The Adventures of Johnny Mouse

This strip demonstrates the visual vocabulary of early newspaper comics: sequential panels, speech balloons, and a recurring animal protagonist. Johnny Mouse encounters a paint bucket and attempts to determine its color through direct investigation—a simple sight gag built on physical comedy and animal mischief. The four-panel progression shows cause and effect, with the final panel's punchline delivered through visual consequence rather than dialogue. Such strips populated Sunday and daily newspaper pages in the 1910s, establishing the format and timing conventions that would become the foundation of the comic book medium.