Petey

A Sunday newspaper comic strip featuring a portly woman weighing herself and confronting the scale's verdict: she has gained nineteen pounds. Across four panels, the gag unfolds through speech balloons and sequential action—the woman's escalating reactions to the number, her attempt to manipulate the outcome, and her final incredulous denial. The strip employs the visual conventions pioneered in newspaper comics: distinct panels advancing a narrative, dialogue in balloons, and a recurring character in familiar domestic circumstances. By the 1920s, such strips populated Sunday funny pages nationwide, establishing the formal and comedic templates that would define comic books for decades to come.