Editing Comic strip (section)

== Popularity ==

[[File:Cover of Illustrated Chips 298 (1896).jpg|thumb|right|''[[Illustrated Chips]]'' (1896). Harmsworth titles enjoyed a monopoly of comics in the UK until the emergence of [[DC Thomson]] comics in the 1930s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Khoury |first1=George |title=True Brit: A Celebration of the Great Comic Book Artists of the UK |date=2004 |publisher=TwoMorrows Publishing |page=9}}</ref>]]

Making his first appearance in the British magazine ''[[Judy (satirical 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Birch|first1=Dinah|title=The Oxford Companion to English Literature|date=24 September 2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|page=240}}</ref> 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 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 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 board]]s, clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. ''[[The Baltimore Sun]]''{{'}}s Linda White recalled, "I followed the adventures of ''[[Winnie Winkle]]'', ''[[Moon Mullins]]'' and ''[[Dondi]]'', and waited each fall to see how [[Lucy van Pelt|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.)"<ref>{{cite web | url=http://wbng.org/stories/ruler.html | last=White | first=Linda | title=You can't go home again | work=Telling Our Stories | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101029215002/http://wbng.org/stories/ruler.html | archive-date=2010-10-29 }}</ref>