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From the exhibition

Herr Spiegleburger Caught by the Wild Waves

· August 20, 1905

Herr Spiegleburger Caught by the Wild Waves
This Sunday comic page follows Herr Spiegleburger through a seaside mishap as he and companions are swept up by a massive tidal wave. The strip employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: sequential panels advancing the narrative, expressive character work, and substantial dialogue balloons conveying both action and humor. The artist stages the action across six panels with dynamic compositions that emphasize the chaos of the water and the characters' frantic responses. Spiegleburger and his fellow swimmers tumble, gasp, and struggle across the page as the wave grows and sweeps them along the beach. Sunday pages like this one were central to the comics industry's birth, offering artists space to experiment with page layouts, sequential storytelling, and recurring characters that would become the formal grammar of the medium.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain