Goops

Gelett Burgess's *Goops* comic strip presents nine panels of slapstick domestic chaos centered on a recurring cast of round-headed characters and a woman repeatedly offering her seat. The strip employs sequential panels with speech balloons to establish a simple moral lesson through visual comedy—the consequences of bad manners. Published in Sunday newspapers, *Goops* exemplifies how early comic strips used repeating characters and escalating gags across multiple panels to tell brief stories. Burgess's accessible linework and clear panel progression typify the newspaper comic page format that directly preceded and shaped the development of the modern comic book.