Such Is Life

Van Zelm's *Such Is Life* strips the gag down to pure logic. A child observes that lightning goes out when electricity makes the lights go out—a syllogism presented through sequential panels and speech balloons that anchor meaning frame to frame. The humor lies in the child's reasoning rather than visual slapstick. By the 1920s, newspaper comics had established their formal language: recurring characters in domestic settings, dialogue in balloons, action progressing left to right across the page. These Sunday and daily strips became the template for the comic book medium that would emerge in the 1930s, proving that sequential art could sustain narrative and character across multiple panels.