Ophelia and Her Slate

By Dwiggins, this Sunday comic strip showcases the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: multiple panels arranged across the page, speech balloons carrying dialogue, and a recurring cast of child characters in episodic situations. The layout presents Ophelia's various misadventures and schemes with rapid-fire gags—from her advertised "trained bugs" sideshow to collisions with everyday objects. Dwiggins employs dense cross-hatching and expressive character work typical of 1910s comic art. The strip demonstrates how newspaper Sunday pages served as the direct precursor to comic books, establishing the sequential storytelling language that would define the medium: panels as units of time, visual pacing, and character-driven humor that could sustain reader interest across multiple installments.