Sherlocko: The Great Lighthouse Mystery

Gus Mager's *Sherlocko* strip demonstrates the visual storytelling conventions established by newspaper comics in the 1920s. The three-panel Sunday page uses sequential narrative, speech balloons, and recurring detective characters to build comedic mystery. Watson reports a crime at the lighthouse; Sherlocko deduces the culprit broke through a window. The final panel's promised continuation—a hallmark of newspaper serials—encouraged reader loyalty across multiple days. Mager's clean linework and economical character design typify the accessibility that made comic strips America's most widely consumed narrative form before the comic book industry emerged in the 1930s.