Spareribs and Gravy Will Have to Take Their Medicine

This Sunday comic strip demonstrates the visual vocabulary that emerged from newspaper comics in the early 1910s: sequential panels advancing a narrative, speech balloons carrying dialogue, and repeated characters in domestic situations. The strip follows two characters attempting to administer medicine, with gags escalating across six panels through physical comedy and wordplay. The numbered boxes reference a numbered-solution puzzle popular in Sunday papers. By 1913, newspaper comics had become the primary laboratory for developing panel layouts, expressive linework, and character types that would define the emerging comic book medium.