Top o' the Mornin'

W. D. Nesbit's Sunday page demonstrates the visual conventions that defined early newspaper comics. Multiple strips and recurring characters fill a dense layout: Brutus, a classical figure; domestic scenes with titled gags; and narrative sequences using sequential panels with speech balloons. The page combines allegorical commentary with situational humor, linked by pen-and-ink drawing and typography. Such Sunday pages, running alongside weekday strips in major newspapers, established the fundamental grammar of the medium—panel progression, character consistency, and integrated text and image—before comic books existed as a distinct format.