Newspaper Bromides

This single-panel comic employs the visual language that newspapers standardized in the early twentieth century: a bordered frame, caption headline, and figured joke. A man in a bowler hat stands beside an overturned automobile styled as a turtle, complete with shell plating and legs. The visual pun—car transformed into reptile—relies on exaggerated proportions and labeling to land its absurdist humor. Such one-off gag strips populated Sunday papers and dailies, establishing conventions that would become foundational to comic books: the contained frame, legible caricature, and economy of line. These daily strips trained readers in sequential visual narrative.