Top o' the Mornin'

W.D. Nesbit's Sunday page demonstrates the full-page Sunday comics format that defined early newspaper cartooning. The strip employs multiple independent gag panels—*From Experience*, *Clearing Himself*, *Courtly Conversation*, *Hard Fate*—each with distinct scenarios and characters, unified only by thematic connection rather than narrative continuity. Speech balloons carry dialogue and quips; sequential panels show cause-and-effect visual humor. This modular approach, combining refined pen linework with dense compositions, became standard practice in newspaper comics sections. By 1904, such Sunday pages served as laboratories for the visual vocabulary—panel borders, character types, comedic timing through image—that would structure comic books when they emerged as a distinct medium in the 1930s.