Alphonse and Gaston

Frederick Burr Opper's *Alphonse and Gaston* centers on two French characters locked in exaggerated politeness, each insisting the other proceed first through doorways and down streets. The strip's visual narrative unfolds across six panels with increasing absurdity—the gentlemen's mutual deference leads to physical comedy and collision. Speech balloons anchor dialogue while sequential panels track cause and effect, establishing conventions that would define newspaper comics. The strip ran in the *New York Journal*, part of the Sunday supplement boom that provided the economic foundation and artistic laboratory for the modern comic form. Opper's repeated characters and sight gags demonstrated how serialized comics could sustain reader interest across weeks, influencing both daily strips and the comic books that emerged two decades later.