Superstitious Sam Had an Itching Palm

This comic strip demonstrates the visual language that emerged from newspaper Sunday pages in the early 1900s: sequential panels, speech balloons advancing a narrative, and recurring characters in humorous situations. The strip follows Sam's superstition that an itching palm signals incoming money, leading him through encounters with other characters who exploit his belief. The artist employs exaggerated caricature and physical comedy typical of the era's newspaper comics, which served as direct predecessors to the comic book format. The strip's episodic structure—setup, complication, punchline—became foundational to comic storytelling conventions.