Militant Mary

This single-panel strip features a female character in domestic dress, fists raised in an exaggerated fighting stance. The humor turns on a contrast: Mary maintains politeness in social situations but becomes violent when dust appears—her stated method of punishment is blowing dust directly into people's eyes. The strip uses a simple line style typical of newspaper humor comics of the 1910s, with bold lettering and a single recurring character. It exemplifies the brief gag strips that filled newspapers alongside serialized adventure narratives, establishing visual conventions—speech balloons, character caricature, and text-image integration—that became foundational to comic book language.