The Doo Dads: A Hot Day in Dooville

This Sunday strip follows the Doo Dads—a family of abstract, creature-like characters—through a sweltering day in their town. The narrative unfolds across twelve panels: a vendor hawks ice, an elephant trunk becomes a makeshift cooler, a massive block of ice slides chaotically downhill, and finally lodges against a tree where the family finds refuge from the heat. The strip demonstrates the visual storytelling conventions that defined 1920s newspaper comics: sequential panels, speech balloons, comic timing through pacing, and escalating physical comedy. The recurring characters and their misadventures reflect the humor formulas popularized in the Sunday funnies, which served as the direct precursor to the comic book medium that emerged in the 1930s.