Etta Kett by Paul Robinson

A daily strip following the escapades of Etta Kett, a spirited young woman navigating urban life. Robinson's panel layout and sequential storytelling—speech balloons advancing plot through dialogue, recurring characters and settings—exemplify the visual grammar that newspaper comics developed from their inception. Etta Kett appeared in both daily strips and Sunday pages, formats that became the direct antecedent to the comic book. The strip's humor derives from physical comedy, circumstantial misadventure, and the clash between Etta's schemes and social convention. Such strips, syndicated nationally and read by millions, established the conventions—character consistency, narrative pacing through panels, integration of words and images—that would define American comics for decades.