Etta Kett by Paul Robinson

Etta Kett follows a flapper protagonist through daily misadventures—here, a tumble into water and an encounter with a chimney sweep. Robinson's strip exemplifies the visual conventions that shaped early comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, expressive black silhouettes for emphasis, and slapstick humor tied to character personality. The strip appeared in newspapers as both daily and Sunday installments, part of the syndicated comic strips that established the medium's foundation before comic books existed as separate publications. Robinson's clean line work and rhythmic panel layouts demonstrate how newspaper cartoonists of this era invented the visual grammar—pacing, staging, and visual gags—that would define comics for decades.