Anything for an Excuse

This Sunday strip by Clare Briggs demonstrates the visual vocabulary that newspaper comics inherited from 19th-century illustrated humor: sequential panels, speech balloons, and repeated characters in escalating situations. The protagonist manufactures increasingly elaborate excuses to avoid attending a baseball game, culminating in a chaotic final panel of multiple characters and competing dialogue. Briggs's economical line work and clear staging—closeups in early panels widening to crowded group scenes—became standard grammar for the Sunday page format. The strip's absurdist escalation and focus on everyday domestic conflict reflect how early newspaper comics built humor from recognizable social situations rather than fantastical adventure.