Reg'lar Fellers by Gene Byrnes

Gene Byrnes's *Reg'lar Fellers* follows neighborhood boys through schemes and scrapes, here competing to build bird cages and bold boxes from cigar containers. The strip employs the visual vocabulary now standard in comics: multiple panels advancing narrative sequence, speech balloons anchored to characters, and sight gags that unfold across the page. Byrnes's loose, expressive linework captures boyish energy and mischief. *Reg'lar Fellers* ran in Sunday newspapers and dailies throughout the 1920s, part of the syndicated strips that established recurring characters and episodic storytelling as the foundation of American comic narrative before comic books themselves existed.