From the exhibition
H. E. Butzin Gets a Line on the Trans-Continental Balloonatics
· November 8, 1908

A Sunday comic strip following H. E. Butzin's misadventures with a hot-air balloon expedition. Across six panels, the protagonist encounters escalating disasters: discovering something in the sky, a crash landing, a building collapse, and a final curse from an angry property owner. The strip employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics—sequential panel layout, expressive character drawings, and dialogue balloons advancing the narrative. Butzin's physical comedy and slapstick style reflect the humor dominant in Sunday supplements of the early 1900s, when newspaper comic strips served as a primary entertainment medium and established the visual language that would become fundamental to comic books.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain