From the exhibition
Being as This Is a Benefit Performance Mr. Titus Wad Will Not Appear Today!
· March 13, 1913

A six-panel newspaper comic by Gale depicting Mr. Titus Wad's chaotic day. The strip opens with Wad's plan to attend a zoo benefit performance, but escalates through slapstick mishaps: he encounters animals, gets knocked about, and eventually finds himself fleeing from a fire marked "PANIC STRICKEN!" The narrative unfolds through sequential panels connected by speech balloons and action lines—visual conventions that became foundational to comic strip storytelling. This work exemplifies the Sunday newspaper comics of the early twentieth century, when strips served as humor vehicles and demonstration grounds for the sequential art language that would shape the emerging medium.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain