Topper (comic strip)

[1] Toppers were introduced by King Features Syndicate during the 1920s, enabling newspaper editors to claim more comic strips without adding more pages.

The practice allowed newspapers to drop the topper and place another strip or an additional advertisement into the Sunday comics section.

On May 16, 1926, Harold Knerr began Dinglehoofer und His Dog [fr], a topper to The Katzenjammer Kids, which ran until two years after his death.

In the mid-1930s, DeBeck added alongside Bunky a single-panel topper, Knee-Hi-Knoodles, depictions of kids' funny remarks (contributed by readers).

A big fan of Bunky was pulp author Robert E. Howard, who liked to quote from the strip, as noted by his friend Tevis Clyde Smith: His affection for Bunker Hill – "Youse is a viper, Fagin."

[2][3]Characters in toppers sometimes turned up in the main strip, such as Herby appearing in Smitty, and Kitty Higgins joining the cast of Moon Mullins.

Gene Ahern's topper The Squirrel Cage, which ran above his Room and Board, is notable because of the repetitive use of the nonsensical question, "Nov shmoz ka pop?

This happened on April 17, 1938, when an absent-minded character in the Rosie's Beau topper realized he was in the wrong place and climbed down into the first panel of Bringing Up Father, arriving in the living room of Maggie and Jiggs.

The first, Pete's Pup, was a dog strip, sort of a canine counterpart to the Mutt and Jeff topper, Cicero's Cat.

Holtz notes: It is a popular assumption in newspaper strip fan circles that World War II is what killed the toppers.

The strip Fat Freddy's Cat appeared as a topper in the underground comic book The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.