A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper. As of 2014, the three longest-running comics of all time were all British.
Cover of Illustrated Chips in 1896 featuring the first appearance of the long-running comic strip of the tramps Weary Willie and Tired Tim.
Cover to The Beano, January 6, 1940 edition.
Cover of Eagle, 12 October 1963.
A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
Richard Newton Progress of a Scotsman 1794 (British Museum)
Thomas Rowlandson after G.M.Woodward. Opinions on the Divorce Bill 1800 (Metropolitan Museum, New York)
Thomas Rowlandson My Wife 1815 (Metropolitan Museum New York)
Illustrated Chips (1896). Harmsworth titles enjoyed a monopoly of comics in the UK until the emergence of DC Thomson comics in the 1930s.