ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Alice's Adventures in Funnyland

· November 10, 1901

Alice's Adventures in Funnyland
This Sunday page introduces Alice and her companion Jomie to a cast of grotesque characters inhabiting Funnyland. The strip employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, exaggerated character design, and visual gags built around physical comedy and absurdist encounters. The layout organizes action across the page in a loose, playful arrangement typical of the Sunday supplement format. By 1901, newspaper comics had begun establishing recurring characters and dreamlike narrative worlds, drawing readers back week after week. Alice's journey through a fantastic realm populated by outsized personalities and surreal situations exemplifies how cartoonists were adapting literary and theatrical traditions to the evolving language of the comics page.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain