Spareribs and Gravy Have a Look at the Treasure

This Sunday comic strip follows two characters discovering a treasure chest and attempting to open it, only to find the contents repeatedly escape or disappoint them across six sequential panels. The strip demonstrates the visual vocabulary emerging in early newspaper comics: distinct panel borders, speech balloons carrying dialogue and reaction, and physical comedy sustained across a narrative sequence. By 1913, such strips had become standard Sunday features in American newspapers, establishing the formal conventions—recurring characters, episodic gags, expressive cartooning—that would directly influence the comic books of the 1930s onward. The strip's reliance on slapstick and escalating mishap typifies the humor tradition of newspaper comics during this formative era.