Pups: Don't Chase Cats Till You Know Where They Are Going

This Sunday strip demonstrates the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: eight sequential panels arranged in two tiers, advancing a single gag through pantomime and animal action. Two puppies pursue a cat through hanging laundry, each panel showing fresh complications—the cat navigates the billowing fabric while the dogs become tangled, trapped, and ultimately outwitted. By the 1900s, newspaper Sunday pages had become the primary laboratory for comic-strip grammar: panel borders, scale shifts, and sight gags told entirely through drawing rather than text. Recurring animal characters like these pups appeared weekly, building reader familiarity and sustaining advertiser interest. The strip's wordless narrative and slapstick timing reflect techniques already perfected in vaudeville and pantomime, now adapted for the printed page.