Bungleton Green by L. Rogers

This Sunday page from *The Chicago Defender* follows Bungleton Green, a newly elected judge caught in a comic misadventure. The narrative unfolds across nine panels with speech balloons and sequential action: Green is struck by a car, hospitalized, confused for a criminal by police, and ultimately sentenced to jail despite his protests of innocence. Rogers employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics—numbered panels, varied compositions, and escalating slapstick—to propel the story forward. By the 1920s, newspaper comics had become the primary laboratory for developing the medium's visual language, with recurring characters and serialized plots drawing readers daily. African American papers like the *Defender* serialized strips that reached communities underserved by mainstream comics.