Brothers Alfred and Harold Harmsworth first came to prominence with 1888's Answers, a cut-and-paste Tit-Bits rip-off of letter responses, witticisms and tips often swiped from American magazines.
[7] The result was Illustrated Chips, which - after an abortive run as a text heavy tabloid revealed the public simply wanted more of the same as Cuts[2] - went on to be a huge success in its own right.
While a sign of the title's rapid growth in popularity and profitability, there have also been suggestions that the reused American material clashed with the reprint rights of rival publisher James Henderson & Sons.
[2] As it was the stagnant economy meant Victorian London was full of struggling writers and artists, and the gradual switch to original material only ate into a small portion of Comic Cuts' profit margin.
Early respondents included Roland Hill (who contributed the first in-house strip to the fourth issue, a cartoon titled "Those Cheap Excursions"[8]), Oliver Veal[8] and the 20-year old Tom Browne.
On 14 February 1891 Comic Cuts had carried its first full-page cartoon strip, and in the same edition the text story "The Legend of Ivy Towers" by James Woods, became the title's first serial feature.
As the issues were frequently passed between friends, colleagues and family members, and the comic's fictional editor Clarence C. Cutts would proclaim the title had a million readers.
From 3 March 1894 Comic Cuts began a series of proto-pinups under the heading "Our Sweethearts", featuring realistically drawn beautiful women - albeit in line with Victorian wiles by being fashionably but very fully dressed.
Comic Cuts also instigated a regular tradition of the double-size "Christmas number", typically featuring snow on the masthead, holiday-related content and seasonal greetings from the editor.
[9] Meanwhile, the features in Comic Cuts and its ilk were becoming more sophisticated as the medium grew, moving away from single panel cartoons and towards more ambitious sequential strips - referred to in contemporary industrial vernacular as 'sets' - and recurring characters.
[8] The following year Frank Holland's amoral burglar character Chokee Bill arrived after stints on Illustrated Chips and The Comic Home Journal, claiming the front page of Cuts from 27 February 1897 until 1900.
While both his punishing (self-imposed) schedule and growing profile saw Browne largely work elsewhere before his early death in 1910, his style would be the gold standard for the British comic industry until well into the thirties.
[8] New arrivals in this period included "The Mackabeentosh Family" (1902), "Lucky Lucas and Happy Harry" (1904, drawn by Tom Wilkinson) and "Fun Aboard the Mary Ann" (started in 1907, with Arthur White as artist).
[5] In 1907 G. M. Payne, set to be an AP regular over the next 30 years, debuted the popular "Gertie the Regimental Pet", and Julius Stafford-Baker introduced "Sammy Salt the Submariner"; Baker would also draw a revival of Comic Cuts Colony in 1910; neither concept nor content were any improvement, however.
[3] The next year saw Cocking debut hapless on-licence criminal "Tom the Ticket-of-Leave Man", who swiftly became a reader favourite and was firmly ensconced on the front cover.
Another long-running strip to debut was Alex Akerbladh's "Waddles the Waiter" in 1912; the same year saw Bertie Brown devise "Pansy Pancake" and Joe Hardman] introduce "Chuckles the Clown".
[1][10] World War I broke out in 1914, and the comic took on a topical tone with cartoons often making fun of the Central Powers, though serious war-themed material was confined to text stories.
However, his respite was short lived as the following year Cocking introduced Jackie and Sammy, the Terrible Twins - heavily influenced by American newspaper strip "The Katzenjammer Kids" - as his mischievous nephews.
Both AP and its rivals made periodic attempts to create a lavish replacement but these tended to fade rapidly while Cuts and Chips' cheap, cheerful consistency proved enduring.
Features continued to be periodically replaced and refreshed; for example, "Fun on Board the Mary Anne" was superseded by "Captain Cod's Voyage of Discovery" as a source of nautical japes in 1921, while Waddles hung up his serving plates in 1925.
[12] Other prolific artists of the period included Charlie Pease ("Felix the Fat", "Wee Willie Winkie" and the wince-inducing "Darkie Mo the Jolly Juju", all in 1926; "Julius and Sneezer" from 1928: "Mannikin Mansions" in 1933; "Tinker and Tich" in 1936; and "Captain Clipper", "Curly Pimple" and "Lulu and Togo" in 1938), Harry Banger ("Enoch Hard" from 1926, then proving it wasn't just black people who were mocked in "Yesma the Sheik" and "Cheekichap the Jap" in 1927, and "Stanley the Stationmaster" in 1930), and Louis Briault ("The Rollicking Little Rascals of Raspberry Road" in 1926, "Flora Flannel" in 1929, "Shrimp and Spot" in 1930 and "Merry Mascots" in 1937).
Compared to the previous conflict, this featured a drastic increase in aerial and submarine warfare, and even before the unexpected fall of France made more of an impression on the British home front.
Price had also began working on amiable charlady "Big-Hearted Martha" only a few months before war was declared and in the 14 October 1939 edition signed up to do her bit as an air warden.
(which was taken over by a young Ken Reid, who also created "Foxy" and "Billy Boffin" for Cuts[7]), which in turn would make way for a strip based on entertainer Albert Modley.