Out Our Way

A single-panel gag strip by Williams depicting domestic comedy through character interaction and social observation. The composition uses deep perspective and cross-hatching to establish an interior setting where an absentminded doctor creates embarrassment by inviting the family to the bar. The figure gesturing broadly anchors the joke while surrounding characters register reaction. The visual formula—recurring types in everyday situations, speech balloon exposition of the punchline—became standard in newspaper comics. Such panels, syndicated daily in hundreds of papers, established the visual and narrative conventions that would form the foundation of comic strip language and eventually the comic book medium.