ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Bobby Make-Believe

· June 3, 1917

Bobby Make-Believe
This Sunday strip follows Bobby, a boy who imagines himself tall enough to perform extraordinary feats. Each panel stages a physical gag: Bobby as a stilt-walker, a fisherman at an absurd height, a pole-vaulter, a trapeze artist. The strip's visual economy—simple line work, sequential panel arrangement, speech balloons anchoring action—exemplifies early newspaper comic craft. Character-driven humor and impossible scenarios made such strips essential Sunday features. The recurring protagonist allowed readers to follow Bobby's elaborate fantasies week to week, establishing narrative continuity that became foundational to comic strip storytelling.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain