The Newlyweds

George McManus's *The Newlyweds* follows a young couple and their baby through domestic routines and small disasters. This Sunday strip demonstrates the visual language that defined early comics: sequential panels, word balloons anchoring dialogue, and recurring characters whose mild predicaments drive humor across six frames. McManus employs slapstick—a man tripped by a child, domestic exasperation—alongside observational gags about married life. The strip's grid layout and precise draftsmanship typified the newspaper Sunday pages of the 1910s, which functioned as laboratories for comic narrative and established the formal grammar later adopted by comic books. McManus's work influenced generations of cartoonists developing the medium's visual and storytelling conventions.