From the exhibition
Mr. Tight Wad is Having One Awful Time Out at the Rodeo!
· February 12, 1913

This Sunday strip follows the misadventures of a tightwad character at a rodeo, told across five sequential panels with escalating chaos. The strip employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: recurring characters, expressive linework, speech balloons anchoring dialogue, and panel-to-panel action flow. A bucking bronco throws the protagonist repeatedly, each tumble more violent than the last, building comedic momentum through repetition. The artist uses dense cross-hatching and dynamic poses to convey motion and impact. By 1913, such strips had become standard features in Sunday papers, establishing the visual grammar that would form the foundation of the comic book format—sequential art, character development across episodes, and humor derived from physical gags and personality clash.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain