Marathonitis

This Sunday comic strip satirizes the marathoning craze of the early 1900s, following characters through various mishaps while attempting long-distance runs. The page combines multiple panel sequences with a narrative flow typical of newspaper comics: dialogue balloons establish the premise (a wrist bet sparks competition), middle panels escalate the physical comedy, and a lower tier provides narrative resolution. The artist employs the visual grammar developed in newspaper strips—recurring characters, sequential panel layout, and expressive linework—to build comedic timing across the page. Early Sunday comics like this one helped establish the formal vocabulary that would define the emerging comic book medium.