Splinters

A clown attempts to entertain two dogs by having them perform tricks and "choke dancing." When the animals turn aggressive, the entertainer flees in panic across successive panels. Drawn by Steinigans, this Sunday strip demonstrates the visual vocabulary of early newspaper comics: multiple tiers of equal-sized panels, speech balloons containing dialogue and sound effects ("DUM DUM DUM DUM"), and a continuous narrative arc moving left to right. The recurring clown character, rendered in distinctive spotted costume, anchors the humor through physical comedy and escalating misfortune—a staple of comic strip humor from the medium's origins in the 1890s through the 1910s.