Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman
Over the course of the next few articles, the Burlington Comic Examiner will take a look at the unsung heroes of the comic world, the comic strips. Comic strips still appear in daily newspapers across the country, but with the fate of newspapers hanging in the balance as readership declines, the existence of the daily comic strip may change as well.
Newspaper comic strips have existed in America since the early 19th century. The first successful daily comic strip appeared in 1907 and was called Mutt and Jeff, written by Bud Fisher. It created many comic staples such as speech bubbles and special symbols to indicate cursing and the American comic strip developed in this way into the 20th Century. In fact, the first comic books were anthologies of daily newspaper comic strips.
Since then, comics have become that little section of the newspaper that offers a relief from the news. Bombarded by news from a multitude of other sources, many people only ever pick up a newspaper to read the comics. However, in recent years, with newspaper readership declining, comics have become part of the digital age. Now it is possible to find comic strips online and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of amatuer comic strip artists and writers have a chance to share their work with the world, work that might never have seen a newspaper. In fact, the world of underground webcomics is a world that, as many readers will know, is gaining huge popularity.
Over the course of the next few articles, you, constant reader, will be treated to spotlights of comics that can be found in Vermont's own Burlington Free Press. The goal of these spotlights is to bring back to the forefront of comic fans' minds the oft-forgotten comic strip which is actually the foundation of the comic books which fans around the world know and love today.
In the next article: a spoltight on Blondie.
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