled in another drawing school, in Covent Garden , shortly after it opened in November 1724, which
11058-413: The second panel revealing the truth of the situation. Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips (known colloquially as "the funny papers", shortened to "the funnies"), such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie , filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page . Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried
11172-450: The son of bankrupt Earl Squander, to the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant, starting with the signing of a marriage contract at the Earl's grand house and ending with the murder of the son by his wife's lover and the suicide of the daughter after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband. William Makepeace Thackeray wrote: This famous set of pictures contains
11286-504: The sports page because of its subject matter. Lynn Johnston 's For Better or For Worse created an uproar when Lawrence, one of the strip's supporting characters, came out of the closet. The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts
11400-513: The story of the Virgin and the story of the Passion ." In other works, he parodies Leonardo da Vinci 's Last Supper . According to Paulson, Hogarth is subverting the religious establishment and the orthodox belief in an immanent God who intervenes in the lives of people and produces miracles . Indeed, Hogarth was a Deist , a believer in a God who created the universe but takes no direct hand in
11514-468: The strip Max and Moritz , about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of seven severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter ("Shockheaded Peter"). In the story's final act, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by
11628-493: The strip. Tim Tyler's Luck slowly faded away, and by the time it was canceled in 1996, it was being carried by only a single paper. In 2016, The Library of American Comics reprinted one year of the strip (1933) as an installment in its LoAC Essentials line. In 1937, a 12-chapter movie serial starred Frankie Thomas as Tim Tyler . The title of the Umberto Eco novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2004)
11742-451: The strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman 's Krazy Kat . An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore , may be printed on
11856-423: The three essays written by Reynolds for the months of September through November 1759 are directed at Hogarth. In them, Reynolds argues that this "connoisseur" has a "servile attention to minute exactness" and questions their idea of the imitation of nature as "the obvious sense, that objects are represented naturally when they have such relief that they seem real." Reynolds rejected "this kind of imitation", favouring
11970-505: The way for some of these strips, as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms—as animals, vegetables, and minerals. The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury . Al Capp's Li'l Abner espoused liberal opinions for most of its run, but by
12084-555: Was a bestseller. For a long period, during the mid-18th century, Hogarth tried to achieve the status of a history painter , but did not earn much respect in this field. The painter, and later founder of the Royal Academy of Arts , Joshua Reynolds , was highly critical of Hogarth's style and work. According to art historian David Bindman , in Dr Johnson 's serial of essays for London's Universal Chronicle , The Idler ,
12198-515: Was also a popular portrait painter . In 1745, he painted actor David Garrick as Richard III , for which he was paid £200, "which was more", he wrote, "than any English artist ever received for a single portrait." With this picture Hogarth established the genre of theatrical portraiture as a distinctively British kind of history painting. In 1746, a sketch of Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat , afterwards beheaded on Tower Hill, had an exceptional success when turned into an etching. In 1740, he created
12312-535: Was an engraver in his own right, at first engraving coats of arms and shop bills and designing plates for booksellers. In 1727, he was hired by Joshua Morris, a tapestry worker, to prepare a design for the Element of Earth . Morris heard that he was "an engraver, and no painter", and consequently declined the work when completed. Hogarth accordingly sued him for the money in the Westminster Court , where
12426-525: Was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era . At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm
12540-416: Was by far the most significant English artist of his generation. Charles Lamb deemed Hogarth's images to be books, filled with "the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read." William Hogarth was born at Bartholomew Close in London to Richard Hogarth, a poor Latin school teacher and textbook writer, and Anne Gibbons. In his youth he was apprenticed to
12654-738: Was initiated as a Freemason before 1728 in the Lodge at the Hand and Apple Tree Tavern, Little Queen Street, and later belonged to the Carrier Stone Lodge and the Grand Stewards' Lodge; the latter still possesses the 'Hogarth Jewel' which Hogarth designed for the Lodge's Master to wear. Today the original is in storage and a replica is worn by the Master of the Lodge. Freemasonry was a theme in some of Hogarth's work, most notably 'Night',
12768-588: Was run by Sir James Thornhill , serjeant painter to the king . On Thornhill, Hogarth later claimed that, even as an apprentice, "the painting of St Pauls and gree[n]wich hospital ... were during this time runing in my head", referring to the massive schemes of decoration painted by Thornhill for the dome of St Paul's Cathedral , and Greenwich Hospital . Hogarth became a member of the Rose and Crown Club , with Peter Tillemans , George Vertue , Michael Dahl , and other artists and connoisseurs. By April 1720, Hogarth
12882-722: Was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971. Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers. Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating
12996-561: Was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens , chickens, cows, worms , amoebas , and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal, and fantasy characters, but also does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur . Bob Thaves 's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved
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