Indoor Sports

This single-panel comic by Tad Dorgan depicts a domestic scene built on visual gag and social observation. The strip shows a couple at a dinner party attempting the parlor game of "hickey"—a challenge to induce laughter while keeping one's feet under the table. Speech balloons layer complaints, explanations, and asides across multiple figures, a narrative technique perfected in newspaper comics of the 1910s. Dorgan's ink style employs cross-hatching and fluid line work typical of the era's Sunday pages. The composition chains multiple conversations in one frame, creating comedic density through overlapping dialogue and character interaction. Recurring in newspapers nationwide, such domestic humor strips helped establish visual storytelling conventions—recurring characters, speech balloons, and panel-based narrative—that became foundational to American comic art.