The Top o' the Mornin'

By W. D. Nesbit, *The Top o' the Mornin'* exemplifies the Sunday newspaper comic page at the medium's inception. The strip employs sequential panels, speech balloons, and recurring characters to develop episodic gags—hallmarks of the visual grammar newspapers pioneered before comic books existed as a format. Multiple short narratives occupy a single page: "Exceptions," "His Hour of Joy," "Military Criticism," and others, each using panels to advance plot through action and dialogue. The lithographic style, hand-lettering, and dense layout reflect how Sunday comics functioned as serialized entertainment within the newspaper itself, establishing conventions that would define the medium for decades.