Quiz: How well do you know vintage comic strips?

During the late 19th century, the modern comic strip began as ammunition in a newspaper war between the giants of the American Press.

The first full-color comic strip appeared in the New York World in January 1894. The first full-color weekly comic strip supplement, like today's funnies, appeared two years later in rival New York paper, the Morning Journal.

Both were extremely popular, and publishers knew the comics would boost paper sales. Newspaper syndication then played a huge role in spreading the popularity of comic strips throughout the country.

Interestingly, the weekly colored strips came first. The daily black-and-white strips were not far behind them, the first one appeared in the Chicago American in 1904.

"The Yellow Kid", by Richard Outcault, was the first continuous comic character in the United States. It's dialogue was total urban farce, and it came to characterize later strips. It also introduced the speech balloon inside the strip, placed above the characters' heads.

Starting in 1915, the black-and-white comic strip became an essential element in daily newspapers around the U.S.

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