Pantomime Pete Uncovers a Fraud

This Sunday strip follows Pete, a silent-comedy character, as he investigates a con at an inn. The narrative unfolds across six panels using sequential art to show Pete's discovery of fake 800-pound weights, his confrontation with a small man posing as a strongman, and his exposure of the scheme. The strip employs physical comedy and visual progression—hallmarks of early newspaper comics that emerged from vaudeville and music-hall traditions. By the 1900s, Sunday pages had become laboratories for developing the visual vocabulary of comics: regular characters, panel borders, and wordless storytelling that would shape the medium's evolution into the twentieth century.