Simon Simple

This newspaper comic strip follows Simon Simple through a slapstick sequence of misadventures involving an encounter with an ostrich and a series of escalating physical gags. The strip demonstrates the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: sequential panels arranged in a grid, speech balloons advancing plot and humor, and recurring characters placed in improbable situations. By the early 1900s, Sunday comics like this one had become major features of newspapers, establishing the language of sequential art—panel borders, word-picture integration, and comedic timing through layout—that would directly inform the comic books that emerged in the 1930s. The artist uses exaggerated body language and expressions to convey action and emotion across the panel sequence.