Spotlight on Sunday strip layout

The full page years

The early Mandrake Sunday strips filled an entire newspaper page. Phil Davis layout his first Sunday story with 4 strips a page before he started experimenting with different variants of layout. The various pages could have 2, 3 or 4 strips and some panels could span more than one row.

In the first Sunday story Phil Davis also experimented with the logo for the pages.

The first logo and variants for the Sunday pages

synopsis variant

The second logo and variants for the Sunday pages

The third logo and variants for the Sunday pages

most common
synopsis variant
from time to time
from March 22, 1959

The full and half page years

Because of paper shortages during World War II some newspapers requested possibility to print the Mandrake Sunday strips on a half page. Phil Davis started to layout the pages so the numbered panels could be rearranged to fit both a full or half page. The last page made for full page only was at April 26, 1942. From the strip of March 22, 1959 the logo shrunk.

The full, half and third page years

To save the expense of printing so many color pages some newspapers requested possibility to print the Mandrake Sunday strips on a third page. The layout changed and one can find two common logos in this period.

Only the full and half format is complete and the third page dropping the top row from the half page. Such "throwaway" panels often contain material that is not vital to the main part of the strip.