From the exhibition
Papa Goat Helps the Brave Policeman
· circa 1905

This Sunday comic strip features Papa Goat, a recurring character in early newspaper comics, whose horns and stubborn nature drive the gags. The strip employs the visual vocabulary now standard to comics: sequential panels, speech balloons, action lines, and a protagonist whose physical attributes generate humor across six panels. The narrative follows a simple escalation: a policeman chasing a thief past a goat, the goat's intervention, and the chaotic result. Such strips appeared in Sunday newspaper supplements, establishing the formal language that would define the medium—repeating characters in episodic adventures, readable left-to-right and top-to-bottom, with typography integral to the comedy.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain