From the exhibition
Simon Simple and Mose See Saw the Cap
· July 31, 1904

This newspaper comic strip demonstrates the visual conventions that defined early-twentieth-century sequential art. Six panels follow Simon Simple and Mose through a slapstick encounter involving a saw and a cap, using speech balloons, varied compositions, and repeated character designs to propel the narrative. The strip exemplifies how Sunday newspaper comics evolved from single gags into multi-panel stories, establishing the grammar of panel flow, action lines, and visual pacing that would become foundational to comic books. Early comics like this one trained readers in interpreting sequential images as narrative, a skill that transformed mass entertainment and influenced cartooning for decades.
Public domain, restored and presented by comicbooks.com public-domain