Our Antediluvian Ancestors

F. Opper's humor strip follows a domestic argument between primitive cave dwellers. The husband returns late; his wife demands answers. After he dismisses her concern, she pelts him with rocks—*wretch, take that, whack, bang, biff, bing*—across four rapid-fire panels. He seeks refuge in a cave while she pursues; eventually cornered, he surrenders to her interrogation. The strip employs sequential panels with speech balloons and sound effects to build comedic timing through physical action and escalating chaos. Opper's economical line work and clear narrative progression exemplify the visual vocabulary that newspaper comics developed in the early twentieth century, establishing conventions later adopted by comic books.