Economical Bertie Saves His Appetite for the Banquet

This Sunday comic from the Tribune Company employs sequential panels and speech balloons to chronicle a gentleman's scheme to save money by eating cheaply before attending a formal banquet. Each panel advances the narrative through visual action and dialogue: a butcher shop exchange, preparation of an economical meal, hunger pangs, a slip on a banana peel, a collision with a well-dressed stranger, and a final pratfall into dinner. The strip exemplifies early newspaper comics' visual grammar—recurring character, panel borders marking time and space, and physical comedy—that became foundational to comic book language. The artist uses exaggerated postures and slapstick progression to deliver the payoff: Bertie's frugality undone by circumstance, hungry at the event.