History Main / SundayStrip

* ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' featured a variety of material on Sundays - reader art, reader poems, a {{spinoff}} arc recasting the characters in a [[VictorianLondon Victorian]] pulp serial {{homage}}, and a particularly long FanFic called "A Brief Moment of Culture." (It was about [[JustForPun sentient yoghurt]].) ''Webcomic/SkinHorse'' follows suit.

Before World War II, most comics took one entire page. In the 1920s and 30s, these were accompanied by "toppers", complementary comics (done by the same artist) and cut-outs that were often replaced by advertising. After 1940, most comics became printed in half-page and third-page formats. The quarter-page format was introduced later. Now with newspaper pages being narrower than their pre-1970s counterparts, most comic sections crowd six features per page.

Newspaper Sunday strips use a version of EditedForSyndication. The top row and first subsequent panel of a strip may be discarded by papers that want to fit more strips onto a page, and therefore has to contain a literal throwaway gag which is usually unrelated to the rest of the strip, or at least the rest of the strip still makes sense if it's removed. The panels are also expected to fit into certain formats so newspapers could rearrange them to form two rows (with or without the throwaway panels), three rows or four rows of equal breadth. Creator/BillWatterson of ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' protested against this practice and demanded (and won) the right to produce a Sunday strip with a fixed layout and no throwaway panels, but this was still an exception to the rule; it helped Watterson's case that he was, even by that point, looked upon by many as the benchmark for pushing the bounds of what a newspaper comic strip was capable of. Walt Kelly's ''Pogo'' ended because of disagreements with the syndicate regarding the size of the Sunday pages.

Sunday strips are published a day early in Canada due to blue laws in the past that prohibited the publication of Sunday newspapers in most provinces, making the Saturday paper the biggest edition of the week. (These laws were mainly repealed after World War II, but most newspapers still publish the comics on Saturdays (those who have Sunday editions publish the Saturday installment on Sundays - and yes, they are known as "Saturday strips".) Back when newspaper comics were SeriousBusiness, Americans living in border cities would often travel to Canada on Saturdays for the sole purpose of getting the Sunday strips a day before their neighbours. In the US, Saturday comic sections were published in evening newspapers, and for a time, the ''Washington Post'' carried the Sunday comics on Saturdays. In Australia, comic strips are carried as part of "puzzle sections".

Newspaper Sunday strips use a version of EditedForSyndication. The top row and first subsequent panel of a strip may be discarded by papers that want to fit more strips onto a page, and therefore has to contain a literal throwaway gag which is usually unrelated to the rest of the strip, or at least the rest of the strip still makes sense if it's removed. The panels are also expected to fit into certain formats so newspapers could rearrange them to form two rows (with or without the throwaway panels), three rows or four rows of equal breadth. Bill Watterson of ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' protested against this practice and demanded (and won) the right to produce a Sunday strip with a fixed layout and no throwaway panels, but this was still an exception to the rule; it helped Watterson's case that he was, even by that point, looked upon by many as the benchmark for pushing the bounds of what a newspaper comic strip was capable of. Walt Kelly's ''Pogo'' ended because of disagreements with the syndicate regarding the size of the Sunday pages.

* ''Webcomic/ItsWalky'' had double sized colour Sunday strips. Since the rerun website adds in all the bonus comics, it's impossible to make them consistently run on Sundays. Currently, they run on Fridays.

* ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'' not only has bigger Sunday strips, but they used to have a newspaper-style throwaway top strip (the author also draws newspaper comics ''ComicStrip/OnTheFastrack'' and ''ComicStrip/SafeHavens''). More recent Sunday strips are much taller, to allow for publication in Bill Holbrook's local newspaper.

* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}''