From the exhibition
Betsy Bouncer and Her Doll
· 1904

This Sunday comic strip follows Betsy Bouncer, a mischievous child character, through six panels of escalating domestic chaos. Armed with a stick, Betsy and her doll create havoc—first with simple play, then progressing to broken eggs, overturned furniture, and increasingly exasperated adults. The strip employs speech balloons, sequential panel narrative, and a recurring child protagonist—visual conventions becoming standard in early newspaper comics. Strips like this populated Sunday supplements in the early 1900s, establishing the visual grammar that would define comic books: panels advancing narrative, dialogue in bubbles, and character-driven humor. The energy and slapstick pacing reflect the anarchic comedy style dominant in newspaper funny pages before 1910.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain