Make-A-Comic

This instructional comic strip demonstrates the visual conventions that had crystallized by the 1920s: sequential panels, speech balloons, and recurring characters. The strip follows a group of young women through a beach scenario, using sight gags and dialogue to develop narrative across four panels. Each panel advances the story—from romantic introductions through confusion and mishap to comedic resolution. The style exemplifies how newspaper comics had become a distinct language, with artists employing panel borders, motion lines, and facial expressions to convey action and emotion. By the twenties, these Sunday and daily newspaper strips had established the visual grammar that would define comic books when they emerged in the following decade.