Such Is Life

Dan Zelm's *Such Is Life* appeared as a daily newspaper comic strip during the formative years of sequential art. This strip exemplifies the visual conventions that emerged in 1920s comics: rectangular panels arranged in clear narrative sequence, speech balloons capturing dialogue and reaction, and recurring domestic characters navigating everyday situations. Here, a child's practical question about his father's expensive stock exchange seat—why not use it if he paid so much for it?—creates the comic tension. The strip's reliance on family scenarios and the logic of childhood humor reflects how newspaper comics of this period built audiences through accessible, relatable narratives drawn from American home life.