The Gumps

This Sunday page from *The Gumps* follows the strip's protagonist as he attempts a cross-country automobile journey. The narrative unfolds across twelve panels with characteristic early-twentieth-century comic technique: clear panel borders, speech balloons that advance plot and character, and recurring figures like the rotund Andy Gump returning throughout. The strip's visual grammar—sequential panels showing cause-and-effect, comedic timing through composition—reflects the formal innovations that transformed newspaper comics into a distinct medium. Created by Sidney Smith, *The Gumps* was among the first continuity strips to sustain reader interest across weeks and months, establishing narrative patterns that would define the serialized comic strip and influence subsequent comic book storytelling.