Flapper Fanny by Gladys Parker

Gladys Parker's *Flapper Fanny* follows a young woman navigating urban life with quick wit and physical comedy. This strip exemplifies the newspaper comic form that emerged in the 1920s: recurring characters, sequential panels with speech balloons, and gags built on visual timing. Parker's pen line is clean and economical, making expressions and body language instantly readable across multiple panels. The humor trades on wordplay and situation comedy—a half-hour of quiet buys a nickel, Janie's silence meets its match. *Flapper Fanny* ran in Sunday and daily formats, helping establish the visual vocabulary that would anchor the comic book medium when it crystallized in the 1930s. Parker was among the first women to sustain a nationally syndicated daily strip.