Daily Comic Strip - Formats and Color

Formats and Color

The two conventional formats for daily newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Strips are usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. One of the leading single gag panels for decades, Grin and Bear It, was created in 1932 by George Lichty and syndicated by Field Enterprises.

Throughout the 20th century, daily newspaper strips were usually presented in black and white and Sunday strips in color, but a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers, such as Grit, have published Sunday strips in black and white. On the web, daily newspaper strips are usually in color, and conversely, some webcomics, such as Joyce and Walky, have been created in black and white.

Traditionally, balloons and captions were hand-lettered with all upper case letters. However, there are exceptions such as a few strips which have typeset dialog such as Barnaby. Upper and lower case lettering is used in Gasoline Alley.