Penny Ante — Wifey Horns In

Gene Knott's *Penny Ante* strips appeared in newspapers as recurring gag comics featuring ensemble casts in domestic and social situations. This Sunday page demonstrates the visual vocabulary emerging in early newspaper comics: multiple panels arranged in grid formation, speech balloons containing witty dialogue, and character types—the wife, the husband, the neighbor—reused across installments. The strip's humor relies on situation comedy and wordplay typical of the period's comic pages. Newspaper strips like *Penny Ante* established the narrative and visual conventions that would become foundational to comic books: sequential panel progression, character consistency, and the integration of image and text.