Our Antediluvian Ancestors

This Sunday newspaper strip follows a family living in prehistoric times, centered on a boy named Johnny and his pet dinosaur. The six-panel sequence uses consistent characters and setting to build a narrative: Johnny's dinosaur causes household chaos, devours the family's food supply, and creates destruction throughout their dwelling. The strip employs the visual conventions established by newspaper comics—bordered panels, speech balloons, and expressive linework—to convey slapstick comedy through sequential action. The recurring cast and domestic setting, placed in an absurd historical setting, exemplify the humor formula that made newspaper comics a popular form of entertainment in the early twentieth century, establishing templates that would persist in comic strip tradition.