Smitty (Sunday strip)

This Sunday page from *Smitty* demonstrates the visual syntax that newspaper comics inherited from earlier strips and refined into a language readable across millions of households. Four panels unfold a domestic gag: a husband describes a sporting party to his wife, who grows suspicious when he mentions a woman named Georgie, then accuses him of playing games with her affections, and finally sends him packing. The strip's economy—sequential panels with dialogue balloons, expressive linework, and sight gags—became the foundation of commercial comic art. *Smitty* ran as both daily and Sunday feature, following the template established by *The Yellow Kid* and *Katzenjammer Kids*: recurring characters in episodic humor, drawn in a style that balanced caricature with legibility for quick consumption by newspaper readers.