Bertie Believes He's a Great Pitcher

This Sunday strip follows Bertie, a boy convinced of his baseball prowess, through a series of pitching lessons and mishaps. Across six panels, the narrative unfolds through speech balloons and sequential action: Bertie studies instruction manuals, practices his form outdoors, attempts to impress onlookers, and finally faces skepticism from his peers. The strip employs the visual conventions pioneered in early newspaper comics—bordered panels, expressive line work, and recurring characters interacting in domestic and recreational settings. By 1909, such strips were foundational to American popular culture, appearing daily and Sunday in major papers and establishing the grammar that would define comic books: the panel structure, dialogue conventions, and episodic humor that became the medium's visual language.