The Daily Funnies: An Exhibition of Strip Cartoon

Daily Funnies or the Art of the Strip Cartoon is the title of the current exhibition at the Cartoon Museum. Cartoon strips occupy a special place in the world of cartoon and comic art. Appearing as they do every day or every week in newspapers and magazines, they reach a public who might not consider themselves cartoon fans. Readers become so attached to their favourite strip that when it ends they feel as though they have lost and old friend. Some strips outlive their creators: Fred Basset, Dick Tracy and Oor Wullie are just a few examples. Others, such as Peanuts, are so closely bound to their original artists that no one else can replace them. There is a rhythm or pulse to the art of the comic strip, like a limerick or a haiku or a joke well told. To be able to tell a small story or raise a smile in the space of a few panels is a skill few people master.

Daily Funnies offers a choice selection from the wide variety of strips that have amused us over the last century. Funny animals are always popular, but there are also detective, adventure, science fiction, financial, political, celebrity, everyman (and woman), sexy, sporting, and historical strips.

The Swiss artist Rodolphe Topffer is usually regarded as the father of the cartoon strip. His story of an ambitious middle-class dandy, Historie de M. Jabot, appeared in book form in 1822. In the 1860s, the German artist Wilhelm Busch created Max and Moritz, two naughty little boys who thirty years later inspired Rudolph Dirks to produce The Katzenjammer Kids, the world’s longest running strip.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the newspaper business was extremely competitive. Cartoon strips became a key weapon in the battle for readers. In Britain, Teddy Tail of the Daily Mail became the first daily British cartoon strip in 1915. It proved so successful with young readers that other papers soon followed. Pip, Squeak and Wilfred started in the Daily Mirror in 1919, and Rupert in the Daily Express a year later. Other strips were aimed at adults, such as John Millar Watt’s Pop, which started in the Daily Sketch in 1921. By the 1930s, practically every paper carried one or more strips, and American papers carried colour Sunday supplements full of comic strips, or “funnies”.

Much of the artwork on show is from the Cartoon Museum’s own collection, including some of the most famous cartoon strips from the 20th century, such as Dick Tracy, Doonesbury, and Tiger, as well as British favourites like Andy Capp, Alex, and The Perishers.

Cartoon Museum until 5th November, 2017.