Keeping Up with the Joneses

A Sunday newspaper strip following the social aspirations of an urban family caught in competitive display. The Joneses attempt leisure activities—boating, travel, fashionable pursuits—that strain their finances and social standing. Artist Pop Momand created this strip as a direct satire of his own neighbors' spending habits, launching a phrase that would enter common speech. The strip exemplifies early comic strip construction: multiple panels with sequential narrative, speech balloons advancing plot and character, and recurring protagonists. Running in newspapers nationwide, *Keeping Up with the Joneses* demonstrated the commercial viability of character-driven humor strips and helped establish the visual and narrative conventions that would define American comics for decades.