Splinters

This Sunday strip by Steinigans employs the visual language that newspaper comics pioneered: sequential panels tracking narrative action, speech balloons carrying dialogue, and a cast of recurring characters—here, mischievous imps or sprites causing household chaos. The strip's gag relies on physical comedy and property destruction, with the master's authority undermined by creatures that refuse obedience. Early 20th-century newspaper strips like *Splinters* established the foundational grammar of comics: panel borders framing discrete moments, flowing left-to-right across the page, and the interplay of image and text to advance a joke. Such Sunday pages—often occupying full width in newspapers—became laboratories where artists experimented with timing, staging, and visual rhythm, innovations that would define comic books when strips were later reprinted in pamphlet form.