Pranks of the Fourpaws

W.L. Wells's Sunday strip features anthropomorphic animals in Zululand engaged in physical comedy and wordplay. The six-panel layout guides readers through escalating gags: animals balance atop one another, a rhino uses his body to form letters, and the ensemble plots schemes with mock-serious dialogue. Typical of early newspaper comics, the strip employs speech balloons anchored to characters, sequential panel progression, and recurring cast—here dubbed "Teddy" and company. The drawing style combines pen line work with crosshatching to suggest volume and movement. Published as part of the Sunday comic supplement boom, *Pranks of the Fourpaws* exemplifies how newspapers around 1909 standardized the visual vocabulary that would become foundational to comic books: distinct panels, integrated text and image, and character continuity across episodes.