The Comics Strip

The comic strip is usually about a page or a few short sequences on roughly a page length. Generally, there is a set-up, a rising action, and then the pay off. Krazy Kat, Peanuts, Little Nemo, and Calvin and Hobbes, are four examples of popular comics news strips of the 20^th century. It should be noted that the comics news strip is largely reprinted stories today. 

The comic strip relies on a basic premise that is then exaggerated or used as a joke within the story. An example of exaggeration would be Calvin and Hobbes and Little Nemo (in Slumberland), with both of which focusing on a mundane aspect of life (In Little Nemo’s case, sleeping, and consequentially dreaming) and using surrealism to capture a childlike-or dreamlike moment. On the flip side, stories like Krazy Kat and Peanuts, while uses some form of exaggeration (especially with Krazy Kats surrealism), relies on structure to tell a joke. Krazy Kat is structured around the same joke with variations, while Peanuts uses simple aspects of life to form a punchline by the end.

These two sort of groups of comic strips are kind of what makes up the appeal of the comic strip. Many of these strips were placed in newspapers, and cultivated this appeal of the everyman, or at least it finds some grounding in the real world. The comic strip was, in some cases, a place where dry humor and wit could find a home, and where the characters can exist in a world vaguely our own, thus allowing us to place ourselves in their shoes.