And Her Name Was Maud

This Sunday comic strip follows a classic slapstick narrative: a grand Santa Claus arrives at a home, only to be kicked out by its occupant—a mule named Maud. What ensues is pure physical comedy across nine panels, as the stubborn animal pursues Santa through snow and street, leading him to advertise Smith's Liniment for bruises and bumps. The strip exemplifies early newspaper comics' reliance on recurring animal characters, sequential panel narration with speech balloons, and sight gags that required no literacy. Such strips filled Sunday supplements and drove newspaper circulation in the early 1900s, establishing the visual language and episodic structure that would define the medium for decades.