Pups: Don't Go After It Unless You Know Where It Has Gone

Steinigans' *Pups* employs the sequential narrative structure that defined early newspaper comics. Across eight panels, a small dog investigates a cylindrical container, then pursues what appears to be a mouse, leading to escalating chaos: spilled contents, scattered debris, and mounting destruction. The strip demonstrates core visual conventions—distinct panels, action lines indicating motion, and wordless physical comedy—that shaped comic strip language. The final panel shows complete pandemonium. Recurring animal characters and slapstick situations were standard fare in Sunday comics, which drove newspaper circulation and provided the visual vocabulary that comics artists would refine throughout the twentieth century.