Splinters

This eight-panel Sunday comic by Steinigans follows a clown's failed scheme to entertain circus puppies with a barrel. The strip demonstrates the visual grammar that newspaper comics pioneered: sequential action across panels, exaggerated physical comedy, and a narrative arc that builds to slapstick payoff. The clown's repeated attempts to manage the barrel and the puppies escalate from control to chaos, with the final panels showing the clown chased by his own trick. Such strips appeared in Sunday newspaper supplements alongside advertising and news, establishing recurring characters and visual storytelling methods that became foundational to comic book art and design.