Before the Flood

John B. Cruelle's *Before the Flood* demonstrates the visual storytelling conventions that shaped early newspaper comics. The strip employs multiple panels, speech balloons, and anthropomorphic characters engaged in anarchic physical comedy—a formula inherited from comic weeklies and vaudeville. The narrative follows campaign preparations and political scheming through slapstick action and exaggerated expressions. Cruelle's crowded compositions and dense linework reflect the Sunday supplement style that influenced comic strip development. Newspaper comics of this era established the sequential panel format, recurring character types, and visual gags that became foundational to the comic book medium emerging decades later.