The Gumps

Sidney Smith's *The Gumps* follows a middle-class family through domestic comedy and mild adventure. Here, young Billy tangles with an older boy, leading to parental intervention and moral instruction. Smith employs the visual conventions that shaped the medium: rectangular panels in grid sequence, speech balloons anchored to speakers, and a protagonist who recurs across episodes. The strip's narrative arc spans multiple panels, establishing cause-and-effect storytelling through sequential art. *The Gumps* exemplifies how Sunday newspaper comics functioned as serialized visual narratives, employing compositional techniques—varied panel sizes, exaggerated gesture, spot blacks—that became foundational to comic book design.