Illustrating Webster

This Sunday comic strip by Frank L. Stanton Jr. demonstrates the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: multiple panels arranged in sequence, speech balloons carrying dialogue, and recurring characters in exaggerated poses. The strip illustrates Webster's dictionary definition of "heterostrophy"—being pulled in the opposite direction—through slapstick action: a man struggles with a woman dancer while onlookers fall and tumble in contrasting directions. The format typifies the educational-entertainment hybrid common in newspapers of the 1910s, where humor served as a vehicle for vocabulary lessons. These Sunday pages established the template later adopted by comic books: sequential art, character design, panel rhythm, and word-image integration that shaped the medium's visual grammar.