Comics in the Newspaper

When reading through the old newspaper comics like Terry and the Pirates, Prince Valiant, and Little Nemo in Slumberland. I was surprised by the experimentation in the comics and how big they were when printed. As a kid I was just used to reading the Sunday funnies, that’s all they were really, not much story just your gag strip. But there was a lot of variety, and some gag strips, but story overall wasn’t super important for most of the comics. A lot of the story was put aside, unless it was comics like Prince Valiant. What was seen as important were the pictures. You didn’t even really need text to follow what was happening, it was about enjoying the imagery. The panels and layout were all so different for each strip you picked up gave a different feel through its panels. I felt that if you just took the panel break down of each artist you would be able to tell them apart. I also feel that the comics were a bit less about the artist’s ego in the sense that they were just having fun creating a story and seeing what they could get away with.  Whereas in some of todays comics I feel as though some artists just want to show off, they don’t seem as connected to the story, and want to give you the double page spread of beauty.

The funniest part about reading the old strips was the dialogue. The dialogue overall was horrible. I couldn’t make sense of most of it or it was dryer than apiece of toast left in Death Valley. Some of the strips had ok dialogue but; honestly it seemed as though the editor took a nap during that process.  But getting to see the beginnings of what led to the comic book you get to see how the basic structure and rules came about. I also saw some of what we left behind, lost, tossed into the bin. Hopefully one day someone will find it, examine it and see its purpose can be used again. And in some ways the old oddities of the strip are coming back through web comics.