Militant Mary

This single-panel comic by Steve Hyde announces a vision of female power with satirical urgency. A wide-eyed woman in a long dress and hat declares that within twenty years, girls will rule the world and force men to remain home cooking and sweeping. The exaggerated facial expression and simplified line work are typical of newspaper comics of this era, when the Sunday funnies served as laboratories for visual storytelling. The strip uses speech balloons and a single captioned figure—formal elements that would become standard in the emerging comic-book medium. Hyde's work appeared in dailies and Sunday supplements where recurring characters and gag-driven humor built audiences that later fed the comic-book industry.