From the exhibition
Citizen Fixit: Interferes with Halloween Sport
· October 30, 1904

This Sunday comic strip depicts a meddling authority figure who confiscates Halloween pranks from neighborhood children. Across five panels, the narrative follows a confrontation over a stolen gate, with the adult character insisting the children return their "destructive" tricks. The strip employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, exaggerated expressions, and repeated characters to drive a simple gag. By the early 1900s, the Sunday newspaper page had become the primary vehicle for comics, establishing the visual grammar—panel borders, word balloons, action lines—that would form the foundation of the medium. Artists working in this era developed the formal vocabulary that cartoonists still use today.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain