The House of Mirth

This Sunday strip exemplifies early comic narrative technique: sequential panels with recurring characters in top hats and formal dress enacting a physical comedy sequence. The protagonist repeatedly attempts and fails to enter a building, with each panel advancing the gag through escalating mishaps. Speech balloons drive plot and punchlines, while the artist uses heavy blacks and fine crosshatching typical of newspaper reproduction. The strip demonstrates how Sunday pages—published in color supplements—became laboratories for visual storytelling, establishing conventions of panel grid, character consistency, and timing that would define the emerging comic book medium.