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From the exhibition

The Newlyweds Plan a Picnic for Napoleon

· June 14, 1908

The Newlyweds Plan a Picnic for Napoleon
This Sunday strip follows a young married couple and their baby through domestic mishaps. The narrative unfolds across six panels using speech balloons and sequential action: the wife asks her husband about taking their baby on an outing, he leaves a picnic basket on the table, and chaos ensues when the baby eats the food meant for Napoleon (the family dog). The strip employs the visual vocabulary that newspaper comics were establishing in the early 1900s—regular panel divisions, expressive line work, and recurring characters in everyday situations. Such strips appeared in Sunday editions nationwide, reaching millions of readers and establishing the formal and narrative conventions that would define American comics for decades.

Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain