Splinters

This Sunday strip by Steinigans follows a familiar slapstick narrative across six panels: a character attempts to teach a dog tricks using food rewards, but the lesson devolves into chaos. The dogs eat the food, scatter, and ultimately demolish the trainer. The strip employs the visual conventions standardized in early newspaper comics: rectangular panels in sequence, speech balloons carrying dialogue, and dynamic line work conveying motion and violence. Recurring animal characters and simple gag structures defined the Sunday funnies of this era, when newspaper comic strips were becoming the primary medium for sequential art in America—the direct precursor to the comic book format that would emerge two decades later.