From the exhibition
Monkeyshines of Marseleen
· November 10, 1907

This Sunday comic strip follows a young character's attempt to paint a pole, encountering a snake along the way. Across six panels, the narrative unfolds through sequential action: the child struggles with the task, discovers the snake, and ultimately transforms the pole into a barber's candy-striped column. The strip exemplifies early newspaper comics' visual vocabulary—discrete rectangular panels, speech balloons, and a recurring protagonist—that would become the foundation of comic book storytelling. Sunday pages like this, appearing in major newspapers nationwide, established the commercial and artistic framework that evolved into the modern comic industry.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain