ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Oh! Margy!

· February 15, 1925

Oh! Margy!
John Held, Jr.'s *Oh! Margy!* strips the Sunday comics page of narrative continuity, replacing plot with rapid-fire visual gags anchored by a single character. Each panel presents Margy in a different scenario—solving crosswords, dancing, courting—connected only by clever wordplay. Held's economical line work and fashionable flapper heroine exemplify 1920s newspaper comic style: witty, design-forward, and dependent on the reader's quick eye. The recurring character and recurring joke structure became foundational to both newspaper strips and the comic books that followed, proving that comedy could sustain serialization without traditional storytelling.

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