Mr. Al Most by Gene Carr

Gene Carr's *Mr. Al Most* employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: sequential panels, speech balloons advancing narrative, and a recurring protagonist in episodic adventures. Here, Al Most attempts to help a desperate criminal, only to find himself implicated in a bank robbery. Carr's brisk linework and economical panel layouts—favoring close-ups and full-figures—show the emerging visual grammar of the form. The strip's humor turns on character type and circumstance rather than elaborate gags, typical of daily comic strips that built loyal readerships through personality and predicament across hundreds of installments.