Spotlight on Sunday strip layout

From MandrakeWiki

The tabloid / full page years

The early Mandrake Sunday strips filled an entire page. Phil Davis layout his first Sunday story with 4 strips a page before he started experimenting with different variants of layout. The various pages could have 2, 3 or 4 strips and some panels could span more than one row.

Samples

In the first Sunday story Phil Davis also experimented with the logo for the pages.

The first logo and variants for the Sunday pages
The second logo and variants for the Sunday Strip
The third logo and variants for the Sunday Strip

The full and half page years

Due to paper shortages during World War II some newspapers requested possibility to print the Mandrake Sunday strips on a half page. Phil Davis started to layout the pages so the numbered panels could be rearranged to fit both a full or half page. The last page made for full page only was at April 26, 1942. From the strip of March 22, 1959 the logo shrunk.

Samples

The full, half and third page years

To save the expense of printing so many color pages some newspapers requested possibility to print the Mandrake Sunday strips on a third page. The layout changed and one can find two common logos in this period. Only the full and half format is complete and the third page dropping the top row from the half page. Such "throwaway" panels often contain material that is not vital to the main part of the strip.

Samples

The fourth logo and variants for the Sunday Strip

The full, half, third page years II

Fred Fredericks was the new artist from the strip of July 27, 1965. Unlike Phil Davis drew his Sunday pages in the half page landscape format. The logo used for the half pages layput was similar to the one used on rearranged half pages by Phil Davis, except the text "by Lee Falk" vs "by Lee Falk and Phil Davis". In the strip of June 7th 1970 the layout changed a bit and now we can see a larger logo made by Fred Fredericks. The layout developed further to be divided into eight (nine with the logo) almost identical panel considering the size.

Samples

The third, and half page years

The strip of November 5, 1972 is the first made for third page. The half page dropping the two left panel from the third page. The "throwaway" panels contain material that is not vital to the main part of the strip.

Samples