Barnacle Bros / The Octafying Mysicle Of... / Hillmer & Holmes

This three-panel Sunday strip demonstrates the visual conventions that defined newspaper comics: recurring characters, sequential storytelling across panels, and speech balloons advancing the narrative. The left panel introduces two brothers discussing retirement; the center reveals a fortune-teller's octopus prophecy; the right shows the promised transformation. The strip's anthropomorphic sea creatures and wordplay were typical of early comic humor. Newspaper comics like these established the formal language of sequential art—panel borders, dialogue placement, and character consistency—that would become foundational to the comic book medium that emerged from Sunday newspaper supplements.