Alphonse and Gaston

A Sunday comic strip featuring two French characters caught in an escalating comedy of manners. Alphonse and Gaston, drawn in bold pen lines with dense crosshatching, play out their routine: each insists the other take precedence, leading to absurd consequences. The strip demonstrates the visual vocabulary that newspaper comics were establishing—sequential panels advancing narrative, dialogue balloons anchored to speakers, and recurring character types. By the early 1900s, Sunday color supplements drove the medium's growth, allowing artists to experiment with layout and scale. This strip's six-panel grid and physical comedy influenced how comics told stories in discrete, readable moments.