The Gumps

A domestic comedy strip following the middle-class Gump family through everyday financial anxieties and social mishaps. Here, father Andy wrestles with household expenses while a talking parrot offers sardonic commentary—a recurring device that anchors the humor. The strip uses sequential panel layout, speech balloons, and sight gags to propel narrative. *The Gumps*, which debuted in 1917, was among the first comic strips to develop continuing characters and serialized storylines. Its success demonstrated that newspapers could sustain reader loyalty through daily installments, establishing the template for the comic-strip industry and later the comic book format itself.