Bobby Make-Believe

This Sunday strip follows Bobby, a child character whose imagination transforms everyday situations into fantastical scenarios. The narrative arc spans six panels: Bobby overhears adults discussing weight lifting, then visualizes himself performing feats of strength—hefting a bell, wrestling a bull, winning tug-of-war contests. The artist uses sequential panels, speech balloons, and visual contrasts between Bobby's modest reality and his exaggerated fantasy sequences. Bobby Make-Believe exemplifies the newspaper comic strip format that emerged in the early 20th century, where recurring child protagonists and imaginative humor drove daily and Sunday page readership. The strip's reliance on panel progression and dialogue balloons—now standard visual grammar—reflects the formal innovations that transformed comics from single-panel gags into narrative sequences.