From the exhibition
A Few Laughs with the Comic Artists
· Early 1900s

This newspaper Sunday page collects work by multiple cartoonists, showcasing the visual techniques that defined early comics: sequential panels, speech balloons, exaggerated character expressions, and recurring figures. The strips mix domestic humor, slapstick, and social observation through vignettes featuring children, couples, and absurdist scenarios. By the early 1900s, Sunday newspaper comics had become a standard feature, employing panel layouts and character design that would directly influence the comic book format. These pages demonstrated that sequential art could sustain reader interest across multiple gags and establish a visual language audiences understood without explanatory text.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain