Poor Little Income

A six-panel strip by Maurice Ketten exploring economic hardship through the negotiations between an adult and child. The adult seeks to borrow money; the child offers sugar as collateral, then reverses the arrangement by loaning a quarter. The humor builds through role reversals and the child's grasp of financial language—'security,' 'good deal,' 'income'—applied to candy and pocket change. Drawn in the economical line style of early newspaper comics, the strip uses speech balloons and sequential panels to track a simple transaction's comic unfolding. The recurring characters and domestic setting typify the dailies that formed the foundation of American comic art before the comic book emerged as a distinct format.