From the exhibition
Etta Kett
· 1920s–1930s
Paul Robinson's *Etta Kett* followed the adventures of a teenage girl navigating school, romance, and family life. The strip's panel structure—dialogue-driven scenes that move sequentially through domestic and social situations—exemplifies the visual grammar newspapers developed in the 1920s. Speech balloons carry character voice; sequential panels establish cause and effect. *Etta Kett* appeared in daily papers and Sunday editions, reaching millions of readers before comic books reprinted newspaper strips as bound collections. The recurring teenage protagonist and her social world became a template for humor comics, establishing the slice-of-life domestic strip as a distinct form within the medium's emerging visual language.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain
