H. E. Butzin Sizes Up the Thanksgiving Spread

A single-panel comic depicting H. E. Butzin observing an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner table laden with labeled dishes: roasted turkey, duck soup, hen-berry sauce, climbing mixed vegetables, deodorized asparagus, parsnip ketchup, and various condiments and trimmings. The artist renders the feast in detailed cross-hatching and linear perspective, with Butzin positioned at left expressing delight ("Yum-m! Yum-m!") while labels float above each dish identifying its contents. The composition exemplifies early newspaper comic practice: a densely packed single frame using speech balloons, typography, and visual annotation to convey humor through abundance and excess rather than sequential narrative panels. This approach represents transitional cartooning between nineteenth-century illustrated humor and emerging twentieth-century comic strip conventions.