Stuttering Sammy

This Sunday comic strip exemplifies the newspaper humor pages that preceded the comic book. Six panels trace a physical comedy sequence: a tall figure in formal dress encounters a small boy, their interaction escalating across the strip through exaggerated poses and action. The artist employs the visual grammar that became standard in comics—bordered panels guiding narrative flow, speech balloons containing dialogue, and sequential body language conveying jokes wordlessly. Recurring characters and situational humor sustained reader interest across daily and Sunday installments, creating serialized narratives that established the formal vocabulary later codified in comic books. The strip's reliance on slapstick and visual gags over text demonstrates how newspaper comics trained both artists and audiences in reading images as narrative.