From the exhibition
The Newlyweds by George McManus
· 1911

George McManus's *The Newlyweds* follows a young couple and their toddler through domestic life, building humor from the child's innocent observations and the parents' exasperation. Here, the baby derails his mother's cleaning routine with requests for candy and snookers, while his father consults a doctor about the boy's precocious behavior—only to learn that diplomacy works better than discipline. McManus employs the visual conventions that shaped early comics: sequential panels, speech balloons, recurring characters, and sight gags. The strip ran in newspapers as both a daily and Sunday feature, exemplifying how newspaper comics of the 1910s established the visual grammar that would define the medium for decades.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain