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From the exhibition

Mamma's Angel Child Gets Her Nose Out of Joint

· October 17, 1909

Mamma's Angel Child Gets Her Nose Out of Joint
This Sunday strip from the Chicago Tribune follows a curly-haired child through six panels of escalating mischief. A man in formal dress pursues the child, who tumbles, spins, and evades capture across the page. Speech balloons carry rapid dialogue as the narrative unfolds through sequential action. The strip exemplifies early newspaper comics' visual vocabulary: panel borders, expressive linework, and gestural drawing that conveys motion and emotion. By 1909, Sunday pages had become prime real estate for comic storytelling, combining humor with dynamic compositions that filled the full page. Artists developed shorthand for character types and emotional states—the cherubic child, the exasperated adult—establishing templates still used in comics today.

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