ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Keeping Up with the Joneses

· October 19, 1913

Keeping Up with the Joneses
This Sunday strip follows the comic misadventures of a family striving to match their neighbors' social status. The narrative unfolds across six panels, each advancing the plot through dialogue and action: a wife scolds her husband about their modest wagon, he attempts to win her heart with promises of luxury, she sets her sights on a neighbor's uncle, and chaos ensues involving a carriage ride and a horse. The strip employs the visual vocabulary that defined early newspaper comics—sequential panels, speech balloons, and expressive line work—establishing recurring characters in domestic situations. Launched in 1913, the strip became a fixture of Sunday funny pages, its title entering common parlance as shorthand for social competition and consumer desire.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain