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Posted by on Feb 3, 2015 in TellMeWhy |

When Did Comic Strips Start?

When Did Comic Strips Start?

Let us find out when did comic strips start. The first newspaper comic strip in the United States was Richard Felton Outcault’s “Hogan’s Alley,” which appeared in the Hearst New York American on February 16, 1896. It was published in the Sunday supplement to the paper and was quickly joined by other comic strips.

It appeared in the 1890’s, and its main character was “the Yellow Kid”-a bald, grinning fellow dressed in a yellow nightshirt. Outcault used the yellow shirt as a space to print messages.

Instantly popular, these Yellow Kid strips established comics as a regular newspaper feature. Today, more than 100 million Americans read comic strips in some 1,700 newspapers. There are also more than 200 million readers abroad in 42 languages and 102 countries.

A comic strip is a drawing or a collection of multiple drawings that tells a story. Written and drawn by a cartoonist, these comic strips are published on a recurring basis in local newspapers. As the name shows, a comic strip can be humorous.

Comics became widespread when newspapers began printing them in the late 1890’s. So now we know when did comic strips start.

Do comic strips still exist? Yes and no. There are fewer newspapers, less space devoted to strips, and more of that space going to reprinting classic series like peanuts. So they absolutely still exist. But few if any are in your local paper.

What is the difference between comic books and comic strips? Comic strips are usually a single tier of one or several panels, most often these days involving the set-up and presentation of a joke. Strips are often published daily. Comic books are usually several pages of several tiers of strips par page, telling a story, published monthly.

Content for this question contributed by Caryn Amodeo, resident of Albany, New York, USA