Is It Just Me, Or Is There A Difference Between Comic and Cartoon Strip?

[LittleEndian]

Having a tag in order to differentiate these 2 kinds of comics would be very nice !

I like comics on nowaday life, with social issues, family problems, questioning on friendship ... (Like my comic Leaves) But it's pretty hard to find these comics when I look in the slice of life section because there are a lot of short comic strips :/
I came to wonder if my comic is actually a slice of life comic, or not °_°

[Raven_C]

I'm pretty much on the same page as you. I always thought that comic = collection of stories (like, I dunno, the comic Archie) and cartoon strip is like those Sunday newspaper strips. People tend to use them interchangeably, I think.

[Peej]

Well, I'm relieved to see it's not just me that there's a difference.

Type 'comic' into Google and you get the likes of Batman, Superman and the Fantastic 4.
Type 'cartoon strip' into Google and you get Garfield and Peanuts etc.

Comic Strip and Cartoon Strip seem to be interchangeable. Probably because of the word 'strip'.
'Comic' on it's own looks to be a long-form story.

To use the description 'Comics' and 'Comic Strips' would be too confusing but I think there should be a tag for telling apart 'cartoon strips' and 'comics.'

I suppose the artist must ask themselves, do I consider myself to be a cartoonist or a comic artist.
http://work.chron.com/differences-between-cartoonist-comic-artist-26287.html

[kurisquare]

Technically the word "comic" works for any kind of sequential art, whether it's a continuous story or separate strips. I'd call them comic strips? "cartoon" refers more to an art style, I think...

That aside, I like both but I think it'd be nice to have a tag to tell them apart. My comic Postcards in Braille is kind of in the middle, so I wouldn't know how to call it... XD (the pages are independent but there's an ongoing story and it's not just jokes)

@LittleEndian I think Leaves is totally a slice of life! but yeah, most of them are comic strips (and most of them are autobio, too xD it's gotten pretty common...)

[Aeonhue]

I believe There is no real difference between them because a comic/cartoon strip is just a series of panels regardless of content (spider-man is a comic strip that tells an on going story and there are others I just don't remember their names), then a comic page consists of multiple comic strips, a comic book then is a collection of comic pages. What you are looking for are gag-a-day comics there are plenty on here you just have to keep looking. On the menu bar on the Tapastic home page there is a labeled comics then go down the menu to daily feed, there a plenty that get put on there. Here is the link http://tapastic.com/feeds/best-new-webcomics or here http://tapastic.com/feeds/funniest

[UltHamBro]

I'd say that Tapastic is better suited to cartoon strips than long chapters telling stories (mainly because of the "episode" format), which is what I, personally, call "comics". That doesn't mean that you can't publish an ongoing story, though. I'm doing that myself with http://tapastic.com/series/Hearts

[PotooGryphon]

It's not just Tapastic, the internet in general is better suited for strip comics because it's easier for those to go viral. They're almost meme material where everyone from grannies to kids can get the humor and click the share button. The reader doesn't need to know any back story and doesn't need to know the characters, to enjoy a strip. It's just a funny one shot or a piece that'll make you think that anyone can pick-up and get immediately. Story comic are for the dedicated readers that are looking for more immersive story. Just a thought, but maybe us story driven comic artist could learn a thing or two from the strip artists and use strip comics as a way to promote our story comics (like the Tapactivity meme from the forum).

[Peej]

I consider myself to be a cartoonist and not a comic artist.
For me, a comic artist is someone like Stan Lee and a cartoonist is someone like Jim Davis.
I agree that Tapastic is very well geared towards invididual 'episodes' or strips. And yet they're so hard to find on here.
The 'comedy' genre isn't enough to separate the two.

I wonder if Michael from the Tapastic is reading this thread and has some thoughts on the subject.

[PotooGryphon]

Hmmm, I think Tapastic's top priority is more geared towards creators than promoting genres/types of comics. That's why I like Tapastic. There's no real favoritism on their part, they just give top advertising space to the comics that have the most popularity/interactions, and strips kind of dominate that from time to time because of their viral nature.

[DavidDaneman]

Well... here's my two cents.

There is a difference, but it isn't the one you've said.

Comics, whether short or long, are comics.

Sequence of panels (whether visible or implied) are comics.

Cartoon is an aethetic . It is less representational (re: realistic).

In truth, any character can be rendered on a scale of not cartoony (realistic) to cartoony (superdeformed/chibi).

realistic batman vs. cartoony batman vs. chibi batman

These are all drawings, but none of them are comics.

Why?

No panels.

I really recommend you read Understanding Comics

[Peej]

So, what's the difference between a comic strip and a comic?
I want to find more of the former.

[getsuart]

I think comic strips are a way more condensed than a comic itself (like said before). A comic strip also has gags, a lot of times (it's better if you want it to get viral indeed !).
While comics can also have gags in it, the story, or chapter, will last longer (even if it's only a two-pages gag/chapter) than a comic strip. A comic strip must synthesize a whole story into 3, 4 or 5 panels. It's also a difficult exercize, because you're not allowed to have a lot of panels !
I remember finding comic strips first in journals, where you didn't have a lot of space. So you had your little place, and you had to tell your funny (or not) story in there.

[DavidDaneman]

Comic strips are short, but they are still comics.

Length does not dictate subject matter.

For example, most comics in r/sadcomics are short.

Also, plenty of the comics in the newspaper ran long story archs. (Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, Doonesbury)

[Peej]

So, what I seek in Tapastic is the abiliy to filter long form comics from short form comic strips. Remove the long story arc comics from the list of gag strips.
I'm not suggesting any form of preference from Tapastic, just the ability to separate the two while searching new material to read.

[kurisquare]

But you want to filter a difference in length, or subject matter? even if you could classify "comics" and "comic strips" as separate things there's a good amount of comics that are a mix of the two (long format with only puns and no storyline, short format with storyline, etc...). I guess you can't separate all the comics in Tapastic into an A or B category...

[Peej]

Hmmmm, oh well.
It was just a suggestion.

Thanks for all the replies

[DavidDaneman]

I think that any attempt to do it from the top down would result in rather arbitrary distinctions.

But, the authors could self-separate.

We already pick genres.

We could also pick long form/short form.

[Peej]

Agreed.
I think there should be more genres but my original question was the most prominent in my mind.

For me, it wouldn't change the creators experience much as we have our genre pretty much decided when producing the comic. A few little boxes confirming our direction would make finding content so much easier.

[ToonDoctor]

Comic strips are shorter comics. The specifically originate in newspapers and were created to be serial and easy to consume - a page or a few panels per day.

The modern comic book came from the compilation of comics that publishers created in the 1930s. Slowly, these 'comic books' began incorporating new material created just for the comic, as opposed to material created for newspaper syndication first.

Today Web comics borrow from both comic books and comic strips. The subject and genre does not matter. Comic strips don't have to be about gags. One thing, though, is that comic strips tend to contain a whole shorter story in the few panels or pages where they appear. Web comics inspired by comic books are often longer form. They decompose story arcs and elements over a longer stretch of space.

[Kura]

I would actually really like some way to filter or sort long form and gag a days from each other on this site. Because of the high amount of gag a page comics that currently reside in comedy and slice of life, I'm having a really hard time finding a episodic or ongoing series that are in these categories.