Kernel Cootie

A four-panel gag strip following a man's futile attempt to hide liquor in his house during Prohibition. The humor escalates across panels as his brother discovers the hidden bottle, leading to a chaotic chase around the block. The strip employs the visual conventions of early newspaper comics: sequential panel layout, expressive line work, speech balloons for dialogue, and a recurring protagonist whose misadventures drive the narrative. Published during the height of Prohibition's enforcement, *Kernel Cootie* captures the popular comic subject of illicit alcohol—a staple of 1920s humor in both dailies and Sunday pages that helped establish comic strips as a distinct medium with their own storytelling grammar.