Circus Solly Sells a Stork and a Pelican

This Sunday comic strip follows Circus Solly's scheme to auction off exotic animals to unsuspecting buyers. The narrative unfolds across nine panels, each advancing the con through dialogue and physical comedy. The stork and pelican serve as props in a transaction that spirals into chaos—typical of early newspaper comics' reliance on slapstick and rapid scene changes. The strip demonstrates the visual conventions that emerged in Sunday supplements: sequential panels, speech balloons, recurring character types (fast-talking hustlers, gullible marks), and dense composition. By 1905, such strips populated the comics pages of major newspapers, creating a new visual language that would become foundational to the medium. The exaggerated line work and caricatured figures reflect the cartooning style of the early 1900s Sunday funnies.