Sunday comics

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Sunday comics or "Sunday funnies" is the American idiom for the full color comic strip section carried in most American newspapers. While there are earlier combinations of color, art, and story that historians of the comic strip point to as precussors of the comic strip, the Yellow Kid, a racist picture of an oriental boy with a bright yellow shirt, is generally accepted as the first comic strip. The early comic strips were full of racist, sexist, and class stereotypes and accents, and were loved by the immigrant populations they mocked. For most of the 20th Century the Sunday funnies were a family tradition, enjoyed every Sunday by adults and kids alike. They were read by millions, and produced some of the most famous characters in fiction, including Flash Gordon, Little Orphan Annie, Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, and Terry and the Pirates. Classic humor strips include Li'l Abner, Bringing Up Father, Gasoline Alley, Pogo, and Peanuts.

The size of the Sunday comics has decreased in recent years, with Sunday comics sections that were ten pages or twelve pages in 1950 shrinking to 6 page or 4 pages by 2005. One of the last large size Sunday comics in the United States is in the Reading Eagle, which has 8 pages and the banner headline "Biggest Comics Section in the Land".