Step-Brothers

Gene Carr's *Step-Brothers* employs the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics: sequential panels with speech balloons, recurring child characters in domestic situations, and sight gags built on physical comedy. The strip follows two boys navigating sibling rivalry and household mishaps across eight panels. Carr's line work and panel composition reflect the rapid development of comic narrative in the Sunday supplements—the mass-produced pages that preceded comic books and established the medium's foundational grammar. Newspapers of this era serialized such strips daily and weekly, reaching millions of readers and training audiences to read pictures in sequence.