Katzenjammer Kids — 1903-12-20

Nine panels follow Hans and Fritz, the incorrigible Katzenjammer twins, as the Captain tries using a caged tiger to frighten them straight — only to have the boys escape, the tiger turn out to be the Captain in a striped costume, and the whole scheme collapse in a volley of thrown pumpkins and a ladder-assisted retreat. Rudolf Dirks drew the strip in a loose, kinetic ink line, packing each panel with motion lines, phonetic sound effects (*GR-R-R*, *O-RA-HA*), and overlapping speech balloons — the visual grammar now standard in comics. Launched in 1897 for the *New York Journal*, the *Katzenjammer Kids* is the longest-running American comic strip and a direct ancestor of the Sunday page format that would, within three decades, be reprinted as bound pamphlets: the comic book.