Smitty — Over His Head

This Sunday page from *Smitty* displays the strip's characteristic humor and domestic setting. A father shows his children the plans for a new house library, children's room, and swimming pool—prompting Smitty's gleeful reaction. The final panel reverses expectations: the boy learns he'll be standing *on* the spot where the pool will be built, not swimming in it. The strip exemplifies how newspaper comics developed visual storytelling conventions: sequential panels, speech balloons carrying dialogue and thought, and recurring characters in continuing situations. Published six days a week in hundreds of papers, such strips formed the commercial and artistic foundation of the modern comic book industry.