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From the exhibition

The Duchess Plays with the Children

· July 27, 1902

The Duchess Plays with the Children
This Sunday comic strip adapts Lewis Carroll's *Alice in Wonderland*, depicting the Duchess and children playing seesaw. The six-panel sequence uses a grid layout with speech balloons and sequential action to convey narrative movement—visual techniques pioneered in the 1890s newspaper comics that established the formal grammar of the medium. The Duchess's exaggerated features and the children's animated poses demonstrate how early comic artists used caricature and body language to drive humor across panels without relying solely on text. Sunday newspaper supplements like this became the primary venue for comic strip experimentation before comic books emerged as a distinct format.

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