Oh, oh, I know! Why at the beginning of course! Comic strips were born in very rudimentary form in American newspapers of the 1870s. The invention of photoengraving in 1873 made newspaper illustration inexpensive to reproduce and papers everywhere took advantage of the medium to gain readership. Comics were in their infancy, having not yet adopted panels in sequence to portray time and merely putting words with character drawings. By the 1890s, the basic form had evolved: panels, word balloons, reoccurring characters and storylines that might follow from one day’s strip to the next.

It wasn’t all fun and games though. The comic strip was a weapon used by publishing barons to gain readership and sell papers. The battle was particularly ruthless between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst where each ran rival strips that were direct rip-offs of the other. The two newspaper magnates even fought over rights to certain strips and lured artists from one another with higher salaries. We’ll get more into this fascinating history someday. Stay tuned.