ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

The Diary of Snubs, Our Dog

· 1923

The Diary of Snubs, Our Dog
This single-panel Sunday comic presents a dog's misadventure in teaching a cat to dig. Through five sequential illustrations arranged vertically, Snubs the dog narrates his attempt to instruct Sponge in canine behavior—only to be rebuffed when the cat declares it would rather climb trees. The strip employs the visual conventions that defined early comics: multiple scenes within one panel, speech balloons anchoring character voice, and expressive line work that conveys personality and action. The narrative structure—setup, demonstration, and comedic reversal—became standard in newspaper humor strips, which served as direct precursors to the comic book medium. Such Sunday pages, appearing in major publications across America, established the foundational grammar of sequential art.

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