From the exhibition
Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade
· 1904

This Sunday comic strip follows Major Ozone's campaign to promote fresh air as a health cure, using a seated woman as his subject. The narrative unfolds across six panels with overlapping dialogue and physical comedy: the Major's scheme, his preparation, and the woman's resistant reaction. The strip demonstrates key innovations of early newspaper comics—sequential panels with speech balloons, a recurring character type, and visual gags that build momentum. The sketchy crosshatching and bold linework typify the style of early 1900s Sunday pages, when comic strips were becoming essential features of American newspapers and establishing the visual language that would define the medium.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain