Comic Cuts

Comic Cuts, published by Alfred Harmsworth, was launched on 17th May 1890, and has since then repeatedly been feted as the world's first comic book (though in fact, it wasn't: see Funny Folks and Scraps, amongst others). It was immediately popular due to its low price-one halfpenny, half the cost of its rivals. Admittedly, production costs were initially lowered by the fact that the publishers simply stole material from five year old copies of 'Scraps' and therefore didn'yt have to pay artists for a lot of their material, but a copyright action launched by Scraps publisher James Henderson put a stop to that fairly quickly. Comic Cuts beghan advertising for original sketches after that.

The success of Comic Cuts led to a succession of imitators such as Funny Cuts (later bought up by Harmsworth's Amalgamated Press), and Harmsworth himself quickly launched companion titles including the long running Illustrated Chips and, later, the Funny Wonder. Like Chips, Comic Cuts was eventually cancelled (after a not unimpressive 63 years!) on 12th september 1953. It was incorporated into Knockout.