The Ump Tribune Comic Strip

This Sunday page showcases the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics. Multiple panels track a narrative across the page: workers await coal delivery in the left strip, while the center features dynamic action around a coal strike. The right panel shifts to domestic comedy with a grandfather and grandchild. Speech balloons, thought clouds, and sequential framing guide readers through gags and plot. The artist employs thick inking and loose linework typical of 1919 cartooning. Recurring working-class characters and topical humor—here, labor disputes—were standard fare in dailies and Sunday supplements, which functioned as the true origin of comic storytelling before the modern comic book format emerged in the 1930s.