The Top o' the Mornin'

W. D. Nesbit's *Top o' the Mornin'* exemplifies the Sunday newspaper page format that birthed American comics. Multiple self-contained gags and serialized narratives share space—"Experience," "A Friendly Gamecock," "Little Henry's Sage," and "Thoughtful" among them—each using sequential panels, speech balloons, and recurring characters. The strip's dense layout, mixing comedy vignettes with continuing storylines, reflects the visual grammar that newspapers developed in the 1890s-1900s. Artists like Nesbit helped establish the panel structure, character consistency, and narrative flow that would become foundational to the comic book form.