Katzenjammer Kids — "The Captain's Revenge!"

Six Sunday-page panels follow the Captain's scheme to frighten the household by hiding under a tiger-skin rug, only to be thrashed by Mama wielding a rolling pin while the kids and Hans watch from safety. Rudolph Dirks launched *The Katzenjammer Kids* in 1897 for William Randolph Hearst's *New York Journal*, directly modeling it on Wilhelm Busch's *Max und Moritz*. Dirks codified the tools every cartoonist still uses: bordered panels in fixed sequence, integrated speech balloons, and a cast of recurring characters whose personalities drive the gag. Those Sunday pages—printed in color, distributed nationally—are the direct ancestors of the comic book format that would emerge four decades later.