British Comics

British comics as the name suggests are comics that originate from Britain. British comics are usually Anthology Comics and often have annuals printed once a year (or at least they used to). British comics evolved out of story papers with a number of story papers switching to comics. The earliest British comics, such as Comic Cuts, began in the 1890s and these slowly evolved into the modern anthology comic which in the early days would feature humourous, adventurous and text stories the latter owing to their story paper roots. The oldest British Comic which survives to this day is The Dandy which began in 1937 although The Beano (from the same publisher) which began, a year later, in 1938 has now superseded it in issue numbers due to the Dandy's period as a fortnightly publication in the late 2000s.

There are four main genres of British comics. It should be noted that as many British Comics are anthologies different strips in a comic maybe from a different genre but since the 1970s nearly all British Comics are solely one genre.

One of the main genres are British Humour Comics the most popular comics of this genre are often considered to be The Beano and The Dandy. There used to be many more, but sales decreased over the years and many of them merged or became defunct around The Nineties: some of the most popular characters from these discontinued comics have migrated to The Beano or The Dandy. Both of these comics have existed since the late 1930s. This genre often relies more on tropes common in cartoons. This Humour Comic genre is probably the most popular genre.

There are also adventure comics which are quite different to their American equivalents that instead of focusing on Super Heroes they use a lot of war, sci-fi or football stories. Good examples of this genre would be Two Thousand AD and Commando.

There were also girl's comics this genre was aimed at girls and often featured adventurous stories with mainly female characters often these stories would involve some sort of romance. This genre began in the 1950s and lasted until the 1980s. A good example of this genre would be Bunty.

There are also comics aimed at the very young children most of these comics are now based off licensed properties but back in the 70s and earlier this genre did not rely on them. An example of this genre would be the now seemingly oddly titled Bimbo.

Notable British comics:

Notable Comic strips from British Comics:

Notable British newspaper comic strips

The following creators are particularly notable:

British Comic Tropes:

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