From the exhibition
Home Wanted by a Baby!
· April 15, 1913

Clare Victor Dwiggins's Sunday strip follows a harried couple and their adopted infant through domestic chaos. The narrative unfolds across six panels using speech balloons and sequential art to track the baby's destructive path through the home—knocking over furniture, scattering belongings, and generally wreaking havoc. Dwiggins employs the visual conventions establishing newspaper comics: distinct panel borders, expressive line work, and recurring characters in predicaments. The strip's humor derives from escalating physical comedy and the adults' exasperated reactions. This work exemplifies the Sunday supplement comics that bridged the gap between illustration and the emerging comic book form, relying on panels, dialogue, and character consistency to sustain narrative across installments.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain