From the exhibition
Monkey Shines of Marseleen
· March 14, 1909

A circus-themed Sunday strip featuring a monkey performer and his handler promoting "Five Paws Greatest Circus on Earth." The strip demonstrates early newspaper comic conventions: sequential panels with speech balloons, repeated characters and settings, and sight gags built on physical comedy. The monkey's antics—performing tricks, causing chaos, and generating publicity—drive the narrative across twelve panels. The strip exemplifies the Sunday funnies format that emerged in the 1890s, when newspaper comics became a major draw for readers and a testing ground for visual storytelling techniques that would become foundational to the comic book medium.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain