ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Great Caesar's Ghost and Great Caesar's Goat

· January 11, 1914

Great Caesar's Ghost and Great Caesar's Goat
A nine-panel Sunday strip following a con man's scheme with a goat impersonating a ghost. The narrative unfolds through clear sequential panels, speech balloons, and visual gags—a man summons what he believes is Caesar's spirit, only to discover a goat in costume. The strip employs the formal dress and urban settings typical of early twentieth-century newspaper comics. Artist A.E. Hayward uses consistent character design and expressive linework to guide readers through the joke's escalating absurdity. Sunday comics like this, appearing in papers nationwide, established the visual and narrative conventions—panel layout, dialogue balloons, recurring situations—that would become the foundation of the comic book medium.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain